Santa dropshipped a whole list of new recording gear at Backbeat this Christmas, including the Neumann TLM-102, Fathead Cascade with Lundahl transformer and a pair of jolymod Oktava M12 small condensers.

Russian Cigars – Oktava M12 small condensor mics

The first that came was these Russian pair of small diaphragm condensor mics packed in a cigar-box-like encasement. It came with switchable caps for three different pick-up patterns (cardiod, hypercardiod and omni).

The vogue with mic-modding these days stem in part with the large number of condensor mics being supplied out of China factories. Of course, MIC(made-in-china) mics being cheap isn’t an issue, but sounding cheap is! The idea of a “cheap-sounding” mic, I believe, is more pyscho-acoutiscal rather than something that you can acoustically define. There’s no doubt they tend to sound a bit harsh in the 4-6khz region. But more significantly, most MIC (made-in-china) mics are essentially coming out from just THREE main MIC plants in China. So with the flood of MIC mics that are similarly sounding at their core, their common lack of distinctive sonic flavors would not be helpful in your quest for an “expensive” boutique sound.

The Michael Joly mod on the Oktava M12 is supposedly useful in helping “increase resolution, lower noise and reduce distortion while improving transient response”. A lower self-noise was important in my mod decision as I needed them for distant miking applications for large orchestra. But how much does it improve the sound?

I put it to test almost immediately as a spaced pair for recording the classical guitar track for Debra Khng’s “Prince” track (to be release in 2012). I was rather shocked by the details and smoothness that were being captured by the Oktava M12 with relative ease. Usually in the past, it would have taken a lot more effort to find a sweetspot between the guitar and the mic. Here’s a sound clip of the recording – raw and UNMIXED.

Debra prince intro (oktava m12) by backbeat