You're Invited (Chicago): EARS meets Oliver Archut 5/29/12

[Traveler001]

If you love that vintage Telefunken/Neumann/AKG sound, and want to be blown away, you don't want to miss this!!

EARS MEETS OLIVER ARCHUT
AND BLACKSPADE ACOUSTICS

TUESDAY, MAY 29TH 7:30pm

@ RAX TRAX RECORDING
3126 NORTH GREENVIEW
CHICAGO, IL 60657 (773) 871-6566


EARS EVENT QUICK FACTS:

- This event is open to EARS Members and non-members alike.
- Start time = 7:30 p.m.
- Light food fare and adult beverages will be served.
- ALL EARS membership dues are due as of October 25th, 2011.
- If you haven't already, we hope you will consider joining or renewing.
- You can join or renew your membership at the event itself OR...
- You can also join or renew anytime by clicking HERE: http://www.ears-chicago.org/membership_gateway.html


EARS meets on Tuesday, May 29th, 2012 for a very special listening party hosted by Blackspade Acoustics and Rax Trax Recording Studios. We will be meeting Oliver Archut, the acclaimed designer of Blackspade mics who will be sharing with us a relevant technical presentation of these microphones and their fascinating link with historic Telefunken designs. Of course, we will get to hear for ourselves what these beautiful mics can do, and will be enjoying some fun A/B listening as well (On deck are a FLEA 49, 47, and Bock Audio 251 to name a few).

See Blackspade mics at http://bspade.com/

Lured by pro audio?s siren song at age 12, by the time he was 21 Oliver Archut was employed by AEG Telefunken Daimler Benz. In 1941, Siemens transferred its shares in Telefunken over to AEG. This agreement came to be known as the ?Telefunken Settlement? and made AEG the sole owner of Telefunken and any of its remaining patents. During that time, Telefunken employed some of the finest engineers who pioneered many historic tube and transformer technologies. Oliver sought out many of those designers and developed ongoing friendships with them, which he maintained after he moved to the U.S.

One day a very pivotal moment occurred. Oliver was working at the former Telefunken archives when they decided to toss all of their osbolete schematics, spec sheets, and manufacturing manuals into the dumpster. After retreiving them he was given the OK from his boss to keep everything, as Telefunken AG had its sights set on newer technology. It was at that point that Oliver became interested in understanding how all of these highly prized vintage components actually work. This research plus his personal relations with the older designers fueled Oliver?s own creations, including the Blackspade mics.

For more background on Telefunken, visit: http://www.tab-funkenwerk.com/id42.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telefunken

The Mics:

Blackspade?s UM17 has been developed over the last 20 years by Oliver. It began as a proprietary mod Oliver designed. A version of that mod was licensed to TELEFUNKEN Elektroakustik by AMI for the AK47. That license expired in 2009, and AMI became free to use it in other products. Soon Oliver and AMI were working together on the Blackspade line. Additional modifications to the original circuit were implemented, and the results were the Blackspade UM17 and UM17R. With the new mods in place, the mic is described as a blend of the famed U47 and M49 designs.
See here: http://bspade.com/UM17R.htm

The Blackspade UM25 is Oliver's interpretation of the classic Ela M251. There are some minor changes to the circuit to accommodate the tube used and to incorporate modern relays for the switching mechanism. The goal of the mic was to get as close to the sound of the historic Ela M251 without putting costs in for the sole purpose of making an exact replica. The resulting quality mic will totally delight you and sells for half the price of other similar products.
Link: http://bspade.com/UM25C.htm

Their V series pre-amplifiers are based on original specs of the historic V72s, made by
Siemens under the Telefunken brand. http://www.tab-funkenwerk.com/id9.html

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Feel free to forward this invitation to those who might be interested in attending.

http://www.ears-chicago.org/eardrum/may ... _2012.html

In addition: EARS (Engineering And Recording Society of Chicago) has been building an EARS Facebook Fan Page that is growing at an amazingly fast pace since its inception. Presently, we?re more than 1800 members strong and expect to be well beyond that by the end of the year. This is an open forum group that allows members and non-members alike to network and interface in many areas including, but not limited to the music industry, the media arts, fines arts and academia. Presently, the EARS Page has attracted many award winning creative people of our industry including producers, engineers, mixers, artists, music industry execs, managers, label execs, photographers, publishers, Cyberpunk Cowboys, and, most importantly, musicians, as well as students ...and the list goes on and on.


Find us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/EARS-Eng ... 4458785530

Eric Roth
President
Engineering and Recording Society of Chicago