Tascam and IK Multimedia T-RackS giveaway Tascam and IK Multimedia are currently offering users of qualifying Tascam hardware a copy of the T-RackS Porta One tape recorder plug-in. 

Tony Visconti on saying no to producing David Bowie’s Space Oddity: “I wish I did record it, quite honestly”Tony Visconti has opened up about his creative relationship with the late David Bowie, and the reason he ended up saying no to producing the music legend’s smash hit, Space Oddity.

READ MORE: “Barbie overtook my life for a year”, says Mark Ronson

Visconti, whose production credits run the gamut from Bowie to T-Rex, Thin Lizzy, U2, Gentle Giant and more, tells Classic Rock in a new interview that one of the reasons he worked so well with Bowie was because they were both “idealists”.
“We saw our relationship like a friendship, with an arts lab that was part of it,” he says. “I was very active [with him]. I would be an all-round person to play bass, work the sound, work the lights.”
The producer reckons that the secret to their long partnership was accepting that Bowie wanted to go off and work with other producers.
“It could be very disconcerting for people who work with him,” Visconti explains. “He would go through periods using people like Mick Ronson and Aynsley Dunbar, and they’d think they were in the Bowie band. And then all of a sudden he decides he’s never going to use them any more.”
“Even as a producer. I didn’t produce every Bowie album. He would just drop me, go with [Chic’s] Nile Rodgers [for Let’s Dance], for instance. His explanation would be that he just liked to change things. I got easier with it years later after the first time it happened. He’s an artist. He can work with whom he pleases. This is why his sound is so fresh.”
Despite having met Bowie at a young age, Visconti quickly recognised the star’s talent and potential for what it was. “The minute I met him I thought he was a special guy,” the producer says. “I heard his first album, and I thought the guy was talented even though he lacked direction, and I could hear the star quality in his voice. I was surprised to find out that he was only 19.”
“His personality was very mercurial. A non-stop talker. He was fidgety and very aware of his physical presence. I knew it was going to be a long haul with him, like Marc Bolan. Marc gave me the same goose bumps in the beginning.”
Visconti recalls telling Bowie when the latter wrote Space Oddity, “It could very well be a hit, but you’re going to have a tough time following it up, because it’s not you”. While he did eventually produce the rest of Bowie’s second studio album, Visconti chose to pass up production responsibility for Space Oddity to Bowie’s former engineer Gus Dudgeon.
“I wish I did record it, quite honestly,” Visconti says, though he admits that those worries weren’t unfounded: “We couldn’t follow it up. It was really tough.”

The post Tony Visconti on saying no to producing David Bowie’s Space Oddity: “I wish I did record it, quite honestly” appeared first on MusicTech.

Fitzmaurice Relies on Amphion Atmos SetupAward-winning Irish mixer, engineer and producer Steve Fitzmaurice couldn’t have foreseen that his sessions with Dublin-based rock band, The Frames, in the mid-1990s would eventually lead to him buying a pair of Amphion reference monitors. Now, over twenty years into his career, Fitzmaurice is inspired by Apple Music’s launch of Spatial Audio, in mid-2021, he has since expanded his stereo monitor setup with additional speakers from Finnish manufacturer Amphion to enable him to also mix in Dolby Atmos.

Born in Dublin, Fitzmaurice knew by his early teens that he wanted to work in the record industry. But there were few studio job opportunities in Ireland, so after finishing school he went to London and started knocking on the doors of some of the city’s best known recording facilities. His early career began on the nightshift answering the phones at producer Trevor Horn’s Sarm West Studios. It wasn’t long before he was assisting on sessions with Horn and longtime Sarm West producer, engineer and mixer Julian Mendelsohn. After five years at Sarm, Fitzmaurice moved to New York and got a job at the Hit Factory and after a year went freelance.

Freelancer with new primary speakers

Over the years Fitzmaurice, who is based at Pierce Entertainment’s London studios, has worked with a long list of artists including Seal, Tina Turner, Tasmin Archer, Jodeci, Ian Brown, U2, Depeche Mode, Hikaru Utada, Sam Smith and many others. He has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards, winning five for projects with Sam Smith, Seal and U2, also working on various Oscar, Golden Globe and Brit Award-winning productions.

