Mojave Audio is the company founded by Technical Grammy Award winning David Royer, widely known for his ribbon microphone designs with Royer Labs. Mojave originally got its start with David Royer as a one-man pro audio shop designing custom vacuum tube condenser mics, preamps, and compressors for engineers in the Los Angeles area.
According to the boutique microphone manufacturer, the new virtual showroom project is the result of an ongoing relationship with Audio Test Kitchen, born during its early R&D phase, and the fact that Mojave has been one of the first companies to integrate ATK’s Player into its website.
The partnership grew out of Mojave’s participation with Audio Test Kitchen, an ambitious website loaded with a 13,000-audio-file database designed to be the ultimate ‘virtual showroom’ for microphones. ATK founder Alex Oana started the project in 2018 as a way for audio professionals to more objectively compare the sound of microphones, with various sound tests designed to clearly illustrate the similarities and differences between them.
ATK currently boasts more than 300 microphones from 54 manufacturers. Mojave Audio was one of the first brands ATK reached out to for input on how to best reveal the characteristics of LDC microphones in comparison recordings.
"They were one of the first calls we made when we began testing the idea out-loud with manufacturers — as music and audio guys I knew they would understand what we were trying to accomplish," says Oana. "They’ve always been fearless when it comes to entering their microphones in ‘shoot-outs’, and more importantly they were as interested as we were to see what could be learned."
"Ultimately ATK is designed to empower and educate the listener by putting unbiased, standardized instrument and vocal recordings at their fingertips for them to compare on whatever microphones they’re curious about. It’s hard to orient yourself to even the finest example recordings in a vacuum. It’s really through comparison – under identical conditions – that we learn. With Mojave, for example, by being able to compare all their products side-by-side I learned that there’s a ‘Mojave character’ – which is world-class – present across their entire lineup.”
Each microphone in the Mojave lineup is integrated into the player with access to specs, frequency comparison visuals, and a ‘Listening Guide’ designed to guide users through their various strengths and recommend use cases. Most importantly, the online application offers the ability to load up three microphone profiles at once and compare them with the provided sound clips for the ultimate hearing ‘taste test’. ‘Blind Mode’ can also be engaged to randomize these choices, thus encouraging users to choose what is best for their needs based on sound alone.
“At Mojave we’ve always been more moved by the sound than model numbers or ‘mojo’,” says Mojave Audio President Dusty Wakeman, "Using this player will allow our customers to trust their own ears and make the choice that is right for them so that they can get back to what’s most important — making music!"
www.audiotestkitchen.com
www.mojaveaudio.com
