George Massenburg Discovers a Sanken Classic - The CU-44X Condenser

George Massenberg in the studio with his Sanken CU-44X Condenser Microphone.

Renowned producer/engineer George Massenburg recently employed the Sanken CU-44X microphone for much of the new album from 12-year old Canadian prodigy Aselin Debison. Co-produced with Peter Asher, the critically acclaimed "Sweet Is The Melody" showcases the young folk/country artist with that unmistakeable Massenburg touch. "I recorded almost everything with a pair of Sanken CU-44Xs," explained Massenburg. "It's simply a classic microphone that seems to have been overlooked amidst the plethora of new mics on the market these days." The CU-44X houses a unique dual-diaphragm design, producing a natural, uncolored sound well-suited to Massenburg's signature realistic production style. The titanium diaphragms are virtually impervious to temperature and humidity changes, making it ideal for matching sounds from session to session. The transformerless output provides an extremely fast transient response suited to today's hi-end digital technology, bottom to top.

Massenburg elaborated on the use of the Sanken mic: "On acoustic guitar, the CU-44X has incredible range, a big flat low-end, fantastic high-end -- from any perspective, flat, clean and very extended. For Aselin's vocals it was superb, transparent, and gave me great clarity and range. Percussion -- fast and clean. Drum overhead miking was clean and linear and no low-end mush. A nice, useful cardioid pattern. For strings, this microphone outshines even the honored benchmark mics of the past. Acoustic piano -- a big sound, well-separated tones, clean high-end, warm low-end, and nice attack. The high frequency response of this mic is unbelievable -- best I've heard, and ready for the 96kHz sampling future.

About George Massenburg

Multiple Grammy and TEC Award-winner George Massenburg is an internationally renowned producer, recording engineer and designer of audio equipment -- a man in love with music, the art of sound reproduction and the recording process. In a career spanning over 30 years, he has worked with such artists as Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Kenny Loggins, Journey, Phil Collins, Toto, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, James Taylor, Little Feat, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, Carly Simon, and Earth, Wind and Fire. He has been nominated many times for the non-classical engineering Grammy, for Record or Album Of The Year in several years, and has won Grammys as producer for Linda Ronstadt's 1996 "Dedicated To The One I Love" and another for Best Engineered Non-Classical Record in 1990, for Linda Ronstadt's "Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind." In 1998 he received the Technical Grammy for Technical Achievement. He also won the Academy of Country Music award for Record Of The Year in 1988 (for "The Trio"). In 1989, he received the Mix Magazine TEC Awards for Producer and Engineer Of The Year (for Little Feat), as well as Engineer Of The Year Award (for Linda Ronstadt) in 1991, and 1992 (for Lyle Lovett). Massenburg has been responsible for engineering some of the most respected recordings of the modern era, as well as creating that mainstay of the recording process, the parametric equalizer. He is currently a member of The National Recording Preservation Board, Library of Congress, is Chairman of the Audio Engineering Society Technical Committee on Studio Practices and Production, and is Co-chairman of the Deliveries Recommendation Committee of NARAS' P&E Wing.

About Sanken

Sanken manufactures a complete line of high quality studio and location microphones, including the popular COS-11s lavalier model, the extended frequency CS-3e shotgun model, the CO-Z Omni Condenser, and the CMS-10, world's first Hi-Def camera mount stereo shotgun microphone.