I noticed a couple of the musicians we have interviewed recently had RØDE microphones in their studios, and a few people have told me how good their mics are, so I got in touch with Scott Emerton from RØDE to find out a bit more… Plus we have TWO Mic Kits to give away!.
How long has RØDE been making Microphones?
RØDE has been building microphones since the early 1990s, however RØDE’s parent company Freedman Electronics has been a pioneer in the Australian Pro Audio industry for almost 50 years, designing, manufacturing and installing speakers, PAs, mixing consoles and microphones.
What do you think is the most common mistake people make when recording vocals?
It’s not so much a case of mistakes as areas to consider and improve. Obviously a quality microphone is your first step, but many people believe you need to buy the most expensive microphone you can, which is misleading.
Factors such as microphone technique, microphone choice, shock mounting and acoustic treatment can drastically improve the quality of a vocal recording.
There are some great musicians using RØDE Microphones, do you think your success has been through word of mouth?
Word of mouth has definitely been a strong contributor to our success. We truly believe we build some of the best mics in the world and we take pride in adding value with every product.
Also our customer commitment as far as service and support I believe is second to none, and that’s clearly reflected by the number of customers and users that recommend us to their friends and peers.
The RØDE team comes from an vast array of industries and we have paid great attention to getting the RØDE message out there on a macro level. It also helps that most of us here are musicians and artists alike, so we do feel like we’re almost friends with our audience.
What would you recommend for someone looking to record good quality vocals on a smaller budget?
Really the RØDE NT1-A (see our competition here) should be on everyone’s audition list. It has the lowest self noise of any studio microphone and the performance you get for the money is really unbeatable, which is why it’s an industry standard.
A quick search online and across YouTube artists will back me up.
(artists such as Alexa Goddard and Jeremy Passion are examples of independent artists recording world class tracks in their bedrooms using the NT1-A) We’ve recently repackaged it with a professional shock-mount, pop filter, cable and instructional DVD to add even more value.
I love the Studio Rescue series of videos (see below), do you think you can you get a good recording set up in virtually any room?
No not necessarily, but you can achieve better results with a lot less work by optimising the setup of your environment. That’s really the premise of RØDE TV’s Studio Rescue.
A great number of artists are recording and mixing in their bedroom or a spare room for instance and don’t have the luxury of changing the room fundamentals – they’re getting good results but are looking for that elusive pro studio sound.
We’ve visited some of these artists and, along with Grammy winning engineer and producer Francis Buckley, applied some fundamental acoustic and audio engineering theory to improve their output.
If I was planning on recording a podcast would I be better with a different Mic, if so what sort of thing would do the job?
Podcast generally implies spoken word and voice over, which would have a slightly different selection criteria. ‘Tailored-for-voice’ microphones generally have a slightly different frequency response to traditional vocal microphones and a pronounced proximity effect, which is basically the increased low frequency presence as you move closer to the microphone.
Another consideration is the ease of production, as the typical podcaster doesn’t have access to digital interfaces and other hardware required to use a studio quality microphone.
The RØDE Podcaster is designed specifically to offer broadcast quality audio for spoken word, with the convenience of USB connectivity. It even includes a headphone jack on the microphone body to avoid any delay issues when recording to computer.
Are there any plans for RØDE to expand beyond microphones?
We already design and manufacture studio monitor speakers under our Event brand (www.eventelectronics.com). Our flagship model, the Event Opal, has been critically awarded as one of the biggest speaker developments in recent years.
Future Music UK names the Opal the “Best Monitors Ever”, and I’ve heard the term “lasik for your ears” from more than one customer.
We’ve also just re-released the 20/20BAS, which was a classic studio monitor from the early 90s. Using our manufacturing knowledge combined with proprietary technology from the Opal we’ve rejuvenated this much loved speaker to bring it into the 21st century.
** This competition is now closed **
This competition is now closed, for our latest competitions click HERE
Top pic: RØDE fans, clockwise Matt Sorum, Producer Paul Epworth, UNKLE and Bootsy Collins. For more info visit www.rodemic.com