joaoveludo@gmail.com

16/Tape Op#103/Mr. Villella/(Fin.)
Right. The 3 Zigma line has been on the road with Wynton Marsalis for three and a half years
now. They’ve been battle-tested on tour. Our C-LOL-67 lollipop won his quest for the best
saxophone mic. There are about five factories in China putting out about 90 percent of the
microphones in the world today. They may have different brands, but it’s pretty much off
the shelf. ADK doesn’t do business with any of those factories. If you open our microphones
up, you see those giant Wima capacitors. If you look at our high-end mics, we designed the
capsules for them. We put the DNA of the five greatest historical mics into that capsule
design. You don’t need a bunch of extra EQ circuitry to get a tone.
Some mics definitely pull out details in the high-end range that
add clarity, without being shrill.
Right. The real key that we’ve found in our five year saga of developing a capsule is that, with most
everything coming from China, if you put it on a high resolution response curve you see these
little peaky, jagged, sawtooth looking things. It’s not a smooth curve. That’s hell when you’re trying
to EQ, because you want to boost somewhere around 10 kHz, and this one little peak just
skyrockets. There’s that grainy, tizzy, harsh, edgy thing. That’s why we spend all that time
developing our own capsules, to get broadband bell curves, without the jagged edges. That’s why,
if you want a brilliant mic, our C 12 and 251 flavors are brilliant, without harshness. I think that’s
the key. That’s really the heart and soul of what I try to do, to have the microphones be musical.
So how does the company work, at this point?
We have three factories. There’s the factory that we had built for our high-end 3 Zigma in Asia.
We have a factory that builds our entry-level mics; it’s ISO 9000 and so clean you could eat
off the floor. We also have a small factory near Seattle where we build our high-end products.
The mic you have [Z-67] was handcrafted in the USA. Eighty-five percent of the components,
and 90 percent of the labor, is American or European.
People might not know this.
It’s handcrafted in the USA, and by dollars, 85 percent of the components in there (like the
Lundahl transformer from Sweden) are European, American, or British.
With three different manufacturing locations, is there a
warehouse somewhere? How do you deal with quality control
and shipping?
I have a warehouse in Tacoma, WA. I ship almost everything from there.
What makes ADK unique?
If I have achieved anything, it’s because I’ve been open to criticism. As I said, with Chuck
Ainlay, I gave him mics for 15 years and got criticism and feedback. If I’ve got any strength,
it’s that I’m just a little guy at the hub of a big wheel with spokes going in many directions.
I’m trying to do what I was trained to do in 1971 as a recording engineer – listen. r
joaoveludo@gmail.com