263. Mike Dias Returns To Talk IEMs & Microphones

Veteran audio professional Mike Dias picks up where he left off with last week (in Episode 262), digging into the other side of his career in the worlds of in-ear monitors and microphones. He spends time addressing and demystifying some myths about IEM technology, discusses why we each tend to favor a brand and/or types of IEMs that we do, and digs into changes with the Earthworks mic lineup over last few years. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

When Mike isn’t selling microphones (as a management coach and consultant for Earthworks) and serving as the executive director of the In-Ear Monitor International Trade Organization, he writes and speaks about “What Entertainers Can Teach Executives” and “Why Nobody Likes Networking.” He offers personalized experiential keynotes and workshops for conference and event attendees.

In fact, Mike is generously offering his “Nobody Likes Networking” workshop — which he’s previously charged $50 per student — for free to Signal to Noise listeners. The online workshop will take place as three short sessions on Monday 8/19, 8/26, and 9/2 at 2 pm U.S. ET. See below for details on the workshop and how to sign up, and we hope to see you there! (Register here)

Episode Links:
Register For The Nobody Likes Networking Workshop
Nobody Likes Networking Website
Networking from Six Feet
Mike Dias Speaks Website (Coming Soon)
Mike On LinkedIn
Episode 263 Transcript

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The Signal To Noise Podcast on ProSoundWeb is co-hosted by pro audio veterans Andy Leviss and Sean Walker.

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Transcript

Episode 263 - Mike Dias on IEMs and Earthworks Mics


Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, introducing their new CQ series, a trio of compact digital mixers for musicians, bands, audio engineers, home producers, small venues, and installers that puts ease of use and speed of setup at the heart of the user experience.

RCF, who has just unveiled their new TT+ Audio brand, including the high performance GTX series line arrays and the GTS29 subwoofer. Be sure to check it out at rcf-usa.com. That's rcf-usa.com.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green


Andy Leviss: Hey, you're listening to another episode of Signal and Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and in a moment, we'll be picking up where we left off last episode in our conversation with Mike Dias. That said, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, you might want to queue that one up too. It's episode 262. 

You don't necessarily have to have listened to it before this episode, other than it gives you a little bit of background on who Mike is. But the subjects we're talking about this week are totally different from the ones last week, so you don't have to have necessarily listened to it first. That said, I think everybody should go listen to it if they haven't already at some point, because we dig into one of Mike's particular areas of expertise, networking. Not the data kind, but the business kind. Which, as we said in that episode, whether you're a freelancer, if you own a company, if you work for somebody else's company, networking is such a key tool in any business. Everything we do. 

And Mike does a really good job of kind of demystifying it, making it not seem all high pressure and salesy, and just making it at ease for even those, like me, who maybe aren't the best at it. Uh, on that note, Mike also during that episode was generous enough to offer a free three part live workshop over Zoom, uh, called Nobody Likes Networking. 

He's done it before, as he mentioned, like he did it through AES a year or two ago, and they charged $50 a person to do it--and Mike is doing it totally free for Signal to Noise. So, if you haven't already signed up for it, I would say pause this episode right now, go to the link in the show notes for the Eventbrite. And sign up, it's gonna be August 19th, August 26th, and September 2nd, from 2 to 2. 30 Eastern Time. It's three separate sessions, they build on each one, with a little bit of homework in between, but it shouldn't be too scary. 

I'll be there, Sean will be there, Mike's gonna, you know, really dig in even further than the stuff we got into in the last episode. Uh, if your schedule's a little packed and you think you can make, like, Two of the classes, but not one of them. Reach out to Mike via the Eventbrite link, and he said if he can, he'll work with folks to catch you up, so you don't have to miss out just cause your schedule's a little hectic and you can't make all three live. 

And, of course, that last little bit of housekeeping reminder, as always, if you listen to us on a podcast app and don't actually subscribe in the podcast app, go ahead and hit that subscribe button, that way you find out about episodes every time they come out, and, uh, subscriptions and also reviews, so if you're enjoying the show, give us five stars, let us know, you know, what you like about the show, both of those things will help more listeners find the show, which makes it easier to get cool guests like Mike on, and to have, like, all these extra bonus offerings, like the workshop Mike's doing. 

Uh, that all said, I'll stop talking here and let us tune back in to where, uh, Mike, Sean and I left off last week. Enjoy!

MIke Dias: You guys want to talk microphones for a while?  

Sean Walker: Yes. Oh, and in ears, because you did both, right? Okay, let me ask you about in ears first, and then we can go to microphones, and I'm just going to jump right in because Andy will, he will get nerdy, and then I'll just be lost and not know what we're talking about anymore. So I went to Winter NAMM this year, and I listened to a whole bunch of in ears, and I've got a pair of UE7s that I've had for Longer, longer than fucking dirt was a lav, I think, and they've been awesome, and I love them, and they're great, and I've been 

MIke Dias: they're the ones that started it all. That's, that's what made everything work, by the way. 

