Schoeps Makes Audio Test Kitchen Real as Reality
Artist and rapper 8ae nails the lyric for the “LA Song” into the Schoeps Colette CMC6 with MK2 omni capsule in Harman International's anechoic chamber for Audio Test Kitchen.
Essential to effective and fair equipment comparisons is the elimination of all variables except the gear being compared. So when Audio Test Kitchen set out to create fair, unbiased online comparisons of 250 large diaphragm condenser microphones on vocals they needed to find a way to sustain 100% consistency between vocal performances.
“Three years ago when we began our R&D process, we were not sure how to ensure hundreds of microphones hear an identical vocal or acoustic guitar performance. Even the most consistent singers and players in the world have some performance variances that listeners will falsely attribute to differences in microphone performance.” — Alex Oana, Creator/Founder, Audio Test Kitchen
“Microphone manufacturers themselves and some of the industry’s top engineers suggested we try a vocal “re-amp” process, capturing a single performance with a neutral microphone then replaying that performance through a neutral speaker. As producers and engineers, we were skeptical of reamping because of the potential artifacts we assumed would be introduced by the two extra transducers between the live performance and the mics on test,” relates Oana.
Audio Test Kitchen engineer James “Fluff” Harley (Prince, Lucinda Williams, Yumi Matsutoya) and his frequent collaborator Dan Korneff (Breaking Benjamin, Paramore, Papa Roach, Lamb of God and My Chemical Romance) ultimately convinced Oana and Hlatky to give vocal reamps a try. Experiments to identify the ideal neutral microphone to capture vocals and acoustic guitars began with testing an array of high-resolution recording and laboratory grade microphones.
Schoeps Colette CMC6 with MK2 omni capsule “bottling” vocals by Dresage (Keeley Bumford) in Harman International's anechoic chamber for Audio Test Kitchen.
In an early show of support, Scott Boland, head of Schoeps US distribution, sent Audio Test Kitchen a full set of cardioid and omni capsules on CMC 6 preamplifier bodies. On test sources ranging from a variety of vocals, guitars, pre-recorded songs, and pink noise, the Schoeps MK 2 and MK 4 exhibited the rare combination of technical accuracy and character accuracy.
“In this scenario, the Schoeps CMC 6 body with MK 2 omni capsule has the magical quality of being both objectively and subjectively accurate to the source.” — Alex Oana
Through the assistance of the researchers and anechoic chamber at Harman Industries, Audio Test Kitchen achieved final refinement of their vocal and acoustic guitar capture and reamplification methods. “We were worried that anything but a fully live performance wouldn’t reveal how the LDC mics actually sound on vocals. But because of the Schoeps capture microphones, Audio Test Kitchen’s vocal reamp system makes it sound as if each one of these 250 large-diaphragm condenser mics was in front of the source, live, from the beginning,” concludes Oana. “No variation in the source enables fair, unbiased, apples-to-apples comparisons between every microphone in the Audio Test Kitchen library,” explains Harley. Using multiple audio sources across a variety of genres, Audio Test Kitchen has been able to showcase the personality of hundreds of large diaphragm condenser microphone.
Sean Watkins bottles his Taylor in the anechoic chamber to illuminate how large diaphragm condensers perform on acoustic guitar.
“Lucky for us and for anyone comparing large diaphragm mics on Audio Test Kitchen, Schoeps capture microphones make vocals and acoustic guitars sound alive and authentic,” says Oana. Audio Test Kitchen’s content (songs, instruments, and vocals in multiple genres), recording methodologies (lasers, anechoic chambers, and robots), and custom web app are all designed to reveal the true nature of the gear on the world’s most comprehensive website of real microphone recordings that can be compared in real-time. Audio Test Kitchen will be expanding to include additional professional audio and musical instrument categories to establish a new, critical information layer in the industry that empowers musicians and audio creators to make confident decisions about the gear they rely on.
Schoeps Says:
“The Audio Test Kitchen project impresses with its excellent functionality and the meticulousness of its recordings.”
“When Alex Oana introduced me to the Audio Test Kitchen concept at the 2017 AES Show, I expressed strong support for empowering recordists to audition the sound of professional audio equipment via unbiased, cross-comparable recordings. Naturally I believe in our Schoeps microphones on their own, but I am very pleased to know the key role Schoeps has played as an essence of this invaluable resource for our industry.” – Scott Boland, Schoeps USA
“At Schoeps, our credo is and remains the transparent, lifelike image. The Schoeps sound is real and therefore it is particularly suitable as a reference for an acoustic recording. We keep hearing also from our customers that a Schoeps microphone is used as a reference in their studio. It is the ideal starting point for professional sound engineers at the start of the processing chain.”
At Audio Test Kitchen, we couldn’t agree more.
