A Look At The Abbey Road Microphone Collection

Grammy-winning engineer Sylvia Massy is on a quest to write the ultimate book on microphones, and it’s taken her all around the world to find both historical artifacts on microphone design and the designers themselves. One stop was to the famed Abbey Road Studios for a look at their totally unique collection of mics.

In this video Sylvia speaks with Abbey Road’s microphone custodian Lester Smith who overseas the more than 800 mics in the studio’s collection. They speak about the amazing detail that goes into their maintenance, testing with a noise gun, the AKG D19s famously used on Ringo’s drums, the AKG D30 (only 2 left in existence), EMI RM-1B ribbon mic, STC 4038 and 4033, U47s and 48s, EMI HB-1B, M49/KM56 stereo recording frame, and what it takes for a new mic to be accepted by Abbey Road.

Totally fascinating. Enjoy!