Sean Walker: I've been, I've been trying to replace them, cause I'm like, there's gotta be something better now, like, it's come a long way, it's gotta be better, and I went through many manufacturers, UE included, and I was  

MIke Dias: Mm hmm.  

Sean Walker: they're not better, like, they're brighter, They're, they're, but they're not better. You know what I mean? 

Uh, what is happening in the in ear world right now into which they are not all of a sudden sounding like kick ass studio monitors in your head, but they're just being brighter. Is it because they know musicians have hearing loss and they're making them bright or they, none of them. From any manufacturer, sounded very tonally balanced. 

MIke Dias: couple things going on and I'm going to start with the easiest and then I'll work backwards. Okay. I have a belief, but by the way, for networking, I was just talking out of my ass. This, I actually have some experience with. So, so 

I have a belief that we are Yeah, we are, we are all sonic homing pigeons, okay? 

We all, we have that one sound we're always going to go back to, and I will prove this because I know you guys pick a gig that you took over from somebody, a friend of yours, and they're like, oh, that last guy was shit. You come in with your stellar mix, And the guy's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it. 

That's perfect. Yeah. That's exactly what I wanted, what I needed. Hey, can you pull this up a little? Hey, can you push this down a little and three days into it? It's the exact same fucking mix that when you started that, that he was just dumping over. Okay. That yeah. Right. That's their sonic home. Your sonic home is that seven. 

And it's not because that's the seven that you first started and first used. It's because that seven was tuned like the PAs. and like the garage bands and racks that you came up into. That seven was Jerry's tuning of what live sound should sound like. And that happens to coincide of how you came up and how you believe that live sound should sound. 

And so to me, that is the most honest way to answer 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, totally. 

MIke Dias: second, the second factor is that as the driver count has increased, and there's definitely been a driver war, and this is mostly all driven by marketing. 

Sean Walker: Duh. 

MIke Dias: Mostly, almost 95 percent all 

driven  

Sean Walker: who needs 97 drivers in their fuckin ears, bro? 

MIke Dias: It's like a semi with lots of wheels that can break, fall up. So, and so on some of the models that you tested, they were probably Hybrid of Dynamic, Armature and Electrostat. Which you may have been thinking is some of the bright, even though the electrostat doesn't actually push out to those high frequencies. 

It's just the psychoacoustic effects. But what happens is you're fitting more and more and more armatures and everything else into your large shell. You are compromising the potential seal that you're getting in a demo space, especially in a demo space like NAMM. And so. Some of what you experienced, I believe, is just due to lack of good fit, lack of good positioning and listening environment that is not perfectly suited for it. 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

MIke Dias: Both, both these statements 

are equally true. No, and just not a great fit in the concha of adding all of those in. It's too much to get you into a good seal. And if you don't have a seal with your in ears, it's always going to be very bright and unbalanced. People are still making good sounding ears. 

People are catering. The LiveSound guys are catering to the audiophiles. So there's, there's competition at both of these, but they're smart enough not to show you the audiophile ones at NAMM. ish. Um, but that, that, those have really been the trends of how to stick more things in, how to add electrostat, how to have more. 

Not necessarily what sounds best to you. There are some really great in ears still going, new ones coming out online. But again, you, you, we'll get in touch after and we'll keep talking about this 

Sean Walker: Sure, what is the, uh, what does the electrostat do for us? Why, is that beneficial and why would we want that? And then also, At some point, how many, how many drivers do you need? You know what I mean? If you got a couple low, high, low, mid, high, how many more do you need to cram in there to make it sound balanced? 

Or why do they keep doing that? Other than like, there has to be some tech reason other than just marketing. Right. 

Andy Leviss: I've got a virtual Marty over in the corner of my head screaming at us, you only need one! 

Sean Walker: Right. 

MIke Dias: The, uh, the, the answer to that is what do you want in your mix? Right. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, sure. 

MIke Dias: What's critical, what's critical to the mix, who's listening to it, because it's not, you're not recreating a studio environment. And so there, there really has been a loss in where innovation is going. Electrostat, I'm going to, this isn't a hundred percent correct. 

And some people are correcting this better, but the electrostat, yes, it will push out to those high frequencies and give some of the air, but it's at 20 dB lower than everywhere else. So is it really doing it? Is it, is it actually serving any purpose other than. Well, he's got it in his and he's selling and I losing sales and losing market share. 

And so now I've this and that. And so there really, there really has been a war of escalation of more drivers is better. And this is a marketing function, not a tool function, 

Sean Walker: Like 

MIke Dias: the crossovers and understanding that the what's that 

Sean Walker: I said, like with speakers, like more Watts is better always. And you're like, I mean, I don't know. Not always. 

MIke Dias: it always comes back to the tuning and it comes out to the crossovers and how it, how it sounds. How it sounds both for you as the engineer and how it sounds to the artist that you're mixing for. 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, because like, different crossover and different number of drivers you're gonna want for like, a vocalist where you really need that mid range clear, as opposed to like, a drummer or a bassist where like, mid range doesn't matter as much, but they need the attack and the, and the oomph. 

