Radio and television live broadcast chief sound engineer Raul Velez at Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation (San Francisco) has recently upgraded the studio that's home to stations KSOL/KSQL and KMER. Part of this upgrade was the purchase of seven additional TLM 103 microphones, bringing the number of 103s to 14.
"My predecessor at the station turned me on to this mic, and I'm phasing out all of the other mics that the station had in favor of these," Velez said. "The 103 is about 95-percent perfect for this market." With the spoken word as the primary audio source, Velez said radio stations need mics that can straddle a fine line in vocal reproduction. "They're accurate enough to capture the spoken word and still retain a bit of warmth to them to where they're not an 'edgy' mic," he said. "The 103s deliver clarity and detail without having a muffled or fat sound. It's that good, clean sound Neumann is famous for, plus the talent really likes working with them."
Velez also said that the 103s are easy to set up and require little tweaking. "I use minimal processing in my productions, partly because these mics sound so good right out of the box, and are so consistent from mic to mic."
The mics were purhcased from Oakland, Calif.-based Leo's Pro Audio. "Mark Haynes, who I've worked with for years at Leo's, knew the 103s would fit the bill," Velez commented.
For more on the 103s, visit Neumann online at www.neumannusa.com.