It was David Odlum, guitarist with The Frames, who first brought Amphion monitors to Fitzmaurice’s attention. Now Odlum is also a successful producer and engineer, currently musical director for Sam Smith, with whom Fitzmaurice has worked since their debut album in 2013. “During lockdown we did a live stream from Abbey Road Studios for Sam,” Fitzmaurice recalls. “I was mixing, and Dave was going on about the Amphions, so I got a pair of One18s to try,” as an alternative to his usual monitors. “At first I found myself using them occasionally and then more and more.”

Fitzmaurice was happy with the results but still unsure, he says, so Odlum suggested that he try Amphion’s Two18 speakers. “I kept them for two or three weeks and the same thing happened — I was using my other monitors less and less. I ended up buying a pair of Two18s, and now they’re my primary speakers.”

Full view of the 7.1.4 Atmos Setup in Fitzmaurice's studio

Dynamic clarity with subtle details

Fitzmaurice has a simple philosophy when it comes to mixing. “I like clarity, low-end and dynamics. I don't really like clutter. My most used piece of equipment is probably the mute button! ​ These days, it’s a constant battle to make loud competitive records — we're in a world where you have to EQ and compress everything — but I try and keep some sense of clarity, bottom end and dynamics while also trying to keep everything as natural as I can.”

His Amphion monitors have certainly helped him achieve those goals. “I think that they’re pretty natural sounding, with clarity in the mid-range, especially, and the top end. But they’re not bland and boring. When you turn them up for clients, they’ve still got a bit of vibe.” His previous speakers worked best when they were loud, he says. “But with the Amphions I definitely mix quieter because they don’t change tonally when I turn them down.”

Fitzmaurice has worked with some of the best singers in the business and has earned a reputation for the sound of the vocals on his projects. There, too, the Amphion monitors are proving their worth. “The Amphions are very good for subtle details, smaller changes in volume and dynamics are easy to hear. ​ Because of this clarity I found them great for balancing vocals.”

Changing monitors is always challenging, but with three years of working with the Amphions behind him, he reports, “Mixes seem to be translating to every other system quite well, which obviously was my main concern, so I'm totally sold. And now I've got an Atmos system which is all Amphion speakers.” The new 7.1.4 setup in Fitzmaurice's room at Pierce Entertainment is comprised of three Amphion Two18 monitors combined with the BaseTwo25 bass extension system, four One18s for the surrounds ​ and four One15 speakers positioned overhead.

Cohesion with immersive mixes

One reason to dive into immersive mixing was that Apple Music’s default playback is the Spatial Audio mix of a song, if it exists, Fitzmaurice says. Having heard other people’s Atmos mixes of his stereo mixes, he says, “I started wanting to do it myself, being a bit of a control freak! Somebody asked me if there was a steep learning curve to mixing in Atmos, but I haven’t really found this as I am simply trying to convey the same feeling of the stereo mix in the immersive world.”

One big advantage of an Atmos mix is being able to spread the tracks out spatially, he continues. “You don't have to fit all this information into two speakers, and make tracks bright and aggressive. In fact, I’m often taking a little top end off my stereo stems, as they don't need it any more to cut through.”

But having heard Dolby Atmos mixes where some of the elements are too spread out, the song loses its power as a result, Fitzmaurice says. He is careful to keep his immersive mixes cohesive. “Primarily, the vocal and the drums are more in the front. Sometimes, with live drums that I've recorded, I might pull the room mics away from the main drum kit. I've mixed a few electronic things in Atmos, and there you've got a bit more freedom to play around. But I'm not a fan of stuff flying around and making myself feel seasick. Occasionally I’ll have something moving around slowly but it's more about placement.”

With the record labels, streamers and broadcasters all clamoring for immersive music mixes, the investment in an all-Amphion immersive speaker system is paying off. “Nearly every time I’m commissioned to do a stereo mix, as long as there's a budget, they want an Atmos mix as well.”

Fitzmaurice mixed eight tracks for the stereo version of Sam Smith’s current album, Gloria, released in January 2023 (Serban Ghenea mixed another three and David Odlum and Kevin “KD” Davis mixed one each). “All the songs that I mixed in stereo I mixed in Atmos as well,” he says. “There’s one song, “Perfect”, where I prefer the end section on the Atmos version because it feels like there’s much more space.”

He also recorded and mixed Smith’s live orchestral performance at Abbey Road Studios in Dolby Atmos. “It was Sam, a 16-piece choir and a 20-piece string section. I laid the studio out in a horseshoe and when I was mixing in Atmos I laid it out exactly like that. I had room mics as well and I put those exactly as they were in the room in the Atmos mix. You perceive it as if you are Sam, standing in the middle, so it envelops you. It sounds amazing in Atmos.”