MIke Dias: Sean, as hard as it is for you to give up your sevens, there are plenty of people who don't want to give up their fives. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Fair 

MIke Dias: Again, that was Sonic Home for them. 

Sean Walker: It's not that I don't want to give up my sevens. I'm dying for a reason to blow four grand on some fucking ears. I just can't, can't do it. Although I did hear, and I think I posted in the discord, I did hear the FIR audio ears. It's like the brother of the guy from 64 Audio or something. 

They had a tiff, I think, and moved on. They were fucking stunning. They were stunning. But yeah, 

Andy Leviss: Sean was trying to give me a run for my money as most expensive friend of the podcast. Four thousand dollars? 

MIke Dias: I haven't heard theirs. I, I probably know too much of some of the stuff behind the scenes and yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Sean Walker: I don't know anything behind the scenes. I, all I know is, you know, going to plug it into, uh, uh, plug it in my phone and listen to tunes through a bunch of different stuff. That was the only one on the show floor where I stopped and was like, these are the, these are them, these are frickin incredible. They, they weren't super bright. 

It, it was all, it was all, um, universal tips, right? Because they can't, they're not molding anything for everybody, so it's all universal tips across all manufacturers. But those stopped me dead in my tracks, and I was like, this is the one, I'm not, I don't have four grand to spend on ears, but these are the ones. 

I don't know any of the 

MIke Dias: A long 

Sean Walker: they just sounded great. 

MIke Dias: Yeah, along with Sonic Homing Pigeon, to what you know and how you came up, I believe that we all have Sonic Homing Pigeon imprints to certain sound designers. I have an imprint onto Jerry's sound. I'd take a guess that you do too. And some of the designs that Jerry comes up with. would probably tickle that funny bone. 

For me, and I don't even know if he's still making those anymore, but even before the Freak Phase, the original JH13s, to me, that was the next evolution of Jerry's sound that really hit for me. 

Sean Walker: I'll check them out. Yeah, because 

MIke Dias: Any more questions for in ears? 

Sean Walker: I'm good. 

Andy Leviss: any I can ask on the record. 

Sean Walker: Right? Totally. 

MIke Dias: Yeah, 

Sean Walker: Nope. Alright. 

MIke Dias: any off the record? These are my wait, wait, wait, wait, any off the record? 

Sean Walker: Off the 

MIke Dias: Nah, okay. Oh, that's good. 

Andy Leviss: I mean, there's all sorts of like dirt and history and like tiffs that I'd love to get into at some point, but I feel like those are bar conversations, 

Sean Walker: I don't care about any of that. I don't care about any of that. What's up, what's up with the customer service at any of your companies, though? I've had great luck with Ultimate Ears, but I hear a lot of people not having great luck with all different manufacturers. It's kind of universal across the board. 

I don't, I don't have any one manufacturer to pick on, but like, why is that? Is that because it's custom to each person and it's just hard to service that? Or is it like, cause they're all small companies or what, what's up with that? 

Andy Leviss: Well, I want to pause at one thing and Mike, tell me if I'm right or wrong, is that one of the things I find a lot in any business or any market is we hear a lot more from the folks who have problems than the folks who don't? Because nobody, nobody goes out of their way to write a positive review or to rave about something, but when somebody has been wronged, particularly in this age of the internet, it's really easy to just spread real quick, this guy effed me over, and you know, this was trash. 

So I, I think some of it might be askew there, that we hear about those things more than we hear about when stuff goes right. 

MIke Dias: well, that's true, but I actually think that goes back, sorry, that goes back to the heart of the talk and to everything that we spent during the first hour. Right? When we talk about developing a networking mindset on a personal level, about being awesome all the time, that really translates on a corporate, on a company level. 

Sean, you were talking about your kick ass sound rental company, your company. That's because the way you have trained the people who work with you. They all have a hospitality service mentality. I would like to believe that when I was at Ultimate, and when I was really working through a lot of these original concepts, we led very much with service. 

And I'll take a little credit for this. When I came back after Jerry had gone to JH, and there were a couple people at Ultimate really gunning about their sound and their tech, and I was like, uh, time out, Haas. You're going to tilt windmills and go the wrong way and look like a clown. Let Jerry lead and run with that, that's where he's best and what you can own and where piece of land that you can conquer is service. 

So that's when we took the most complicated menu of cost structuring for repairs. And I was like, look, if I'm, if I'm the sales director and I can't understand what we're selling, I don't think our customers can just make a flat 99 fee. No questions asked. You're going to lose some somewhere. You're going to gain some somewhere else. 

It doesn't really matter. The whole point is not to make money on service. It's to get them back in the field up and working. And 

Sean Walker: to buy the 

MIke Dias: the idea that look, yeah. And then this idea that look, Jerry knows everybody and he is of industry. You will never beat that, nor should you try. But what you can control is your commitment of getting people back things within five days or getting them built within, you know, five and service within three. 

That is actually actionable and controllable. You don't have to do it, but you don't have much to stand on if you choose not to. And so it's really to answer your question in the most honest way, and it works for any company and yours or anyone else. Nobody remembers mediocre service. It is very expensive to give unparalleled, excellent, amazing service. 

