“Yesterday's charm, today's precision”
Antti Sakari Saario · Focal Press eBooks · 2024
Transducers play a fundamental role in recorded sound production, and microphone choices are often limited to ‘classic’ models and their modern reinterpretations. The chapter maps Finnish transducer designer Martin B. Kantola’s pursuit to create a ‘new classic’, and a new ‘class’ of a microphone with the NU-100K large diaphragm condenser microphone. Kantola’s transducer quest is mapped as a Deleuzian ‘de-designing’ of the iconic Neumann U 47 large diaphragm tube condenser microphone. Kantola’s design thinking is characterised by nomadic affectivity, where the affective dimension of the transduction and the affinity of transduction to the sonic experience are valued over technical correctness or accuracy of transduction and where microphones and loudspeakers form a system of affective tools or portals that shape and affect both the sounding and listening bodies. The work introduces the idea of affective-critical listening as a key element in Kantola’s ‘voicing’ of transducers, and the chapter concludes by discussing the affective nature of microphones and loudspeakers as tools that shape both the technical and experiential aspects of transduction and how Kantola’s innovation disrupts traditional design processes. The chapter draws from the author’s interviews with Kantola, a site visit to Nordic Audio Labs, historical-contextual research, and microphone user feedback, to examine and situate Kantola’s approach to and innovation in microphone design.