About Amphion​Amphion Loudspeakers Ltd. was established in 1998. We design and build loudspeakers that are characterized by honest and accurate sound reproduction. Precise driver integration ensures world-class imaging and phase coherency. Controlled dispersion technology helps achieve more stable results in a variety of room acoustics. All products are handmade in Finland (and the Amphion amplifiers are assembled in Finland) to ensure enduring listening quality.

Connext, Alchemix launch cross-chain token standard to reduce bridge exploit lossesThe two protocols will implement a standard for issuers to control the "canonical" minting of tokens, helping to reduce losses from unofficial bridges.

Fitzmaurice Relies on Amphion Atmos SetupAward-winning Irish mixer, engineer and producer Steve Fitzmaurice couldn’t have foreseen that his sessions with Dublin-based rock band, The Frames, in the mid-1990s would eventually lead to him buying a pair of Amphion reference monitors. Now, over twenty years into his career, Fitzmaurice is inspired by Apple Music’s launch of Spatial Audio, in mid-2021, he has since expanded his stereo monitor setup with additional speakers from Finnish manufacturer Amphion to enable him to also mix in Dolby Atmos.

Born in Dublin, Fitzmaurice knew by his early teens that he wanted to work in the record industry. But there were few studio job opportunities in Ireland, so after finishing school he went to London and started knocking on the doors of some of the city’s best known recording facilities. His early career began on the nightshift answering the phones at producer Trevor Horn’s Sarm West Studios. It wasn’t long before he was assisting on sessions with Horn and longtime Sarm West producer, engineer and mixer Julian Mendelsohn. After five years at Sarm, Fitzmaurice moved to New York and got a job at the Hit Factory and after a year went freelance.

Freelancer with new primary speakers

Over the years Fitzmaurice, who is based at Pierce Entertainment’s London studios, has worked with a long list of artists including Seal, Tina Turner, Tasmin Archer, Jodeci, Ian Brown, U2, Depeche Mode, Hikaru Utada, Sam Smith and many others. He has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards, winning five for projects with Sam Smith, Seal and U2, also working on various Oscar, Golden Globe and Brit Award-winning productions.

It was David Odlum, guitarist with The Frames, who first brought Amphion monitors to Fitzmaurice’s attention. Now Odlum is also a successful producer and engineer, currently musical director for Sam Smith, with whom Fitzmaurice has worked since their debut album in 2013. “During lockdown we did a live stream from Abbey Road Studios for Sam,” Fitzmaurice recalls. “I was mixing, and Dave was going on about the Amphions, so I got a pair of One18s to try,” as an alternative to his usual monitors. “At first I found myself using them occasionally and then more and more.”

Fitzmaurice was happy with the results but still unsure, he says, so Odlum suggested that he try Amphion’s Two18 speakers. “I kept them for two or three weeks and the same thing happened — I was using my other monitors less and less. I ended up buying a pair of Two18s, and now they’re my primary speakers.”

Full view of the 7.1.4 Atmos Setup in Fitzmaurice's studio

Dynamic clarity with subtle details

Fitzmaurice has a simple philosophy when it comes to mixing. “I like clarity, low-end and dynamics. I don't really like clutter. My most used piece of equipment is probably the mute button! ​ These days, it’s a constant battle to make loud competitive records — we're in a world where you have to EQ and compress everything — but I try and keep some sense of clarity, bottom end and dynamics while also trying to keep everything as natural as I can.”

His Amphion monitors have certainly helped him achieve those goals. “I think that they’re pretty natural sounding, with clarity in the mid-range, especially, and the top end. But they’re not bland and boring. When you turn them up for clients, they’ve still got a bit of vibe.” His previous speakers worked best when they were loud, he says. “But with the Amphions I definitely mix quieter because they don’t change tonally when I turn them down.”

Fitzmaurice has worked with some of the best singers in the business and has earned a reputation for the sound of the vocals on his projects. There, too, the Amphion monitors are proving their worth. “The Amphions are very good for subtle details, smaller changes in volume and dynamics are easy to hear. ​ Because of this clarity I found them great for balancing vocals.”