Sean Walker: Sure 

MIke Dias: And so that's why you don't usually see mediocre service because Unless you're willing to put the time, energy, resources, and company focus and emphasis on delivering outstanding service. And I just spent the first hour talking to you about why I believe that that's the only path forward in this day and age. 

But take that aside. If you don't believe in that, or if you think it doesn't matter, or you just actually can't accomplish it, or your company's too big, or if you just don't care, or if you have a monopoly, then you outsource everything, and you Deliver very poor customer service. And there's not really an in between space for between poor and amazing. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Fair enough. 

MIke Dias: Andy, you had some mic questions? 

Sean Walker: Andy 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, you, I know you're still, you're not like in the same position you were with Orthorix, but you're still involved. And over the last few years, You had a big part in that role of kind of like overhauling, like, I mean, the vocal mics are a whole separate tangent, but even just looking at the drum mics of like overhauling, not only the new stuff like the Tom and snare mics and some newer, newer ones that just came out, but also even now, like going back and overhauling like the SR25, like overheads that were like the one earthworks that like everybody who knew was using from like day one. 

And I mean, I'd love to get a little bit of the story of like how how those revisions were driven. And I mean, it's I know, like looking at like your LinkedIn blogs, like a really refreshing because you're exactly the same, like no bullshit you are here. And like, I know you blogged a little bit about like when the when the kick drum like came out and, and how that happened. 

And 

MIke Dias: I like to say, I like to say that the new kick mic is as good as, as, as the old one was as bad. Like I can't, I can't, I can't tell you how many people. Would call me up and they'd be like, uh, I got the kit and the kick's broken. I'm like, no, man, it's not broken. That's how they built it. 

Sean Walker: Oh no, dude. 

MIke Dias: No, no, that was intentional. 

But take, take that aside. I, I, I would like to take a small amount of credit for helping with the, all the product refresh, but the real credit goes to the CEO. He is, he's a visionary. It has been an honor to be able to stand next to him and work for him these last four years. His name is Gareth Krauser. 

Yeah, he does not get the attention that he deserves. Earthworks was a mom and pop company that was very much held in limbo. The quick short history of it is that most people don't realize or have forgotten or so few people knew in the beginning, it doesn't matter anyway. But David Blackmer, the D and the B from DBX. 

David Blackmer sold DBX, had Mad Party money to play with, was much older in life and didn't need to prove anything after the sale of it, and moved back to New Hampshire to be with his third wife and raise his third family up where he grew up and where he had memories. And so he's there, he starts. 

Spending money in small town rural New Hampshire, he buys some tractors, some trailers, a mill building, thinks that he wants to put some hydroelectric power in it, wants to have a little jazz club in it, you know, hires some dishwashers and some line cooks and some dudes to drive the trucks, and eventually gets bored and gets a little bug and wants to start making hi fi speakers for audiophiles. 

Not PA speakers, but for, for really listening to and enjoying classical music. And so as he is trying to build and create and tune these speakers, he, he has all of his core beliefs that he developed throughout his time at DBX in terms of noise, in terms of extended frequency of the human potential and what people can hear and feel. 

And as he is swapping out high frequency drivers in his speakers. The measurement microphones that he was using had no difference at all, but he could perceive sonic changes in the lower frequency registers by changing the upper drivers. And for him to make that make sense with what he intuitively knew through his history, he started taking apart the measurement mics that he had available. 

The reason that they all look like anal probes and nose trimmers is this, the stealth design of wanting to have nothing in the way of. The rise time of the small diaphragm condenser. It's literally a condenser unit that the element balance on the edge of instability at the very, very end of the tip, all of those original pieces like backed with a ridiculous load of power in the proprietary circuit. 

And to have this make sense, you want to think of Hussein Bolt, the runner on the starting blocks of the Olympics. And so the minute the light goes off, the train, the gun pops, the transient hits. Usain just boom, he's off and he runs and then he settles back down. And that's, that's the way that Earthworks microphones really work to, to push out to that, that 50k and to capture that very cleanly. 

And so again, he wasn't trying to develop a microphone. He was just trying to resolve the time domain for his hi fi speakers. And as soon as he did it, and he could visualize it on a, on a mapper through, through resolving the time domain, He was like, Oh, okay, cool. And then he goes on and keeps making his speakers and just put the microphone away and didn't care about it at all. 

Some of those guys that were driving truck and line cooking and chefing, you know, uh, dishwashing for him were also, you know, small band. And they took that little measurement microphone that he had built and they started using it when they're small jazz performances. And they're like, look, you need to build microphones and not speakers. 

This is just fucking rad. You've got something that nobody else has. And so they kind of pivoted to that, but it really was a hobby. It really wasn't a business. Again, I just explained some of the people who were kind of core there that were not really of industry. And then David Blackmer himself passed and the company was held in limbo for lack of a better word in perpetuity, uh, through his wife holding it for her son. 

