A few months ago a friend of mine (who has a habit of buying anything cheap just to see what it will do) purchased a pair of Cascade Fat Head II mics.  Since I had no experience with ribbon mics at the time (and he was busy recording a live show) I picked them up to see what they sounded like. The mic comes in an aluminum case that has inside a very good universal shock-mount, cleaning cloth and a very nice wooden box for the mic. The mic itself seems to be well made (and looks good to boot) - a great package especially for two hundred dollars! Like most ribbons, the Fat Head II is bidirectional (figure 8) and should not have phantom power applied to them (although the manufacturer now claims these mics are phantom-safe).  Ribbon elements don't  like wind blasts, so use a pop screen if you record vocals with it. Unlike most ribbons, the Fat Head II has a max SPL of 165 db, so there's no problem with recording the guitar stack of doom here.  Something else that seems to be unique to these mics compared to...

Read More »