With more than 35 years experience in pro audio, Barry Hufker (pictured) is an associate professor of audio production at Webster University in St. Louis, Mo., a program that he founded 18 years ago. On the recommendation of Las Vegas Pro Audio’s Brad Lunde and Richard Bowman, Hufker tested two M600 mic mounts from Enhanced Audio during projects he conducted with one of his classes. “It was going to take some hard evidence to convince me that a mic mount could really make a noticeable difference,” Hufker remarked.
When the mic mounts arrived, the class used a Brauner VMA tube condenser mic with its own factory mount and recorded spoken word. As Hufker expected, the VMA sounded great. Then they swapped out the factory mount for the Enhanced Audio M600.
“We were very rigorous —everything was exactly the same,” Hufker explains. “I heard the difference, but it was still hard to believe. With the Enhanced Audio M600, everything sounded crisper, clearer, more detailed. The bass had better definition and the high end was cleaner. To be honest, I was startled. The microphone, which moments before had sounded so wonderful, sounded even better!”
Hufker then went to St. Ambrose Church in St. Louis to record the St. Louis Chamber Chorus. The church is highly reverberant, and Hufker addressed the competing demands of recording the chorus at a distance for a good blend of voices versus proximity to the chorus to cut down on reverberation. He started with his pair of Sonodore RCM-402 omni condensers in their factory mounts. “I found the best balance I could between too close and too far, but it still wasn’t all I was hoping for,” Hufker recalls. “I switched out the factory mounts for the Enhanced Audio M600s and changed nothing else. Same position, same preamp, same everything.
“It was hard to believe, but the M600s gave me the sound I was looking for and was afraid I wasn’t going to get! The bass was tighter, the midrange was clearer, the highs were clean, the stereo image tightened up, and all of a sudden I was capturing a presence in the chorus that moments before I had been missing. I had recorded two samples: one with the factory mounts and one with the Enhanced Audio M600 mounts. Listening to them back to back, it was immediately apparent that the new mounts made a dramatic improvement,” Hufker concludes.
For more information, visit www.lasvegasproaudio.com, www.hufkerrecording.com and www.webster.edu/depts/comm/degrees_u_audio.html.
