Recently picking up multiple Grammy’s for his work on Beck’s, “Morning Phase,” Thorp has built a solid foundation in the music industry, further adding to that foundation with his Atlantis microphones. Thorp and Lauten Audio’s founder, Brian Loudenslager, recently became acquainted after exchanging social media praise for each other. “I friended Darrell on Facebook; upon him accepting my request, he posted on my page stating, “Love your mics!” I replied simply, “Love your ears,” says Loudenslager, adding, “Of course I had to inquire and get more specifics as I wasn't aware Darrell was using our microphones”.
During a session in 2014, Thorp had a challenging vocal session with a female singer, Suzanne Santo from the band HoneyHoney, who had a very powerful and dynamic vocal. Thorp talked the producer into getting a demo of the Atlantis microphone so he could try it on a few things. “The producer wanted to try it on her vocal,” said Thorp. “We had tried other microphones without success. We put up the Atlantis and, BAM!, really airy and open,” says Thorp. “What really surprised us was how much the mic was smoothing out the 3k bump that was part of her tone. It smoothed the vocal into a more manageable place that I could handle better on the mix. And she loved the Atlantis as well,” added Thorp. He used the ‘Neutral’ setting on the Multi-voicing Atlantis mic, the other settings are ‘Gentle’ and ‘Forward’.
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| Thorp speaking at Grammy's |
“It was truly an honor to have the intended design of the Atlantis validated by such a decorated engineer like Thorp”, says Loudenslager. Released in 2012, the Atlantis was a collaboration between engineer/producer Fab Dupont and Lauten Audio. Dupont wanted a modern vocal microphone, with multiple timbres that could tackle any vocal challenge, that idea became the Atlantis, model FC-387. On release of the Atlantis in 2012, Fab said, “I need a microphone that can be custom tailored for recording female vocalists, so that when they start belting on a chorus – my eyes don’t hurt!”
Since that initial demo of the Atlantis, Thorp added a pair to his own collection. “I’ve now used them on drums, vocals, background vocals, and guitars,” says Thorp. “I recently used Atlantis on snare; turned it to the ‘Forward’ setting, holy crap, the snare was really snappy and bright - perfect for the song. I like it on back-ground vocals in Omni mode.” In addition to having the Multi-voicing switch, Atlantis also features Cardioid, Figure-of-eight, and Omni-directional polar patterns, as well as a +10 gain, and -10dB pad.
“It’s been great in the mix,” Thorp told Loudenslager, “Man, I am a believer. You have a great product here!”
Lauten Audio
www.lautenaudio.com
Darrell Thorp
www.darrellthorp.com
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