Changing monitors is always challenging, but with three years of working with the Amphions behind him, he reports, “Mixes seem to be translating to every other system quite well, which obviously was my main concern, so I'm totally sold. And now I've got an Atmos system which is all Amphion speakers.” The new 7.1.4 setup in Fitzmaurice's room at Pierce Entertainment is comprised of three Amphion Two18 monitors combined with the BaseTwo25 bass extension system, four One18s for the surrounds ​ and four One15 speakers positioned overhead.

Cohesion with immersive mixes

One reason to dive into immersive mixing was that Apple Music’s default playback is the Spatial Audio mix of a song, if it exists, Fitzmaurice says. Having heard other people’s Atmos mixes of his stereo mixes, he says, “I started wanting to do it myself, being a bit of a control freak! Somebody asked me if there was a steep learning curve to mixing in Atmos, but I haven’t really found this as I am simply trying to convey the same feeling of the stereo mix in the immersive world.”

One big advantage of an Atmos mix is being able to spread the tracks out spatially, he continues. “You don't have to fit all this information into two speakers, and make tracks bright and aggressive. In fact, I’m often taking a little top end off my stereo stems, as they don't need it any more to cut through.”

But having heard Dolby Atmos mixes where some of the elements are too spread out, the song loses its power as a result, Fitzmaurice says. He is careful to keep his immersive mixes cohesive. “Primarily, the vocal and the drums are more in the front. Sometimes, with live drums that I've recorded, I might pull the room mics away from the main drum kit. I've mixed a few electronic things in Atmos, and there you've got a bit more freedom to play around. But I'm not a fan of stuff flying around and making myself feel seasick. Occasionally I’ll have something moving around slowly but it's more about placement.”

With the record labels, streamers and broadcasters all clamoring for immersive music mixes, the investment in an all-Amphion immersive speaker system is paying off. “Nearly every time I’m commissioned to do a stereo mix, as long as there's a budget, they want an Atmos mix as well.”

Fitzmaurice mixed eight tracks for the stereo version of Sam Smith’s current album, Gloria, released in January 2023 (Serban Ghenea mixed another three and David Odlum and Kevin “KD” Davis mixed one each). “All the songs that I mixed in stereo I mixed in Atmos as well,” he says. “There’s one song, “Perfect”, where I prefer the end section on the Atmos version because it feels like there’s much more space.”

He also recorded and mixed Smith’s live orchestral performance at Abbey Road Studios in Dolby Atmos. “It was Sam, a 16-piece choir and a 20-piece string section. I laid the studio out in a horseshoe and when I was mixing in Atmos I laid it out exactly like that. I had room mics as well and I put those exactly as they were in the room in the Atmos mix. You perceive it as if you are Sam, standing in the middle, so it envelops you. It sounds amazing in Atmos.”

About Amphion​Amphion Loudspeakers Ltd. was established in 1998. We design and build loudspeakers that are characterized by honest and accurate sound reproduction. Precise driver integration ensures world-class imaging and phase coherency. Controlled dispersion technology helps achieve more stable results in a variety of room acoustics. All products are handmade in Finland (and the Amphion amplifiers are assembled in Finland) to ensure enduring listening quality.

Microsoft’s Bing Chat comes to Chrome and Safari in tests for ‘select users’Microsoft’s AI chatbot, Bing Chat, is coming to non-Microsoft browsers, the company confirmed today following various reports of the AI chatbot being spotted in other browsers like Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari. The expansion will make Microsoft’s ChatGPT-like AI chatbot available to a broader set of users, as it was previously available to consumers only within Microsoft products, like the Bing mobile app and Microsoft Edge browser.
The company confirmed to TechCrunch that Bing Chat is expanding to other browsers, which hadn’t yet been officially announced.
“We are flighting access to Bing Chat in Safari and Chrome to select users as part of our testing on other browsers,” said Microsoft director of communications, Caitlin Roulston, in an emailed statement. “We are excited to expand access to even more users once our standard testing procedures are complete.”
According to those who gained access to the Bing AI chatbot on Windows, they received a pop-up in the Windows 10 or 11 taskbar, offering the opportunity to try the Bing AI in Chrome. Otherwise, users can head to Bing.com from their preferred browser, then click on the “Chat” icon to try out the experience. In our own tests, however, we could access Bing Chat in Chrome, but not Safari at this time. That could be because we’re not among the “select users” who were gaining access during the tests.
Image Credits: screenshot of Bing.com
Bing Chat’s ChatGPT-like experience is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, but some have reported that testing the AI chatbot in other browsers had more limitations than with the original version. For example, the blog WindowsLatest.com, which was the first to spot the expansion, noted that Bing Chat in Chrome supports only five messages per conversation, instead of the 30 available in Microsoft Edge. It was also limiting the character count to 2,000, instead of the 3,000 supported by Edge, the site said.
Microsoft declined to confirm these details or share any further information about the differences between the various versions of Bing Chat when we asked for more information. The company also wouldn’t confirm when the expansion to other browsers first began, which platforms were supported, or whether the tests would include users in global markets. That’s for us to discover in the days ahead, apparently.
In addition to adding support for Chrome and Safari, Bing Chat appears to be testing a native dark theme, too, but this is also not yet broadly available.
Bing Chat has been working its way into other Microsoft products following its launch earlier this year. In a matter of weeks, the new Bing arrived in the Bing mobile app and Edge browser for iOS, Android, and the desktop, in addition to being integrated with Skype. This month, Microsoft announced Bing Chat would also head into the enterprise with a version of Bing Chat that included business-focused data privacy and governance controls. Alongside that announcement, Microsoft also noted Visual Search, which lets the chatbot respond to questions about uploaded images, was rolling out, too.

