(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Y'all ready to be history? Get started. Welcome. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hello, everyone. To the Pro Audio Suite. These guys are professional, they're motivated. Thanks to Tribush, the best vocal booth for home or on the road voice recording, and Austrian Audio, making passion heard. Introducing Robert Marshall from Source Elements and Someone Audio Post, Chicago. Darren Robert Robertson from Voodoo Radio Imaging, Sydney.
Tech to the VO stars, George the Tech Whittam from LA, and me, Andrew Peters, voiceover talent and home studio guy. Line up, man. Here we go. Sound on me. And welcome to another Pro Audio Suite, thanks to Tribush. Don't forget the code, T-R-I-P -A-P 200. That will get you 200 US dollars off your Tribush. And Austrian Audio, making passion heard. Lovely microphones. And speaking of which, we had a question. Hey, guys. I love listening to and learning from your perspectives.
Nice. Any thoughts on the road NT2000 for voiceover? I have one, but can't find much in the way of evaluations of it. Barry Burns. Bazza. The big Baz. Bazza. Big Baz. Well, when you just Google it in the US, you're going to find the usual big, giant box. The big retailers, you know, across the top of Google, right? Yeah, B&H. That means Sweetwater Guitar Center, Adorama. And the reviews, you know, if you're just looking at pure star ratings, they're, you know, knocking it out of the park.
Everybody that's reviewed the mic, with very little exception, says they love it. So that's a good start. I know I've heard that mic. I just can't remember when. You know, when a mic sounds lousy or it sounds noisy, fuzzy, extra sibilant, it stands out in my memory. Then it's the talent. Yeah. Fuzzy talent. I hate dealing with fuzzy talent. And so then it stands in my memory.
It's kind of like, you know, when you get a bad impression of something, or like if you get food poisoning, you'll never eat that food again. That's kind of what it is with mics. If it sounds really lousy on somebody, I'll usually remember that that mic sounded lousy. So I guess my wasted time here is all to say that if I remembered it being bad, I would probably remember it. And I think that, by all accounts, it's not a bad mic.
And it's probably really, really outside guesses that this is kind of like their answer to a U87. Maybe. Kind of. Yeah, I guess. They have another mic that looks a hell of a lot more like a U87. Like their first mic, actually. What was that? The NT2A? No, it was the NT1. It was the original NT1. The original mic looked so, it looked lawsuit close to a U87. Do you know the original NT1 had a plastic body? No. Really? Yeah. That's weird. That one's not made in America. That was really weird.
Well, it's fascinating that there's a Rode NT2A, and there's a Rode NT2000. They're still selling them, so they make both. And the NT2A maybe is a little more U87-like in that it's just got three polar pattern positions. Click, click, click. And then it's got two high-pass filter settings, which is nice, and two pad settings. So it's kind of like a better U87 in terms of features, you know? The NT2 is the one that looks a hell of a lot like a U87.
I mean, the NT2A looks just like, oh, the two, not the two. The NT2 looks, I mean, it is obviously trying to be a U87. Maybe that's why it doesn't look like one anymore. It might have had a little trouble with Sennheiser or Neumann. I think it might have. I mean, because it's the exact same setup.
It's a three pattern with a 10 dB pad and a high-pass filter, although they did put the high-pass filter and the 10 dB pad on one switch, which I hate, because who thought that you're not going to need both? But whatever. But yeah, it looks a lawsuit close to a U87. I was talking to Peluso Microphones, which is a really small company in Virginia. Literally a ma and pa operation. It's really cool. The wife does soldering and assembly. Neat little company, nice people, good products, you
know, made in the U.S. They're doing a lot of AKG-type mics. They're all like clones of other mics, basically. They're not really trying to do something completely original, although they have some original ideas. But they told me very clearly, like, yeah, when we made this new P67, which is their equivalent of U87, they were like, we could not replicate the head basket shape because that is all maybe a patent, right?
They have it trademarked or patented, but the unique shape of a U67 and an U87 grill, you cannot rip it off unless you're from China. Yeah, unless you're like above the law shipping. Somebody actually saw on Facebook, somebody posted on Facebook, an ad from a big box hardware store, like a Home Depot, advertising a U87. I saw that. For like 150 bucks, right? Yeah. Yeah, really, really, really cheap knockoff. So, I mean, that's what's coming. I know we're way off the freaking topic here, guys.
It's why you tune in, right? But the whole thing was like, you know, even these giant online retailers, the machine that keeps, you know, retail product feeding into their website is kind of off the rails. When a, you know, on Home Depot is selling a Timu quality mic, you know, or AliExpress quality mic. And by the way, go look how many knockoffs of Neumann's and stuff that are on AliExpress or Ali, like it's mind boggling. It's like, it's never ends. So the 2000, I heard that it was good.
