Lauten Audio - Atlantis - FC-387 Large-diaphragm FET Condenser Microphone

I'd heard many a rumor about just how good this mic really was. So, I watched reviews, and read many written ones to boot. Heck, I even heard rumblings that many who use this and also own a U87 prefer this OVER the U87! Heresy? Maybe, time will tell. This mic was crafted for the NOW. It is Lauten's answer to full compatibility for use with modern interfaces. This microphone supports one of the biggest capsules ever to grace a mic. The build of the capsule is hand crafted by Lauten Audio to replicate how the human ear captures audio complete with a slight natural compression to the sound. The sound is wide and true really capturing 3D depth of the voice making it sound larger than life. It makes you sound how you THINK you sound in your head. Let's go over the features shall we? So as you know, this mic has three settings that change its characteristics. Gentle, neutral and forward. These settings are actually fully analog, it's not EQ. the setting changes the way the circuitry effects the capsule and in turn changing the sound it produces! Gentle sounds much like the U47 and the U67 had a child. that vintage tube like warmth but still with a ever so slight amount of sizzle on the top end that just brings any crooning vocals you may want to have to a buttery finish. Neutral is of course the middle ground between gentle and forward. It tames sibilants though without muddying the audio. It's delightfully warm with a true sounding mid range and again still retains a lovely air and sizzle at the top. This setting has been reported to sound most like a U87 however with its own delightful and honestly welcome twist on the formula. (this is my favorite setting) to short hand this setting, it sounds like a U87 built for today's audience. Forward is what one would expect fully from the current modern sound and what is most 'in' for current VO. Especially in commercial. a bright 'forward' in your face sound that sounds almost like it has already been mastered and sits atop a mix beautifully allowing the voice to lead the soundscape. Notably even though it is very bright, it did NOT emphasize sibilants which I was very impressed by. It also supports the usual suspects, omni directional, figure of 8 and last but certainly not least cardioid. I will mention with cardioid, it feels like it has a more narrow field of capture than the usual cardioid pattern, not quite hyper cardioid but definitely more focused in than a normal cardioid. a particular hit in my book is the -10db pad and +10db boost! The pad is what you'd expect however the boost is fun. The boost allows you to add colour in from the mic to further colour a preamp or add colour to a characterless or 'clean' interface as it allows you to drive the interface harder if one wishes to do so. a word of warning and my only gripe, more like a nit pick however it must be said. it's HEAVY. coming in at a whopping 2.2 lb! You will NEED a very good desk arm or a counter weighted boom arm to hold this thing up. Lastly, I'll mention it's really hard to clip this thing. Normally when I record, I need to change the gain settings. One for talking/slight projection and one for full projection, yelling and screaming. With this mic it was very close to set and forget at a talking db level. Ya gotta' be eating the mic to clip it while yelling. Anywho, TLDR? This is a desert island mic. The engineers at Lauten Audio are wizards.