They Did It

     RCA's 44 ribbon microphone is iconic.  It's essentially rectangular, with a perforated metal windscreen in a truncated-diamond shape.  After RCA stopped making them, surviving examples were treasured and a small corps of dedicated technicians helped maintain and repair them.

     I once owned one.  From junkbox storage at a small radio station that had no use for it, it (somehow) still worked and I kept it for many years, occasionally using it on the air.  It was the main studio microphone at my college radio station, straining an Atlas boom arm almost to the limit.

     Then I fell on hard times.  The radio station where I was Chief Engineer was sold, and the new owners sent in their own managers, with a mandate to cut budgets and their own notions of how a Chief Engineer ought to look and act (not at all like me).  Unfortunately for them, the station was already running without excess; when you cut Engineering budgets so far that you cannot keep transmitter parts in stock, reliability suffers.  Something had to be done!  It wasn't going to be a budget increase; I was replaced by someone with whom I hope they were able to establish better rapport, and he promptly spent the money I hadn't been able to convince my bosses needed to be spent.

     It wasn't a great time to be looking for work.  Cable TV was hiring but it didn't pay much.  I ended up working two full-time jobs for two different cable companies, seven days a week, three sixteen-hour days and four eights, about $30K before taxes.  It wasn't enough to keep up with rent and utilities.  Long story short, I had to sell my RCA 44DX microphone.  By then they were worth big money.  I sold it to a local collector, with a verbal agreement that I could buy it back.  But by the time I was able to, many years later, the mike had been sold on several times.  Prices had gone way up, and what did I want with a ribbon mike, anyway?  Hardly anyone used them.  They're fragile.

     Then they started to come back.  Quality varied a lot, but the best were very good -- and priced to match.  Meanwhile, the last of the old RCA technicians were training their successors (or not) and original RCA microphone prices kept going up.  A dedicated recording engineer was repairing them, having to make more and more replacement parts and finally did what seems obvious in hindsight: he brought them back.  His company, AEA, makes spot-on copies of the original, and some less-expensive versions.  They've branched out into some other mikes, including the KU4, originally used in the film industry, and their own designs.  They are meticulously made, gorgeous-sounding mikes and the only difference between their top-of-the line 44 and the RCA original is the logo and the lack of dents.  It's a serious microphone for serious work and sells for over five thousand dollars; the economy model is about $3500 and they're worth every penny.

     I'll never own one.  I have a nice Electro-Voice ribbon mike, bought used and repaired by AEA, a kind of two-thirds-scale version of the RCA.  I've got a couple more that E-V "repaired" after they were out of the ribbon mic business by bolting a dynamic element inside the shell, and I have an aftermarket kit that should let me install a modern ribbon mic element -- known as a "motor" -- in the best of them.  I was content.

     Enter Warm Audio.  A scrappy start-up, Warm looked around for a niche and found it in making updated versions of old classics -- audio processing and microphones, including their own copy of the RCA 44.

     It's not a total match.  It's very close and the differences are mostly cosmetic.  And it's priced under a thousand dollars.

     The temptation is great but it would mean no luxuries for a very long time -- or taking out a loan.  But it is almost the microphone I had and lost, I would use it, at least a little.

     I should strike while the iron is hot.  Companies come and go in the recording business and it's not purely on quality, but on quality, price, owner determination and "vibe."  Sometimes it's one person with a vision and when he goes, it's all gone.  Sometimes a company that was hot stops being the big thing for no discernible reason.

     On the other hand, there is a long list of more practical things to spend a grand on, starting with replacing the dishwasher and stove.