I remember that it was good. I don't remember anything wrong with it, but how about those pots? The fact that it has variable pots for each of those settings, that's gotta be a problem. Well, if they're good pots, they might last, but it does make it a very unique mic. I like the idea of it. Because it's like, everything is completely variable.
And for a price point that basically competes with, you know, from the Austrian audio world, it seems to be in the price range of like an OC18, which is a fixed pattern mic. Right. This is way more versatile, obviously. Yeah. I remember what you were saying a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about USB mics, though, George, that sort of, that, hang on, I've just got to, oh, you want more gain? Hang on. You know, it doesn't work well sometimes, but look, I mean.
And then, and then after many years it's. Yes, exactly. Again, turning the. Scrapey pot sound. Well, in defense of that microphone, I do know one big studio in Melbourne that's had them for years, 15 years, at least 15 years. Maybe longer. Well, they've got a 10 year warranty, so that would stand to reason. Yeah, but I mean, the thing is that they're still. But you don't know how many they've had. No, no, no. They're the same ones. I can tell because I lick them. Oh. They all taste the same.
And they have the paint worn off in the one spot that you like the most. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Oh, fuck. Get the, get the, get the Glenn 20 out. Peters has been in here again. Andrew, what else do you do with those mics? Well. Well, I found, I did find a post from Mix Magazine. Okay. From May 2004 about the Rodent 2000. So it's a story about the development of the mic, how it was Peter Friedman began working on the company's latest creation. He wanted to do something completely different.
And the NT-2000, the result of that quest, I guess, completed him from the NT -2. So 7 dB self noise or EIN. So low noise. That's very, very low noise for a multi -pattern microphone. Yeah. Really low noise, which is pretty amazing. Totally variable controls, as we mentioned. You know, it has a high, a dead center, or a center detent on the pot. So when it's in the center position, you know where the neutral position is. Other than that, though, it's not stepped.
It's not like a pot that clicks giving you any kind of indication where you are on that thing. I would imagine once you get the settings set, you'd almost want to tape the knobs down. Or put your little China graph mark. Yeah. Or at least mark them. Yeah, because I would think it would be very easy to bump those pots with your hand when moving the mic or adjusting it for somebody. And those things would get bumped.
I've not heard one, but according to the interweb, it seems to be a bright mic in the spirit of a 414 kind of thing. Which would be kind of similar to the NT-1. Yeah, I mean, I guess. I thought the NT-1 was a 416. Yeah, yeah. But that's right, when we did that mic shoot. Which is awesome. The 1A especially was a bit more high shelfy. Yeah. The 1A was definitely bright, and the 1 was the one that sounded more quality. Yeah, they reeled it back a bit.
Yeah. So the NT-2000 launched in that year, in 2004, for $899 US. Wow. So now we're 20 years later, and it's selling for less. Which I don't even understand. How does that work? That's negative inflation. I don't get that. That's because since then, of course, they built that massive computerized factory in Sydney. So they have this economy of scale. Which means their production costs, yeah. And they would be pumping out a lot. Well, I mean, I guess in a way that says two things about Rode.
One is they want to have a really good value mic, which is great. Their prices on Rode mics are really good for what you get. Really, I mean, extremely good. Like, a lot of times I see them in the States, and I think, how can it be that inexpensive? Like, speaking of lowering prices, they released the NT-1 5th Gen as the, what do they call it, the studio edition? Is that the USB one? Yeah. No, they have a version without USB.
So what they did is they took the NT-1 5th Gen and removed the 32 -bit converter preamp circuit completely and just turned it into a standard XLR and then sold that for $159 US. Wow. Yeah. Which is crazy. Because, I mean, that mic was $269, $259 all day long. Yeah. And that was the mic that I always thought was like about as low as you go without buying a mic that you will one day toss or give away. Or, you know, it's like it's probably a mic that can still have relevance in your closet.
Yeah. I think, you know, the NT-1, I've always said the same thing. I mean, if you were paying twice the money for it, you wouldn't complain because you go, well, yeah, it's pretty good value. Right. I think the price probably scares people because they look at the price and go, well, what's wrong with that? I'll be honest, another thing particularly about the NT-1 and the 1A, I really don't like the way they look. They look, you know, sorry, Rode, but I just think they look cheap.
They look consumer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they look really just like, ah, we just like took a, you know, just banged a basket out of a wire mesh and put it on the top with a piece of foam inside there. It just, it looks kind of... The chassis is very lightweight as well. You know, it's not a very thick brass, you know, machine chassis. But it sounds good. It punches above its price point, you know. I think the best thing they did with the NT-1 was to do the black version of it.
Yeah, and they have the fifth gen in black and in the nickel or whatever they call it, the finished nickel. And they made the one that has that really nice built-in pop screen to the mount, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was a nice thing too. That was the 1 or the 1A that they did that with? That was the 1. That was the 1, yeah. Well, both of them actually, but the 1, it was also the kit, you know, the AI-1, the NT-1, which came with the shock mount and pop guard and everything.
