DARK BY DESIGN

A mic’s performance on acoustic guitar is always telling. The first time I plugged the LS-308 in was to record my Martin acoustic. A deep, warm and rich tone leapt from my monitors upon playback of the first test recording, which I put little effort into as far as mic positioning goes – about 15cm pointing off axis at the twelfth fret. My immediate impression was that it sounded like a ribbon microphone with a characterful and understated top end, yet without lacking detail. I’ve recorded my guitar through many, many microphones over the years, but I genuinely think the LS-308 produced the most instantly pleasing recorded tone I’ve ever heard.

I’ll admit that could be because I’m a little tired of super-bright acoustic guitar recordings. My next favourite acoustic guitar option is a Royer R-10 ribbon mic, and that’s saying something of the Lauten. Don’t expect sizzling highs or lots of ‘air’ from the LS-308 – it’s a dark sounding mic. You’ll see the pronounced downward slope from 4kHz plunges steeply at 15kHz. That’s the tradeoff for superior isolation characteristics. 

Partly for this reason, the LS-308 favours low end – I’d even go as far to say ‘bass heavy’ – and it pays to be conscious of its proclivity to emphasise rumbly frequencies when tracking certain instruments. For example, I couldn’t place it anywhere near the soundhole of my acoustic guitar or else pounding lows would hijack the recording. Vocals too – a mild plosive easily overwhelms the capsule.

BASS-IC TRAITS

Of course, this low-end leaning can be taken advantage of, which for me, led to exceptional results. I poked it into the soundhole of a cajon to catch as much boom as possible. The Lauten didn’t disappoint, yielding smooth and tight sub-rattling bass which was a perfect complement to the dynamic mic I aimed at the snare wires end of the cajon. 

The same effect worked a treat on the high gain channel of a small tube amp. Thanks to the diminished high end, all that nasty fizz that can ruin a distortion guitar tone was outright ignored and instead I ended up with a flattering, chug-happy tone that made the amp sound deceptively beefier than it really is. 

In all cases where I didn’t want sub frequencies (i.e. most of the time), I kept the mic’s high pass filter engaged on the 120Hz setting although there’s a 50Hz option too. Two low-pass filters at 8kHz and 10kHz give you more options which are handy when tracking extra bright sources like strings, cymbals or wind instruments. I find it interesting that Lauten Audio built these LPFs into the LS-308, essentially to make an already dark mic sound even darker. A high shelf boost may have made the mic more versatile. But it shows Lauten is secure in their decision to make the LS-308 more of a niche product rather than a jack of all trades.

In all my tests, the mic’s isolation properties were evident. I made several recordings in an untreated, boxy-sounding room in my house but with the LS-308 you’d never know. The value of this extends all the way from untreated home studio rooms to live recordings with a full band to sessions on location.

FIT THE ROLE

On vocals, the Lauten Audio LS-308 produces a warm tone not dissimilar to a dynamic podcasting microphone like a Shure SM7B or EV RE20. The big low end gives a broadcast-y vibe to spoken word while harsh sibilance and gritty trebles are tamed by the capsule’s inherently muted high end. As mentioned, the mic is incredibly prone to plosives so I highly recommend using a quality pop filter for any voice recording application. Be aware, the lack of highs can make a voice sound woolly and dead when unprocessed. Only after a substantial 8-12dB high-shelf boost around 12kHz did the high end begin to match the sound of some of my other mics. After a few weeks with the LS-308, I arrived at the conclusion that its forte is on instruments rather than vocals. 

We all love our ‘Swiss army knife’ mics but the LS-308 isn’t meant to be one – it’s a ‘match the tool to the job’ mic. It excels on bright sources that risk sounding thin and brittle when captured by more conventional condensers. In a live recording scenario, the LS-308 will impressively reject bleed from around the room. And that bold bass response will give your subwoofer a workout on kicks and bass amps. Solid build quality and good manoeuvrability set it up for success in the tracking room. From bedroom recordists to studio professionals, the Lauten Audio LS-308 will be a terrific addition to the mic collection.

MORE OR LESS

Perhaps less striking but still quite significant is the three-position gain switch. The middle position is neutral or you can opt to cut or boost gain to the capsule by 10dB. The cut is a fairly standard feature on many mics but the boost is much more unusual and allows the user to not only boost low output sources but also to push the input circuitry of the preamp downstream. More gain structure options means more ability to shape a source’s character and the gain boost allows for some interesting saturation and distortion possibilities. Combining the voicing and gain switching capabilities of the Atlantis means a great many tonal effects are available, and experimentation can lead to wonderful and quite unique results not readily available via other microphones.

