Nordic Audio Labs "Black Pearl"

I like to think that a good mic should work on lots of sources but, a great mic should sound great on everything. If this is the case, then Nordic Audio's "Black Pearl" certainly fits the bill

I first heard about Martin Kantola and his microphones in Bruce Swedien's book "In the Studio with Michael Jackson". Described by Bruce as one of the best microphone designers in the world, I was excited to hear that he would be teaching microphone technique at Bruce's "Critical Listening Seminar" It was at this seminar that Martin showed us some of his new prototypes and let us A/B them against some of the heavy hitters in Bruce's own collection. As you can imagine, we were all blown when these mics sounded as good or better than Bruce's vintage Neumanns, but even then i have to say that i was a little skeptical. After all we were hearing them in Bruce's fantastic control room through his Westlake monitors. It wasn't until Martin brought a couple of his mics to our modest studio that we lost our minds. Martin setup a pair of "Black Pearls" in the tracking room and after 3 hours of auditioning different sources, we had all officially lost our minds. I think the most common statements were "It sounds better in the control room than it does in the tracking room" and "wow, those drums sound better than anything we've ever mixed. The ability to hear all frequencies without emphasis yet with a clarity that i haven't witnessed before or since. And dynamics! Wow, these mics respond to percussion instruments like ribbons! Now some of you might acuse me of being a fanboy..... well that is absolutely the case. I wake up every morning thankful to Martin for making a microphone that makes my job easy and fun every time. I would be happy to trade every pair of mics in my locker (including my vintage u87) for a pair of "Pearls". I'm sure when you hear them you'll feel the same.