So at the end of this MixOnline review, there's a very, very final paragraph, kind of like a footer says, and this is again, written in 2004, I think. It says, five years ago, Rode built a 20,000 square foot factory on the outskirts of Sydney, but there was a problem with the company's growth. It soon needed a larger operation. So again, as of 2004, last month, Rode began moving into a totally new 70,000 square foot plant located in Silverwater. Yeah, it's just down the road from me.
So this times out exactly as to like when they launched the new plant and this mic came along, you know, so that all makes a lot of sense. Actually, I've just something to figure out. You know how they make it so cheap? Because you know, the other thing that's in Silverwater is a prison. That makes a lot of sense. Plates and microphones. Yeah, they do number plates and microphones. Number plates and microphones. Yeah. And here's your bread and water for the day. Yeah, yeah.
I've seen some occasional Friedman interviews and yeah, that might track as the kids say. Yeah. They're bloody good mics. I mean, Rode in general are bloody good mics. Of course they are. Good stuff. Yeah, it's a good company. I will never ever say someone don't get a Rode as a starter mic, you know, because it's just proven itself consistently. The consistency, that's the thing when you're looking at these budget level mics.
Yeah, there's a lot coming from China and there's a lot, there's like a company that sells the Stellar X2, which has gotten very popular on Amazon. And I'm like, listen, you guys, these mics are mass produced in China and they don't go through a really good burn in. They don't get tested properly at the factory. They don't get matched. You really don't know what you're getting. You really, really don't.
So you might save a little bit of money, but now with Rode building mics, essentially with robotic factories that can do identical parts and consistently. If I'm looking at two mics and I'm deciding between something in China and Rode, I'm going to go with the Rode. Absolutely. I mean, Peter Friedman, you've got to take your hat off to him. He kicked off with a tiny shop that his dad had doing electronics in Sydney and he's built this empire. Absolutely. And still growing.
Yep. Still growing and they own... Apex. Right, they bought the Apex brand a while ago. They have Mackie now. I'm curious to see what happens. Oh, Event. Event, yeah. Well, you know the biggest thing they have on their side is the fact that they're Aussies, really. Let's be honest. I know you think that they couldn't do it at all, but somehow... Yes, every microphone is delivered in a pouch.
So Andrew, to round out this episode and to answer Big Baz's question, as the only person who's used one of these suckers, would you recommend it for a voiceover mic? Would I recommend it? Let's put it this way. If you walked into a studio and it was there, would you be horrified? Actually, I'm going to pose a harder question for Andrew that we might have to remove from the podcast. You got 600 bucks. Do you buy this thing or an OC -18? I'd buy the OC-18.
Okay, but if you had one of these, which Barry does, clearly, would you be happy to use it as your microphone if that's what you had? Well, I've used them before, as I said, in that studio and I didn't have a problem with it. It sounded fine. Yeah, I wouldn't... They seem to be happy with it and it seems to work okay. There we go, Baz. So if you're Barry, you've got one, use it. I think that sounds like a tick of approval. You should have fast-forwarded to the end, Barry. It's got good specs.
The question is, do you like the way it sounds? Because it's not noisy. And it's definitely versatile. That seems to be the main design goal. How about this? I can't name one other mic besides the tube mic that's got a completely variable pattern and I don't know any mic that has a completely variable high-pass filter. There's a weird US maker called CAD, and they do one with a variable pattern knob on it. It's a really, really inexpensive mic. Most CADs are pretty budget-oriented as well.
It's like the sub-$200 price range. CAD was early on. They kind of busted the large diaphragm mic price point slightly before China did. Their mics were made in China, I think, at the time. Was it the E-100? Is that the one? The E-100's US. It's US-made. And they have a new one called the S. Well, the newer one's the S, then the SX. But in 1996, when the E-100 came out, it was like, do you want to spend $800 on a 414 or more? There were way less choices back then.
Way less in 1996. And that was the only large diaphragm I can think of besides maybe the AKG C3000 that was sort of affordable. Yeah, that's right. And even then, those were probably still like, I bet you that CAD at the time was probably like $400 at the time, I bet. We could do a whole episode on the CAD mic, because that's a very weird mic in that it's a medium diaphragm, supercardioid, electret condenser. But it does use phantom. It does use phantom.
The E-100 came with batteries internally, but they would eventually go bad as usual. And then you could run them on phantom. And then the 100S just has no batteries. Yeah. I remember having a 300, which was like a really big mic. I honestly didn't like it much. But at that time, I worked at a studio that had an AT4033, which was another mic that kind of busted the large diaphragm price point. And I do remember liking the 4033 better than the CAD. But the CAD looked a hell of a lot better.
