Martin Mitchell – Marimba

...until last week I had never recorded a Marimba. What an amazing instrument!

Martin Mitchell wrote about why he chose to use a Valkyr Stereo Ribbon microphone to record 18 year old percussionist, Darcy Beck, winner of Gloucestershire Young Musician of The Year 2020, performing ‘Prism’ on the Marimba.

Darcy Beck was always fascinated by the sounds of instruments coming from the back of the orchestra and so began her career as a percussionist. Her spell-binding marimba set earned her the county’s Young Musician of the Year award for 2020. She is the first percussionist to do so.

Martin Mitchell recorded the performance. “In many respects a ribbon microphone has the best of both worlds. Being a variety of dynamic it can pack a great deal of attack and ‘punch’ and on the other hand has an incredibly light diaphragm (ribbon) which can react to transients and fine detail with incredible precision. There is also an intangible ‘smoothness’ to ribbons that even the best condensers just don’t seem to have.”

Read the Martin’s full article here

March 17, 2020