Aston Microphones Element Condenser Microphone With Shockmount & Pop-Filter- Black Overview:

Aston Microphones ElementI think it’s safe to say that the Element’s design process was a first in the world of microphone development. While Aston normally asks around 600 industry professionals to participate in blind listening tests for a new microphone, the manufacturer opened up this process to the general public for the Element. In three rounds of testing, various prototypes went up against well-established microphones from brands like Neumann, AKG and Rode. The results are finally in and Aston has now opened pre-orders.The Element features Aston’s newly developed Ridyon capsule with a cardiod side-fire polar pattern. According to the manufacturer, a lot of testing went into the design of the acoustic housing. The capsule is designed to combine the advantages of the three major types of microphones. It uses an active moving coil diaphragm powered via phantom power. Aston claims that this gives you the sensitivity of a condenser, the bass response and rejection capabilities of a dynamic mic and the natural sound of a ribbon.According to the manufacturer, the final prototype of the Element outperformed entry-level microphones from Neumann and AKG on male and female vocals in the final round of blind testing. If the Element delivers what it promises at its price point, I think that Aston’s experiment can be called a success!The Aston Element bundle includes a custom-designed shock mount and a magnetic pop filter.The world’s first customer-designed microphoneWhile other companies, particularly in the software sector, invite their customers to become beta-testers, this is invariably to check a product which is pretty-much already finished. It’s just checking for bugs. Never before in the audio industry has the actual SOUND of a product been decided by the eventual users from the early stages of development.We took the Aston Element to prototype stage, so we had the chassis and the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the electronics in place, but the most important stage of all, the voicing – which gives each mic out there its own character and distinguishes it from all the others – has been left to you.By participating in Project Element, thousands of musicians, engineers and producers from all over the world, have had their say in the final heart and soul of this unique and beautiful microphone.