Twolegs Toneworks Deep Touch Deep Touch is a collection of 32 sounds created for Softube Model 84. The soundset is aimed at the deeper sides of House, but can be used in just about any House or Techno genre that uses the... Read More

John Summit receives cease and desist over Off The Grid Records nameElectronic producer, DJ and label owner John Summit is facing a trademark dispute over the name of his record label, Off the Grid with the owner of dance festival, Off the Grid Campout.

READ MORE: “Barbie overtook my life for a year”, says Mark Ronson

Mikey Cromie, who runs Off the Grid Campout, has reportedly sent Summit a cease and desist order after attempting to contact the artist and label owner for a year.
It was only when Cromie and his legal team finally decided to send the order that Summit responded, according to the festival organiser. At this point, Summit and his team tried purportedly to come to an agreement where the two names could coexist.
After this was refused, Summit and his team also allegedly offered to buy the name for an undisclosed sum, to which Cromie said it would have to be a “life-changing amount of money”, he says in a Facebook post.
Summit will not pay this vast sum, he says in a tweet, and claims is now being sued for, what he says is a “7+ figure” sum of money unless he changes the name of his record label, which is home to releases by the likes of Max Styler, Mau P and Kyle Walker. Meanwhile, Cromie has responded via a Facebook post, writing that at no point did he or his team demand a seven-figure sum.
In the Facebook post, Cromie goes on to say that Summit’s fans have since started to bully him:
“They said they weren’t willing to spend that type of money and that was that. Again, no threats or demands of seven figures. If you know me, you know my intentions have been pure from day one.
“His community is attempting to bully me and already has one of my account taken down. With too many hateful message[s] to count. I’m going dark for a bit to let this all blow over. But this is 100% what happened!”

This is a developing story. We’ll be providing more information as more facts come to light.
Find out more about Off The Grid Records. Find out more about Off The Grid Campout.
The post John Summit receives cease and desist over Off The Grid Records name appeared first on MusicTech.

