Warm Audio Fen-Tone WA-FT ribbon microphone

EVEN THE MOST modest home studio should have a decent variety of microphones at its disposal. The proliferation of high-quality, inexpensive condenser and dynamic mics introduced over the last few decades has helped aspiring engineers reach this goal somewhat. However, many studios still lack a ribbon microphone, which is a versatile mic for capturing great sounding recordings in numerous applications, particularly miking guitar cabinets.

- By Chris Gill

Until recently, ribbon mics were rather expensive, required a high-quality, high-gain mic preamp and were notoriously fragile and unable to handle high sound-pressure levels (SPL). Warm Audio’s new Fen-Tone WA-FT selectable passive/active ribbon mic combines classic, compact, pencil-style ribbon mic design with modern features like a built-in selectable +26dB in-line preamp/ gain-lifter, custom Japanese 1.8-microns thick aluminum ribbon, Neodymium magnets, USA-made Cinemag transformer and the ability to handle high SPLs up to 148dB.

Usability & Build Quality

Ribbon mics typically feature a figure-8 polar pattern, and the Fen-Tone is no exception. The ribbon element picks up sound from the front and the back while eliminating sound coming from the sides, which makes it great for applications like miking a guitar cabinet and simultaneously capturing the room sound or recording two acoustic guitarists facing each other. Unlike the figure-8 patterns on many ribbon mics that have “bright” and “dark” sides, the Fen-Tone’s central ribbon placement provides consistent sound quality on either side.