FIRST BASS

The Atlantis had not long been out of its box when I roped it into some session work on a singer-songwriter project. Its first job was actually one of the most challenging applications to be found in my studio, namely recording my old double bass. This is a slightly banged up but beautiful instrument left to me by a friend who sadly passed away and, despite a tone that is annoyingly hard to capture in recordings, it will continue to be my instrument of choice. It sounds good in the room but when recorded lacks clarity, especially in the upper frequencies. I’ve used absolutely every mic and mic placement under the sun to try and get this bass to shine, including very expensive, through to very cheap condensers, ribbons and dynamics and many combinations of the above. In every case I’ve ended up with a tone that is warm but lacks presence and often ends up needing a lot of EQ and compression to help it along. I plugged the Atlantis into my go-to preamp, the Retro Powerstrip, placed it about four feet out in front of the bass pointing around where the neck meets the body, set it to omni in Forward mode (to capture more of that elusive definition) with no gain modification, said a quick prayer and hit record. Listening back, my jaw nearly hit the floor as I finally heard the sound I’d been chasing all this time. Nice chunky bottom end and lower midrange complemented by a clear and defined top end. The sound had a cohesion and integrity to it that I’d never heard from this instrument in this room before… hallelujah! 

TESTING TIMES

From this experience I immediately understood that the Atlantis FC-387 was something that could reach into sonic corners where other mics perhaps couldn’t and I was very keen to hear it on more sources. This ability was later confirmed for me when the Atlantis also delivered excellent results on my two other ‘problem’ instruments: the high-strung arch-top guitar and the Chinese violin. 

Over the following days and weeks the Atlantis and I covered a lot of ground. Could it do a nice earthy piano sound? Tick. Could it capture the energy and the subtleties of a valve amp played at volume? Tick. Male and female lead and backing vocals? Tick, tick. Acoustic guitar? Percussion? Strings? Tick, tick, tick. Okay, you get the picture. Everything I tried it on came up really nicely and I always felt that I was being given something extremely usable with a consistently pleasing sonic signature centred around a sweet lower midrange, whether that be ‘wood’ in an acoustic guitar, or percussive thump in that old double bass.

CHARACTER WITNESS

The Atlantis is not a transparent mic nor does it aspire to be one. It definitely has its own colouration and tonal signature in all three voicings. The sound of the Atlantis FC-387 is thick, rich, gutsy and characterful and there’s none of that metallic zing that plagues the sonics of many a cheaper condenser on the market. There’s a realism that the Atlantis delivers which, to my ears, makes the whole process of recording very satisfying. Where you need that realism, the Neutral setting and a gentle gain structure deliver a lovely meaty tone with full-spectrum detail but no harshness. Where you need old-school body and depth, you can roll things off a little via the Gentle setting and get some ribbon-like smoothness. If you need crunch and attitude, the Forward and +10dB settings really take you there. 

The mic takes EQ and compression well and multiple overdubs stack very nicely without any exaggerated tonal build-ups. I really like the omni polar pattern on this mic too. It seemed to represent my room in a very flattering way while the cardioid kept things fairly tight and focussed. The figure-8 delivered excellent side-lobe rejection and a more noticeable proximity effect which can be handy on certain sources. 

On vocals the choices available for tuning the mic to the singer worked really well and I could as easily record a soft indie-folk male singer as I could a sassy female soul voice. Another big tick in the box is this mic’s ability in drum room applications. I captured a fantastically energetic sound with all the stops out (Forward tone, +10dB gain) using the omni polar pattern and just needed a little kick and snare to get a great overall drum sound that sat perfectly in the mix. 

DESERT ISLAND MIC?

Lauten has done much more than offer a viable alternative or update to older FET designs. It’s basically re-invented the large diaphragm FET condenser as a super versatile studio beast, replete with some extremely handy tone-shaping features that give the Atlantis FC-387 tremendous range as a recording tool. While it is a great all-rounder, its characterful tones are really enhanced in context with other contrasting mics such as valve condensers and dynamics. I’m extremely reluctant to return the review mic as it’s very quickly become a favourite here, and time and again has proved to be the archetypal ‘tool I didn’t know I needed’. The fact is that the Lauten Audio Atlantis FC-387 is a genuinely great-sounding microphone that, with its robust tones and versatility, is perfectly adapted to 21st century digital recording.