And it wasn't until a few years back that they brought in a proper CEO, Gareth, who I was mentioning, who Who really began to transform the company and to make it into what it is today. He knew that there was a core tech, which is the reason that they kept the company going the whole time. But Gareth was able to take that core tech and to tease out what worked and what didn't, and what made sense and what didn't. 

And then to build a company and to build a brand around that and to create products that people want to use and that are stable and reliable and worth using at a price point that matters and that works. And so when you talk about the refresh of everything that you've seen. All of that is enabling the vision laid forth to actually give the tools to everybody, because if a tree falls in a woods and nobody hears it, it doesn't really matter if you've got a great microphone that nobody's using, then who cares? 

And so all of the refresh isn't just about usability and reliability. It's also about price point and product rationalization and SKU management and making something that the market can, can go around. And I think. That I will take responsibility for in helping Gareth create that and enable that vision. 

Sean Walker: Dude. That's awesome. 

MIke Dias: Yeah, yeah, it's been a great story. And so I've got to see this twice now. I've got to, I've had a chance to watch the rise of Ultimate Ears and to be a very Pivotal part of that. And now I've gotten to take that same playbook and bring it over to Earthworks and to watch that. And through all of that, that's sort of where I developed my customer service mentality, all of my thoughts about networking, about what it takes to collaborate and how to make things actually come together and what it means to, to work and win as a team. 

Yeah, I couldn't be happier. I've got two great success stories under my belt and I think I get to kind of leverage that now. 

Sean Walker: Good work. 

MIke Dias: Thank you. Sorry, did I answer the question you were 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, it was. Um, I feel like I had another question related to that, but now I can't think of what it was. Um,  

MIke Dias: I did not design I did not design the new DM DM 17. 

Andy Leviss: they have a distinctive look. I mean, Earthworks always have a distinctive look, but the, the, the newer drum mics do have a distinctive look, and we'll leave it at that. 

Sean Walker: Right. Totally. Although I, I bought three of the DM20s after, you know, Andy's rave review and they are fricking stellar, dude. They sound awesome. 

MIke Dias: there there's nothing like it. It's again, it is that's 

Andy Leviss: told, I was gonna say, like, I told you, Mike, when I first tried them, like, I put them on Tom's on a concert I was doing in Times Square, and I was front of house, and I, you know, told the monitor engineer, like, hey, I'm trying out these new mics, I think they'll be great, you know, if, if they suck for you, and let me know, otherwise, we'll, like, rock with them, and afterwards, I was, like, I thought they were pretty good. 

What do you, what do you think of them? And he just looks, I mean, he's like, I've never not had to EQ a tom before. 

MIke Dias: Yeah. Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: He's like, and I've, and, and I, I, it's getting into that like science and like speculation for me. Like, I think what I like so much about is that I think it's, it's because of that transient response. My, my theory, my hunch is that it's that in a lot of drum mics, particularly dynamic mics, but also just ones that don't have that tight transient and condensers is that. 

It's, the capsule itself is sort of resonating and amplifying the ringing of the drum and some of it might be the capsule ringing itself. So I think what I'm liking is that, is that that tighter transient response doesn't accentuate those things and doesn't add to it what's not there. 

Sean Walker: Man. And I'll 

MIke Dias: it's also the 

Sean Walker: sorry, go ahead. 

MIke Dias: oh, it's the the time rema the time domain is resolved in it as well. 

Sean Walker: There you go. Yeah, it in use, like I still eq the fuck outta my drums 'cause I'm a, you know, I'm a dingdong like that. But, uh, they sound great, but they trigger the gates accurately. I don't it, like you were saying, it doesn't have a bunch of like w with it where it's like when you have to gain up a dynamic, you know what I mean? 

That, that are all fine. I'm not, you know, I'm not bagging on 'em. But like, when you have to get into it, it's already kind of like just hanging out with all the stage bleed and stuff going and, and it's harder to get your gates. To fire accurately, unless you're going to get, you know, double trigger y, side chain y weirdness like you and Ryan like to do. 

Uh, but with the DM 20s, I can just literally instantiate gate, find a threshold, tag release. Good. I'm good. And it doesn't like get weird with, you know, you don't have to pull a bunch of tricks out of the hat. You can just go boom, boom, Tom's. That's great. Cool. Move it on and get to it. You know, it's been, it's been sweet. 

MIke Dias: This is why the kick mic has been wildfire, especially with the kick, and having that translate through the PA, and having that translate through the PA. And what I've had a chance to watch this last four years, and this is, this is, this has been a real joy for me is again, because of my background within ears, I was able to help place and see the microphones much deeper and wider into live sound reinforcement than, than they previously happened. 

And once they were there, then the mics do the work themselves because anybody in the business who hears them for the first time over the PA. Walks by and I was like, what was that? 

Sean Walker: totally. 

MIke Dias: Like the sound guys are much more impressed than the audience members. And so no matter where it starts, it just ripples from there. 

It it's at the point now where everybody's like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You got the, Oh, you got the new ones. Wait, what has that, but it, four years 

Sean Walker: like. That's a cigar conversation, Andy. Wait, what? There's new ones? 