The Importance Of Being Loud: Ohma is here to change the microphone as you know itIn December 2022, an inaugural blog post appeared on Ohma World’s website titled: Say Goodbye To Imposter Syndrome. The piece, written by Ohma’s co-founder Charlene Gibbs, implores audio creatives to stave off that debilitating inner voice by acknowledging their accomplishments, communing with supportive allies and accepting help.
Gibbs, you might say, has skin in the game.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
The microphone market is one of the hardest corners of music technology to break into. With a century-spanning heritage of iconic designs, industry heavyweights like Neumann, AEA and Telefunken have built their names over decades, characterising entire albums and becoming talismanic to revered studios everywhere. If there’s one place a new developer is likely to find themselves with imposter syndrome on the brain, it’s here.
This is due, in part, to it being an inhospitable environment for novel ideas. The design ethos and the aesthetic of studio mics have changed relatively little since early innovations – not least demonstrated by clone after clone of famous designs hitting the market every year. This, if nothing else, only shores up a seemingly prevalent view that success in the mic business is about looking back more than it is about looking forward. Even Teenage Engineering’s recently released CM-15 microphone looks relatively quiet next to the company’s otherwise maverick line of products.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
It’s a little like Scotch whisky or cigars, whose branding and culture remain stubbornly traditional, to the extent that fresh designs are perhaps more likely to elicit scepticism than excitement. We put this to Gibbs and fellow Ohma co-founder Sammy Rothman, speaking from San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively, who share a laugh.
“To be honest, this was a no-brainer for us,” Gibbs explains. “Sammy and I love art and we love design; we love fashion. And this innate part of our personality and our interests is always going to lend itself to the products that we make, no matter what. We couldn’t just deny ourselves. That’s not healthy.
“We’ve worked at microphone companies that have some of the most striking-looking microphones. So we’re used to people saying, ‘Whoa, I’ve never seen a microphone that looks like this before!’ And then they put it up and they’re like, ‘Wow, that sounds even better than it looks!’
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
“It’s an uncomfortable [position] to sit in,” they continue, “especially in an industry that’s so anachronistic. But the thing is, we were so confident that we could package our technical abilities into a design far beyond the way the industry has been; the way it clutches its pearls.
“We thought, ‘This really can be a kind of tabula rasa project. A fresh start.’ And being loud about identifying as queer played a large part, too. In the world of audio, that’s just not a thing.”
You could say that Ohma offers two microphones or that it offers a near-limitless number of microphones. The company currently offers one ribbon mic and one large-diaphragm condenser mic, both presented in exactly the same body design. However, Ohma’s range of patterned magnetic mic screens are fully interchangeable; each designed to impart its own distinct sonic character to the two otherwise all-rounder designs.
The current range of five available screen designs was purportedly whittled down from dozens of candidates, and the result is a bold arsenal of physical tonal tools. Simply named Motif, Holes, Stripes, Scales and Windows, the screens promise the most tonal responses you could hope for from these two microphone types.
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
The Holes screen rolls off the low end and accentuates brightness, for example, while Stripes is best suited for mid-range work such as electric guitar. Scales imparts a more dynamic mic-like response for near-field recording.
These are all charmingly named, meticulously well-built and make for one drop-dead gorgeous-looking microphone. But does it make any real sonic difference? The answer to that question begins with Gibbs’ and Rothman’s experience – along with Ohma co-founder Nathan Bowers – working for legendary mic manufacturer AEA; the company responsible for such vaunted microphones as the R84, R92 and formidable stereo R88.
“We learned a lot there,” explains Rothman. “Our first real project was the N8, which is still one of my favourite mics in the world. But our real baby was the KU5A. After we left, we thought, ‘We want to make our own stuff. And we want to look at our mics and feel like this is fun, that this is cool.’ We wanted it to have the look of something like a nice guitar. People can be obsessed with their guitar colour, and we feel the same way about microphones. So we wanted to do something different.”
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Variety wasn’t initially high on the agenda. With more standard mesh being worked into early designs, a simple gesture to try and aesthetically rework this aspect of the mic led to interchanging screens.
Rothman continues: “Charlene was like, ‘Dude, I’m so sick of looking at wire metal. Do you think we could try some different designs? Let’s try some vector packs. Let’s see if we can find just one thing that sounds good, that doesn’t look like everything else.’ So we made up 40 designs and did listening tests. They all sounded different – 30 of them sounded like trash.”
It was a distaste for fiddly repair jobs that subsequently gave way to the idea to use magnets. “I hate screws,” confesses Rothman. “I hate how screws look. We all hated servicing mics at AEA, especially the RCA mics, because opening them was just such a pain in the ass!
“So with magnets, we wouldn’t have to unscrew things. It would just go together. And then that’s when the idea came: ‘Oh, wait, with no screws we don’t have to just commit to just one of these. We could have five of them. There are things we love about all of these! It’s basically polyamory for microphones! [laughs]”
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
The company could therefore retain focus on a single-body design with just two transducer types. But surely, we ask, for the kind of versatility promised by Ohma, further variety was needed under the hood? Not so, we’re told.
“Coming from AEA, our ribbon is the same ribbon that you’ll find in a R44,” says Rothman. “So many different companies use the same few capsules, and it’s similar with the ribbon industry. But every mic sounds so different because of all the different materials in front of it. And yet they vary in price so much. The AEA R84, the R92, the N8, the N22, the R88, the R44 – they all have exactly the same ribbon.”
Key parts are just as ubiquitous in the world of condenser microphones, if not more so. “There are so many [Neumann] U47 clones out there, and half of them are using the same capsule,” explains Rothman. “All these companies are literally buying capsules from the same, like, six factories. And the main difference is the mesh that they’re using, or the body that they’re using, or the circuit that they’re using. The transducer does have an impact on the sound, but it’s the mesh. More so even than the body shape.”
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
These tenets are important, to say the least, and surprisingly little-known. We suggest that it’s as if having interchangeable screens is another way of teaching users what to look for in a mic, as well as about how much the physical properties of a mic impact its sound. Is education close to Ohma’s heart?
“Absolutely,” replies Rothman. “Think of it like a tiny room for your capsule, or a tiny room for your ribbon. A room might be really reverberant. But if you put up panels, you’re going to change that. It’s the same exact thing with a microphone, I like to say: ‘the sound goes through one side of the screen and comes out sounding different on the other.’ That’s how simple it is. I mean, having swappable screens is really cool but I think the coolest part about this is that nobody has used these designs on microphones before. They’re 100 per cent unique.”
“The micro-acoustical structure of a microphone impacts the sound,” adds Gibbs. “People see mics and ask, ‘Why is it like this? Why is there so much of it?’ It’s because that actually changes the sound of the microphone. How it looks is how it sounds. So we wanted to take that information and put it into a slimmer, more manageable package. And also bring that mindset into condenser mic land.
“It’s also an homage to our younger selves, who just couldn’t afford a lot of microphones,” they continue. “There were times when we had just one microphone and had to record everything with it. It was obnoxious: everything turned out the same and had the same layering of frequencies. And we didn’t really recognise that back then. With these screens, you can have one microphone, but with all these different options.”
Ohma’s condenser mic’s edge-terminated, single backplate capsule, affectionately dubbed ‘The Debby’, is an original design – a rare thing in the microphone world. With its leads attached to the edge of the capsule and without a centre chamber, it promises to mitigate unwanted harshness and deliver a smoother response than you might expect from a large diaphragm condenser of the Ohma’s type. Rothman is keen to convey the significance of a microphone company designing and manufacturing its own capsules, and it’s soon easy to see why.

