Mabel – Multi-Pattern Condenser Mic

Mabel is a hand-built multi-pattern condenser microphone designed primarily for studio use on demanding sources like acoustic instruments, drum overheads, and vocals. Mabel features a unique copper-ringed head basket with brass grill work, held in a pivoting mount in a stainless-steel yoke, and a copper-and-brass body. The design is both visually stunning and extremely practical, as the pivoting head makes for easy positioning adjustments.

She uses two fixed-cardioid electret medium-large diaphragm (26mm) condenser capsules, individually tested and selected to match each other and strict design criteria. The circuit is a transformerless FET with fully balanced output, incorporating thorough EMI protection. Other electrical components in the signal path are highest quality metal film resistors, polypropylene and polystyrene capacitors, and individually tested, hand-matched and biased transistors and JFETs.

The dual-cardioid-capsule design is an uncommon approach to a multi-pattern mic. It has advantages in an especially deep null at the sides of the figure 8 pattern and greater control over the directional frequency response across all the patterns. The circuit includes high frequency EQ tuned to the capsules to provide a very smooth high end. The response is very flat, with full low end and controlled high end, with response dropping above 14K.