MIke Dias: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Four years ago, this wasn't happening, right? And I, I, this is, this is going to sound biased and just full of smoke, but I actually think that Earthworks is the fastest growing, hottest brand in, in pro audio right now, or at least it has the potential to be. 

Sean Walker: That's awesome, man. How fun to be on that ride. 

MIke Dias: Right? It's like an almost famous viewpoint. Two times I've been on the bus now. 

Sean Walker: That's killer, dude. 

MIke Dias: Yeah. Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: I, and I can vouch for that like quick sale here because it's funny because like I, I think through the measurement mics and through like the world of theater being the weird particular world it is like they've been on my radar and like the SRs a lot longer so like I've had SR25s as overheads for you know over a decade now and I always forget like that a lot of people still haven't heard them. 

Like I remember just about a year ago helping um, past guest of the podcast, uh, Leo Pysak out on a gig. And I was like, yo, I got like these new, you know, Earthworks mics and some other stuff. And he's like, yeah, bring them along. We'll check them out. And like, as soon as I threw like, even before he got to the DMs, like we threw the SR25s up and he brought up his overheads and I could see his eyes like cartoon out of his head and he just looked at me and was like, those are fucking amazing. 

And I was like, I know, this is what I'm trying to tell people. 

MIke Dias: Yeah. Okay. I'm going to blow everybody's mind at this one, and you're going to have to hear it yourself. You're not going to take my word for it. But the SR 25s, again, for any studio work, for theater, they're not going to replace. Like, that's, that's the gold standard. The new kit. So rather than, uh, you know, the drum kit coming in at 3, 000, the new kit comes in at 1, 500. 

And so that goes with the DM 17s for tom and snare, the kick, and we made new overheads, the SR 20s, the second gen. For live, when self noise isn't an issue, I can't wait for you to hear two, the two new overheads, the SR 20s in stereo pair with just the kick mic and nothing else. And tell me how that compares to regular, some of your previously favorite 7 piece drum mic kits. Like, you add anything else in for, you know, for flavor after that, but just, just the new overheads. 

Uh, they run, they, for my ears, and again, I'm quite lazy and I want setup to be very fast and easy because time is money, um, for my ears, the, the 20s, there's nothing like it. 

Sean Walker: Dude, 

MIke Dias: at 349, it's, it's silly. 

Sean Walker: I'm gonna check those out. That's awesome. Because we, you know, like, as a, it's funny, man, as a sound company, I know you're, you're constantly battling the inner technician, right? Like, what the company needs is a pile of 57s and 58s. What I want is a pile of DPAs and Neumanns, right? Like, uh, or Earthworks, right? 

But if you've got those at, let's call it, you know, blue collar prices rather than white collar prices, like 3. 49 for a great overhead is absolutely You know, SM81 or C451B or it's those kind of like wheelhouses where you're not like, well, they're 1, 500 a piece and blah, blah, blah, blah. Cause I don't need 3, 000 for the overheads. 

I need a 58s for 

MIke Dias: You need a bazillion of them. 

Sean Walker: So the fact that they're at reasonable price and they sound great, I'm stoked. I'll go buy a pair and check them out. 

MIke Dias: I'll get them sent over to you. They don't, they don't just sound great. They sound phenomenal. And yeah, again, the two overheads in the kick and you let somebody listen to that mix and they're going to be like, let's just do the experiment. You tell me what you think later. 

Sean Walker: Okay. We'll do. Cause so far the experiments have always all been good. Every time we change out to something cooler, we're like, man, that is better. You know what I mean? 

MIke Dias: Yeah. They are really entering an amazing phase. And again, What I got to be part of and watch is really taking something from a very, very, very boutique mom and pop shop into helping build up the infrastructure and all the internal process that allows them to scale with, with real no limit in sight at this point, they, they were able to achieve that wonderful Amazon merry go round of being able to make something better, faster, and, uh, more economical. 

And that, that doesn't usually happen, especially in this day and age of shrink fellation. Yeah, 

Sean Walker: That's awesome, man. That's like a perfect storm. 

MIke Dias: I'll, I'll blame it on the, you know, all the networking stuff and all that. And just, just, just a lot of, yeah. And just a lot of really, really hard work, but thank you. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, that's awesome. 

Andy Leviss: The one other thing I want to pick your brain a little bit about, which is a little bit of a stretch for our broader subject of the show, other than that it's useful to me as a podcaster, but also in like corporate events and voiceovers that we all tend to work with, is can you talk through a little because I know Earthworks has like, Broken into the like streaming and like broadcast mic vibe, but I don't, there's a bunch of options and I don't know what the different options are and how they compare and where they're kind of slotted between like the ethos and the icon and is there like a quick rundown you could give 

MIke Dias: easy, easy, easy to run down and the most, the most honest one. On the corporate side, they always started with their, their overheads and their choir microphones. And then they took that same core tech, the same, that same Earthworks core tech of speech and they had their podium line, but there were three things that were challenging with the podium line. 