“There are essentially three capsule designs being used by almost 95 per cent of microphones in the world,” says Rothman. “When we started doing capsules, we knew we wanted to do something different and original.”
After years of tweaking a design sparked, of all things, by a mid-century trade magazine article with hand-drawn schematics, a capsule design was finally ready for testing.
“We spent about a week recording over 50 microphones – from vintage all the way to modern – and comparing them to our capsule,” recalls Rothman. “And the coolest part was that it was so different to every vintage microphone. But it stood up. It was just different. And that’s when we were like, ‘Fuck. I guess we are making our own capsules for this company.’
“The reason most companies aren’t making their own capsules is because they don’t know how,” he continues.
“It’s not something that you can just look up online and find, you have to be taught how to do it. And for years, we did our own research trying to figure this out. And it wasn’t until I found a couple of mentors who really taught me that I learned how to do this. One of them, Tim, makes the CK12, which is what they use in Flea microphones. He is one of the kindest, most amazing human beings in the world. This is one reason why we’re able to sell our mics for less than you’d think they would cost is because we know how to do it and we’re doing it in-house.”
Key to the Ohma manifesto, as you may have noticed, is a rather strong persuasion towards colour.
Ohma microphones are hand-painted in a vast variety of ceramic-based finishes and the company frequently announces ‘drops’ of limited-run colour schemes, as well as fully customisable colour schemes. You can even bear your Ohma with a logo of your choice if desired.
“Full of colour, full of life,” proclaims Gibbs on the Ohma website. “That’s why we offer customisable colour options for our microphones – it allows people to make a statement about who they are and what they stand for.”
Image: Simon Vinall for MusicTech
Proudly wearing its LGBT-owned status on its sleeve, the company sees visual customisation and self-expression not as peripheral to its products, but essential.
Just last month at LA’s Pride Parade, American artist Janelle Monae was spotted singing into an ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)-themed Ohma microphone sporting the bright blue, pink and white colours of the Trans flag, and Ohma now has its own performance video series spotlighting the music of queer artists.
“We want our customers to feel like they are creating something that is truly special and reflects their values and identity,” Gibbs continues. “As someone who identifies as non-binary, the rewarding sense of fluidity the Ohma microphone offers is something I take tremendous joy in.”
It’s refreshing to witness: Ohma is a company as focused on making a positive contribution to the culture of recording as it is to the mic cabinets of studios. It even has a side-business upcycling off-cuts from the manufacturing process into jewellery – something we can safely say we’ve not seen from a microphone company before.
Ohma is a step into the unknown, but if this is the shape of things to come, the future of microphones may just prove every bit as venerable as its past.
Check out Ohma’s microphone-creating experience at ohmaworld.com 
The post The Importance Of Being Loud: Ohma is here to change the microphone as you know it appeared first on MusicTech.

