Montana’s SnowGhost mountaintop recording studio is a spacious, fully-equipped working environment featuring an all-analog SSL 9048K console, Studer 24-track tape machine, and a sizable stash of classic outboard gear and premium microphones, including four Sanken CO-100K mics, renowned for the ability to capture frequencies up to 100kHz – approximately five times that which humans can hear.
SnowGhost owner, designer, and chief engineer Brett Allen explains how he uses his Sanken 100Ks, “We use them a lot for room ambience. We also use them for sampling at 192k, and then pitching the recording way down for amazing sounds without digital artifacts. We recently worked with the experimental music group Matmos, which has produced music for Bjork. They fell in love with the 100Ks. We played a game of pool miked with the Sankens, and then pitched it down for some really crazy sounds.
“We’ve also found that in more of a classical or acoustic context the Sankens work really great as distant microphones. To record more traditional acoustic music or classical music, or really any kind of music, I’ve found that I like space and I like moving further and further away from the source. When you have a good room there’s nothing like a microphone ten feet back.”
Allen elaborates on the advantages off miking at a distance, “The great thing about the 100K’s is that they don’t roll off. You feel like you’re getting all the benefits of close miking, with full frequency, top and bottom, but you’re ten feet away so you’re getting a lot more openness in that instrument. You’re recording in the way in which the instrument was designed to be heard. The only person I know who listens to a violin from an earshot away is the actual violinist, and they hate the way that sounds. They say ‘I wish I could step away from my instrument while playing’.”
Hear the original CO-100K recording of the pool balls and the processed version
& read the entire story at the link below.