One, they were the ugliest design I've ever seen. ever. Two, they, they were three times as expensive as, as all the usual suspects that deliver. And they do not come as a complete solution. They have no base. And so unless somebody has just drilled something out and hardwired it in, it's not really a lectern might just come in. 

For the amount of crazy options and lengths of gooseneck and flex and rigid that they had in there made it challenging. One thing to help contextualize all of this is again, through the transition of mom and pop boutique to where they're going. You have to remember that they manufacture in the U S and all the employees are in the U S and at their heart and still true to stay. 

Yeah. At the heart and soul of the company. They are machinists, right? So all Earthworks microphones start off as 12 foot bars of stainless steel or aluminum. And are cut, milled, machined out in the factory in Milford, New Hampshire, of all places. And there was a time in space when they were so committed to this version that they would make their own screws and washers and nuts. 

It's okay to have some things off the shelf and some things be standard. You don't have to do your own threads. That's neither here nor there. And again, they have worked through this and evolved through this. And I really, and when I talk about they're in a place to scale, that's kind of what I mean, right? And so by the end of this year, closer to beginning mid Q3, they will have a new podium mic series, which will be much more economically priced. That will be much more user friendly, not the best looking of all designs, but closer to industry expectations rather than where it is right now. The current one looks like it's like it's a Barbie microphone at the tip of the thing. 

That's being polite. yeah. 

Andy Leviss: I forgot I haven't seen one in a little bit, you're not 

Sean Walker: Dude, that's so funny, because I messaged Andy maybe like three weeks ago. We were at a corporate gig and I had the You know, I had the normal lectern mic and I was like, bro, there has to be a better option like this. There's just like, I, I just need a pair of these fricking things. Like, I, I don't really care how much they cost. 

Like what are the dope ones? And you know what I mean? And cause I'm trying to max out guy people in their chairs with the lectern and it's just, that's not how science works and I'm trying to not science, you know what I mean? So if you could not science for me, that'd be sweet, dude. 

MIke Dias: and so, so they're there. The current ones do it, the new ones will do it so much better. The value prop, how I always talk about them, is they are the best podium microphones for people with no mic technique, which is every 

Sean Walker: Which is every CEO ever. 

MIke Dias: like, you don't want to ride a mic. 

You want to be able to move and gesticulate. You want the sweetest spot so that you and sound and running the event smoothly, you E blow and go soundcheck is like, yep, uh, that was easy and that, you know, you're getting everything with the maximum rejection and they, the, whether they're loud talking, uh, soft speaking and everywhere in between, the Earthworks podium mics do that. 

It's why they've been used with the presidents, with the Pope, with, uh, you know, and all the Super Bowls. Like they have the pedigree, you've just never heard about them because they were, I think they were charging you more for rigid before. They've already come down in price from where they were. There's still more of that coming. 

They're getting that in line and you will really start seeing, you will start seeing a lot more of these in the next couple of months hit the field. Just in line with everything else that you've been saying. The, the core tech that was developed with that handheld 117 really gave Earthworks unprecedented, unprecedented control over the polar pattern, uh, which really just translates to even rejection across all frequencies and being able to kind of have your cake and eat it too, without having to make compromises. 

They're the specs that they publish and the frequency graphs and polar plots that they share are, are not doctored and are not fake. It's pretty amazing what they're able to do right now. And so I brought all of that up because that was the core tech. That was the core ethos, for lack of a better word, that kind of helped move into streaming. 

And so as the pandemic hit, when I came on, they, they were, they were, all the resources were on to instrument microphones, but they rapidly shifted. And they first started with the IKON USB and when they launched that, there was the non USB, the XLR version of IKON. What I'm using right now is just, just the, the USB version because it's quick and simple and easy. 

And I've got a wide sweet spot and I can plug into anything. I use it to record my daughter all the time. I just plug it into the iPad. And I get the full function of the iPad's video with the flexibility of sticking this on piano or harp or wherever she is to record. 

Sean Walker: Dude. 

Cool.  

MIke Dias: simple. Yeah, like, again, I'm really, I'm always going to default to simple. 

And so Pro, in the streaming side, the Icon Pro, just is a gorgeous microphone. It has the look of a Ferrari. If somebody can drive it, then that's fantastic. If they talk right into it, then they're going to pop, pop, pop, pop it. It's not meant to be used that way, but when you're trying to educate somebody to now don't, you know, have it at a 45 or just, just a little off axis, uh, no, thank you. 

I don't want to sign up for that business plan or marketing strategy. And so ethos. Is a much easier microphone to drive. Anybody can drive it. It doesn't handle or corner like a Ferrari, but it is just smooth and natural and fat and luscious and full. And it can be used for any type of recording as well as for all of your live, uh, live streaming you speak. 

But again, I talked about it and joked about like, Hey, if, if, if you're building a great microphone that nobody hears, then does it really matter? Earthworks had their SV 33, it was their version of some of the very hits and classics, the other 3, 000, you know, studio microphones. And why would you ever buy an Earthworks mic when you could buy those classics? 