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Spotify is raising its price in the US and 52 other markets. How much money will that make the music industry?Whether you take a punchy or conservative view, Spotify is about to make a load more money
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Utopia axes 5% of staff as company shuts down R&D operations in the UK and FinlandA spokesperson told MBW that, 'Utopia is currently streamlining its organization to increase efficiency'.
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Female* Producer Prize winners announced by Sony Music Entertainment Germany and Music Women* GermanySony Music Entertainment Germany and Music Women* Germany, a non-profit artist association, have announced the winners of this year’s Female* Producer Prize.
Now in its second year, the prize aims to support the music careers of female-identifying producers across Germany.

READ MORE: These music technology organisations are pushing women and non-binary producers forward

The seven winners from the 2023 cohort will receive production grants, vouchers for music equipment and a producer workshop at Sony Music Germany’s Circle Studios, as reported by Billboard.
They will also be added to the female producer register at Sony Music and NEUBAU Music Management, providing them with access to various labels and artists. As well as this, partners Sony Music Publishing and the Female Producer Collective will offer coaching sessions for the winners too.
This year’s winners are as follows:

Mimski
Evîn
Kota No Uta
Mona Yim
Aufmischen
Sheyda Minia
Just Honest

Credit: Sony Music Entertainment Germany
The seven winners were selected by a jury of five, and came out on top from a total of 150 applicants. In addition to the seven selected applicants, a shortlist of 20 applicants will also be added to Sony Music and NEUBAU’s female producer register.
“The great response and the enormously high level of over 150 applications this year have not only shown how overdue the Female Producer Prize was, but above all, how many highly competent and visionary female music producers there are out there,” says Jovanka v. Wilsdorf, jury member and initiator of the Female* Producer Prize, in a statement. “Visibility develops a radiance that creates measurable success.”
Sony Music Columbia Records Germany head of A&R Sarah Schneider, who also served on the jury, also adds: “More female and non-binary producers means more perspectives! This is again demonstrated by the outstanding quality of the many applications received. As a record label, we want to apply industry-wide approaches and tools to actively move forward to effect a change in the status quo.”
An award ceremony will take place on 14 September.
You can also read the full press release for more information.
The post Female* Producer Prize winners announced by Sony Music Entertainment Germany and Music Women* Germany appeared first on MusicTech.

Spotify increases Premium subscription price for the first timeAfter 12 years, Spotify is increasing the monthly price of Premium for the first time.
Since the streaming platform first launched Premium in the US in 2011, it kept the monthly price at $9.99. However, it’s increasing the price by one dollar to $10.99, the company says in a new statement.
“So that we can keep innovating, we are changing our Premium prices across a number of markets around the world,” Spotify says. “These updates will help us continue to deliver value to fans and artists on our platform.”
In the UK, not only will the price of an individual Spotify Premium subscription go up from £9.99 to £10.99, but the cost of a Duo membership is also rising from £13.99 to £14.99, and a Family membership will now set you back £17.99 rather than £16.99. Student memberships are remaining the same at £5.99.
Prices are also increasing in France, too, at similar rates to the UK and US.
While it might not be welcome news, it’s not exactly unexpected. Over the last few months, most of Spotify’s streaming rivals have also announced price increases. Apple first rose prices in October last year, while Amazon followed suit in January.
Tidal and YouTube Music then announced increases this month, before Spotify. For all platforms, the main price increase in the US is the same. A single monthly membership has increased from $9.99 to $10.99.
Meanwhile, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek hinted at an increase during an earnings call in April, saying that the streaming platform was “ready to raise prices”. The Wall Street Journal reported last week (21 July) that a price rise was thought to be imminent. That turns out to have been the case.
As of 31 March, Spotify had 210 million paying subscribers globally – a 15% increase year on year – and 515 million monthly active users.
The post Spotify increases Premium subscription price for the first time appeared first on MusicTech.