Sweetwater Internship Post 8 - 4/13/2021

Alex Kerns
Apr 13, 2021
2 min read

Alas, all great things must come to an end. My internship at Sweetwater Studios is now officially over, however I would like to make one last post to close out the experience, and possibly one or two more in the future describing some projects that I worked on which I could not talk about since they are to remain confidential until they are published.

One of the things I can finally share with you, is that the “very special guest” I mentioned in my last blog post was actually Ray Luzier, the drummer from Korn! He came in to the studios at Sweetwater to make some videos with the new Sweetwater-Exclusive President Series Pearl kit, as well as play some extra stuff for us to make some content with. I had tons of fun setting up for this session as well as meeting Ray. He’s a great guy and a spectacular drummer, so it really was a treat getting to work with him. He even gave me a personally-signed photo from his photoshoot while he was here!

His whole production is certainly one I will remember for years to come, and I hope I’ll get to meet him again sometime. Here’s what his setup looked like in Sweetwater’s studio A, as well as a quick video I got of him jamming out before the shoot!

In similar fashion of past posts, I’d like to share another awesome microphone at Sweetwater that I had the opportunity to witness. AEA is a company that began by servicing and repairing RCA microphones, specifically the RCA 44. Over time, they began to make more and more parts for the RCA 44 that they were able to essentially make their own, which is precisely what they did. That’s how AEA was born, but their impact doesn’t stop there. They are still manufacturing and developing ribbon microphones to this day! One such microphone that sticks out among the rest is the AEA R88.

Using two ribbon diaphragms, the R88 is a stereo ribbon microphone which utilizes the blumlein technique in order to produce a stereo image. It works remarkably well as a room microphone, or even as drum overheads. You can also use it to record acoustic guitar or other instruments that might benefit from a stereo image. If you’ve been reading my blogs thus far, you’ll recall that I enjoy finding early serial numbers on microphones, and at Sweetwater they have the R88 with serial number 0004, making it the fourth R88 off the line of production. Such a special microphone should be considered an important possession, not to mention that it’s the fourth ever made! Sweetwater evidently has some awesome gear that holds history in every piece.