Manufacturing Pro Audio Equipment

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Manufacturing pro audio equipment was never really part of my
plan, but it has become one of the most gratifying aspects of my
career in music recording.


It wasn’t until around 2011 when a documentary video about me was
made that I realized how all the pieces came together, resulting
in my career in recording, and in designing products for the
studio. In retrospect, it seems totally logical.


In this episode, I talk about some of those influences, including
my early experience as a teenage business owner. I explain how my
desire to improve the quality of my recordings led me to the
design of the VT-1, the single-channel vacuum tube mic preamp
that became the first D.W. Fearn product.


I talk about how I made the transition from the pre-internet days
of mailing lists and magazine ads to my first company web site. I
had to learn the details of manufacturing, shipping
internationally, and setting up dealers to sell my products.


And, of course there were the details of design, beyond the
circuit and into the esthetics of gear and user ergonomics.


I hope you will enjoy hearing about my journey. And if you are
thinking about starting a company, perhaps my story will be
helpful to you.


Your email is valuable to me, so keep it coming.


And as I approach a full year of doing this podcast, I want to
ask your help in building the audience. Frankly, I’m happy to do
this even if only a few people benefit from it. But producing
this podcast takes up about half my working hours, so for me to
feel motivated to keep going, I’d like to find more subscribers.
If you would share your enthusiasm for this podcast with your
social media contacts, or your real-world colleagues, I would
appreciate it. Thanks.


Technical details for this episode: I wanted to get a 
better understanding of the RF condenser microphone sound, so I
used a newly-acquired Sennheiser MKH8050 Hypercardiod mic. That
went into a D.W. Fearn VT-2 mic preamp, VT-4 Equalizer, and VT-7
Compressor. The mic is about 24 inches away, and off axis, since
it is easily popped. No pop filter was used. The eq was set for
4dB of shelving roll-off at 40Hz, and 2dB of shelving high-cut at
10kHz. I found that I needed the high cut to reduce the high-end
boost inherent in condenser microphones. The low cut compensates
for the proximity effect of most directional miscs. The audio
went through a Merging Technologies Hapi converter and was
recorded using Pyramix DAW at 24-bit, 96kHz sample rate. Of
course, the podcast format is a 96kb/s MP3, but the higher
resolution capture results in a better translation to the MP3
format.


email: dwfearn@dwfearn.com
www.youtube.com/c/DWFearn
https://dwfearn.com/