20 years ago when I was buying, well, let's say 25-ish mics, 25-ish years ago when I started buying mics in earnest, you bought AKGs, you bought Audio Technicas. If you were lucky, you could buy a Neumann or two. And then you bought MXLs. Or Shures. You could get Shures for some of their dynamics. And the 81s were always good performers for the most part. And then RØDE came up, and then RØDE was another interesting, hmm, what's this RØDE thing? And there weren't that many options.
Now it's a dizzying, dizzying array. I don't know how these companies compete anymore. But at the same time, there were not many options. But if you think about it now, most of these mics are all made out of the same stuff. They're all coming out of the same factories, and they're buying their diaphragms from the same pile. They just pump these diaphragms out like they're cookies. But very few microphones are original. Most of them are kind of a clone or a semi-clone.
Yes. Yeah, I mean, the 87 is probably the most cloned mic. And then what, the 57 and the 58 are very cloned. C12 would be cloned. C12's cloned a lot, yeah. Probably not as much as like the 87 and the, you know, like all those Chinese clones, they really went after the stuff that sells the most, you know. The studio clones are like Peluso. Those guys were cloning the big stuff, like the C12 and the U47s and the FET47s.
Well, yeah, there's clones like Peluso clones, and then there's like really, really cheap Chinese clones. There's rip-offs. Yeah, there's rip-offs, yeah, that sound nothing like what they're trying to do. They just look a bit like it. But, I mean, you're talking about Telefunken, you know, now. They're a clone factory. It's not the real Telefunken. It's just like they bought the name. I mean, they're in Connecticut. They're in the wrong country.
They don't speak the right language for making those microphones. But they seem to be good mics. I've got a, what the hell is it, the 47? Is it called the AK47 or something like that? AK47 or something. Sorry. It sounds really good, though. It sounds like my Sound Deluxe, which is like a really good 67 clone, like a really accurate 67 clone. And that Telefunken, it's pretty good. It's not bad. And it's definitely like, you know, more marketing than microphone possibly.
Well, when they first started doing them, because I went down to, a guy said to me, you've got to go and check this microphone out, because he'd heard it and said, go and find out what it is. And I wandered in and I just bought the reissue of the Telefunken U47. Who is this, Peluso? No, this is Telefunken. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they were, you know, like in, I think in America, the U47 was branded Telefunken. Well, the U47 was branded Telefunken in America, right? Yeah, yeah.
In the beginning, yeah. Before it was Neumann. It was Neumann everywhere else, but Telefunken. And also the 251 was like an AKG. There's some weird things in there, like the 251 is sort of like a C12, I think, or something. It was C12, the Alarm 251, yeah. But that was branded as AKG. And was it Telefunken or was it somebody else?
No, no, the 251 was Telefunken and then the AKG was the, but Telefunken, AKG made the 251, like one company, because Telefunken was really like a marketing company back then. So they were going to other companies to make their, like they'd commission a microphone and say, hey, we want to make a microphone for this market. It was just a way for Neumann to get their microphones into America.
I've got a feeling that some other companies, like a Westinghouse or someone like that also had, they were badging up microphones. They were selling their product but being rebadged in different territories, mainly North America. And of course Telefunken was one, but I'm sure there was some other, someone's obviously listening to this and if you do know what I'm talking about, which is unusual and makes you unique, leave us a message of what that company was.
There was an importing company who brought all the Neumanns in in the early days called, what's the Batman city for New York? Gotham. Gotham. There was a company that did all the importing for Neumann, but they were still Neumann mics, but everything had Gotham stickers and Gotham labeling all over it. And this has nothing to do with the Gothams that make mic cables, and it's another Gotham, I guess. I didn't know that one, yeah. This is how the tangents work. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, but I think I'm confused with Westinghouse because I've got a feeling Westinghouse was the company that made the first microphones for the BBC. Yes, and Westinghouse actually made the first American. I believe it was either Westinghouse or RCA, but I think it was Westinghouse that when Neumann was making condensers, Westinghouse was messing with condensers in the early 30s. Buy a microphone, get a free washing machine. Is that what was going on? Yeah, yeah.
Right. And the Maytag guy would come and fix your microphone. Washing machine and microphone repairs on the side of the truck. Yeah, that's right. There you go. Yeah, there you go. There's the out. All right. There's a weird tangent. I'm going to go and do my washing. Go and suck your jocks. Go and suck my capsules. Smells like Andrew's breath. You go and lick a microphone. Is that the one he licks? Well, that was fun. Is it over? The Pro Audio Suite. With thanks to Tribus. And Austrian Audio.
Recorded using Source Connect. Edited by Andrew Peters. And mixed by Vudu Radio Imaging. With tech support from George the Tech Whittam. Don't forget to subscribe to the show and join in the conversation on our Facebook group. To leave a comment, suggest a topic, or just say g'day, drop us a note at our website.