MICROPHONES

"When I first moved to London I worked at The Dairy studios in Brixton where there was a Sontronics SIGMA. I didn't know much about it back then, and I was a bit wary of feeding 48V to a ribbon, but that is where my love affair with Sontronics began. Flood and the Assault & Battery 2 studios also have an extensive Sontronics collection, so I got to use some up there too. 

"I’ve used so many Sontronics mics, including the SIGMA, STC-1S pencil mics and Saturn, which is so impressive on vocals. I own the DELTA, which is genuinely my favourite mic. It is one of the most used mics in my collection. No other ribbon mic has the fatness or character of DELTA and the noise floor is way lower than most ribbon mics and a lot less gain is needed, meaning the choice of preamp you can use with it isn’t limited. 

"I use the DELTA as my main front-of-kit mic for all my drum sessions (I take it with me if I'm at a studio away from my own), it is a major part of all my drum sounds. It can suck in and bring out the ambience of a small room in an amazing way when paired with the right compressor (I usually use an 1176 or Standard Audio Level-Or set to crunch). I also use it for electric guitars going through an API 560, sometimes in combo with a dynamic mic, sometimes on its own. I use it for a lots of percussive instruments too, tambourines, woodblocks, glockenspiel, toy piano... anything you want to get a solid, chunky sound from without the harsh transients associated with these instruments. 

"DELTA lets me get a great chunky sound with a natural, old-school top end. It takes EQ really well so you can easily carve out the chunky mids and add highs if you want a thinner (or more modern) sound, but the result never sounds artificial or overly processed the way a lot of mics would. With drums in particular DELTA excels at getting a full, in-your-face sound without bringing the cymbals forward. There's nothing worse than not being able to properly turn up your ambient/FOK mics because they're full of cymbal wash!"