Longtime readers should recognize Rick Earl as a contributor to this column. What you might not be aware of is that in addition to being a self described audio-junky and Technical Director for Cultural and Special Programs at Elon University in Burlington, Rick is also an experimenter and audio craftsman. Several weeks ago Rick brought in his newest creation, The Big E rare-earth velocity (ribbon) microphone, for us to audition.

Putting the Big E trough its paces at CareySound headquarters.

Ribbon microphones are known for their extended smooth linear frequency response and the Big E is no exception. Invented in the early 1920s by Drs. Walter H. Schottky and Erwin Gerlach and later refined and brought to market in 1931 by Dr. Harry F. Olson of RCA, the ribbon microphone broke new ground sound reproduction with a realism and clarity not found in the condenser microphones of the day. The figure eight bidirectional pickup pattern of the mic found an enthusiastic home in the motion picture industry. It enabling clear vocal dialogue without picking up the noisy motion picture cameras in use at the time by placing the camera in the null side of the pickup pattern. The Big E exhibits this Figure Eight pattern.

Saxophonist Skip Gailes performs live with the Big E at Elon Universities Jazz Concert


So how does it sound? Great! Hear for yourself. Click the play button above for an audio sample recorded this last weekend with The Big E.

Tags: Rick Earl, Big E, Ribbon Microphone

Guest editorial by Rick Earl

In the interest of fairness, I must disclose a few things before I get started…  One:  I’ve known Ken for a long time and worked for him for a few years.   Two: I hopped on the digital bandwagon quite a few years ago and cannot remember the last BIG show I mixed on an analog console.  Three: I am a geek, not just an average gek, but a dyed in the wool, pure audio junky geek; I’m always looking for the newest, best, coolest audio gadget, from mics to mixers, I love it all. Four: I am not getting paid for this, but Ken did buy me dinner after I volunteered to help with a show.  Finally, I stand by what I say, if you have questions or concerns about anything I write in here, I will be happy to discuss them in open dialog.

So I came into the V Mixer after seeing and using the S 4000 Digital snake by Roland, It was clean, quiet, had imperceptible latency AND fit in the passenger seat of my truck.  It had its uses, and I thought it was pretty cool, but being a geek I don’t like converting too many times, so I waited. Good product, but incomplete for my uses.

When I found out that Roland was making a Mixer for the snake, immediately I became very interested. This has some potential.  I wasn’t too surprised to see Roland Boxes at Carey Sound, as I mentioned before, I am a geek, geeks know geeks, and Ken is a geek too. The problem is I KNOW Ken, he may be a geek, but he has his standards. First of all, the road case was not purple and it did not contain a product made in the UK. Second, It was digital, and did not have a touch screen. Somehow I did not see a match, especially after hearing some of Ken’s early digital experiences. So when I was told how cool it was, and how good it worked and how well it sounded and how many had already been installed, I knew it was time to take a closer look.

I called Ken up, asked for an opportunity to use it, and then volunteered to help with a MUSEP show that Carey Sound was doing.  The show was the EMF student Orchestra at Guilford College.  We showed up, set up, miced the orchestra according to Ken’s plan.  I ran the snake, all 300’, by myself, did a line check and then Ken took off, leaving me to mix.  

Mixing a symphony is one of my favorite things to do, but it was not what I was expecting to do that night.  In these situations, there is no sound check, it’s usually hand on and GO!  So I did. And what a ride it was.  Granted, I’ve had quite a bit of digital mixing experience, but not on this console, although immediately I knew I would be ok.  First of all, everything sounded fine, the sound was smooth and quiet (not too many consoles are with 30 open mics) everything I needed was right where it should be and responded flawlessly.  The eq was easy to use, I turned the knob, and it worked, I never felt like I had to sit and tweek, endlessly to get the sound I wanted.  Later, when I wanted some compression, I activated it on the channel, set the threshold, and wow, nice smooth compression.  Once I felt comfortable with the mix, I decided to add some reverb to sweeten up the strings; it was easy to access and sounded great too.  Just so you know, I prefer reverb to be subtle, sometimes it is hard with cheap reverbs and down and dirty algorithms used in many units. The Roland reverb, was everything I wanted, I knew it was there, but it never distracted from the mix. All in all, when the night was over, I had had fun, I always felt in control, but knew I found a great product.

Ken was nice enough to let me try the console again the next night at Elon University.  We had the same orchestra playing but  this was my show, my mics, my speaker facing (well, ok, the school’s) I was confident in the console, so I  changed my inputs a bit for my inventory and to experiment with some other mic techniques.  I had no problems accessing the console’s systems settings to re-patch input and outputs,  I was able to achieve every bit of the clarity as the night before.  The best part about all of this, I had fun mixing, I wasn’t lost in the console, I wasn’t fighting the console, I was mixing with it.  Other than the color LCD screen being a little difficult to read in daylight, I cannot think of any real negatives of the design.  I talked to John Carey, who’s been getting his time on the console too, he said he has been TRYING to get it to crash, but with no success.  Knowing the manufacturer, I am sure they had it pretty bulletproof before it was released.

Why is all of this important?   I feel digital is the way to go, it works, you have much more system for the dollar and it offers greater flexibility for the user.  In fact, digital consoles get better with age, new firmware and software increase functionality, user libraries help build shows quickly from past shows and settings.  The problem is, when digital is not done right, it can make it worse.  Compromises in design that make the console sonically worse than analog, limited controls and hierarchical menus that confuse the operator, all take away from the reason we want these things.  Even traditional analog systems offer compromises if your needs exceed your budget.

Roland did things right with the V Mixer, exceptional audio quality, ease of use, a versatile and compact snake system all able to fit in the back of my Nissan Versa.  The analog equivalent would barely fit in a van, require 4 people to lift and would cost at least twice as much.  RoIand has a long history with digital audio and it shows. I would suggest anyone in the market for a new mixing system to look at the Roland V Mixer; I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.


About the author-- Rick Earl, a self described audio junky geek, prior to his tenure as HE for CareySound Productions in the 90’s, worked as FOH engineer for national recording artists Firehouse. He left us for a FOH position with Millie Jackson and then spent some time with SE Systems before landing a job with Guilford Tech as a teacher and then to his current position as Technical Director for Cultural and Special Programs at Elon University in Burlington.

Tags: Rick Earl, Elon University, EMF Concert, Roland RSS V-Mix