And so it didn't really do much, except that Apple. was very attracted to it and used it throughout all of their properties. And that made it very difficult for Earthworks to make the switch, and plus also there was a lot of legacy and ego around that product. And while some may have felt that that was sort of their pinnacle of design, I actually feel like that was one of the pinnacles of the folly. 

Right. Of just really not understanding the market or the need and going a long way, the wrong way, rather than serving people. But again, that's my belief in my philosophy versus older Earthworks company philosophy. And so I was there and I was able to help with the vision to take that CoreTek, engine. 

And to put it into a form factor that is usable and accessible. And so when Ethos first came out, it was at a price point, I think it's 699. And we were able to, again, as we hit volumes, capacity and scale, pull that down to 399, which is why it's weird because it's a flagship, but then it's lower price than the other one. 

And that's where your confusion really comes from. But Earthworks is really the horse that they're betting on. If you have a client who is all about the visual, the look and that pure swagger. Uh, Andrew Tate, like if you have a guy like that, there's a reason that you see Pro on, on him and everybody else using Ethos. 

Sean Walker: Word. 

MIke Dias: Any, anyone, anything else? I could talk shop all 

Andy Leviss: was gonna say we could go, we could go a while. I mean, I think that's, I think that kind of covered most of the questions that we talked about, like, or I guess, do you want to give us the real quick answer? Just, um, what are the, we, we talked across like the difference in the Gen II of the, the DM 20 and the SR 

25s, but do you want to give the quick and dirty for folks of just, What exactly is the difference between the originals and the Gen 2s? 

MIke Dias: So again, when, when Earthworks was working on the handheld vocal mic, the SR117, the one that recently won the, the NAMM Tech Award. Namboard, the, the new control that Earthworks was able to apply to everything else. It would have been silly to continue without applying that new tech across the board. 

And in this day of an age where everybody is trying to charge more and give you less Earthworks CEO has a very different philosophy. How can we always be best in class at every level? And how can we always offer insane value to money, right? He doesn't want to. Change the idea of Earthworks being a top shelf brand. 

He just wants to make top shelf product best in class available at every price point for everybody. And so taking that new tech and putting it into the DM20s and the SR25s really tightens up the, the pattern control, the rejection and the, the, the, the full blend of frequency, some of the added benefits that they, we don't talk about as much. 

In doing so, again, I had mentioned earlier, Earthworks is incredibly power hungry and it was built on a platform that worked for its time and really worked for studio, but as Earthworks has been used more and more and more in live settings, live is much less forgiving and much more challenging and the products need to be compatible with as many platforms as possible. 

To make your jobs easier, right? I can't tell you, hey, you gotta wait two minutes for the microphone to warm up or hoo, hoo, hoo, barking into it to jumpstart it. I would look like a complete idiot if I approached either one of you and was like, Oh, the microphone works fine, but here's what you gotta do to 

Sean Walker: Totally. Next. Next microphone company. Sorry, dawg. Yeah, yeah. Man, these 

MIke Dias: And so, and so as part of this refresh, I'm It's really also a fundamental rework of the core technology to be compatible with, much more compatible with the industry where it is today than when David Blackmore first came up with the core circuitry. And so the power consumption drops from the 10 milliamps down to just over 5. 

And that, that actually changes everything, right? There's a lot more of that built in across the board. Again, everybody knows that for a condenser, you really shouldn't hot swap it. But we also need to be aware that that's not how life works. And under the best case circumstances, Things you are busy. Lots of people are doing lots of things and lots of the consoles nowadays, uh, you know, have, have functions to try to protect or to build this in, but snakes and everything else, it's just, it would be very silly of us as a manufacturer to hold onto that island of don't plug it in hot. 

And so again, how to make the microphones much more stable and much more compatible while giving. Users, much more flexibility, more options while enabling time. It's a, it's everything that Earthworks is about is about speed. It's about the speed of the rise time of the transient capture. It is about the speed of the setup and most importantly, the speed of post. 

Like there's nothing better than just having something to be like, yeah, I'm good. That was that, that, that works 

Sean Walker: And now you're speaking my language, right? Like we, we never have enough time. We never have enough resources, no matter what your resources at a time are. It's still never enough because the expectations are always out, outweighing that those other two metrics. So yeah, if you came and said, Hey man, you need 10 minutes to let these warm up. 

I'd be like, uh, you need to take those and put them back in the truck and I'll get some microphones that work right now. You know what I mean? So that's great that you're keeping that in mind. I mean, seriously, like who's got 10 minutes to let their overheads warm up? You know, the fact that you're thinking 

about that and  

MIke Dias: you would 

Sean Walker: the end users is great. 

MIke Dias: Yeah. And so. Again, there is not a coincidence that Earthworks has gone from, you know, being very boutique and mom and pop to where it is right now and where it will continue. That is the, that is the direction and the vision of the CEO has really been leading that charge. And I think it's really awesome. 

I think it's really, really awesome. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Totally. 

MIke Dias: Yeah. You guys, thank you so much. Giant, giant thank you to all your listeners. A giant thank you to your sponsors. What you guys do for the community is really pretty great. Just, just thank you. You guys put in a lot of time and work in this. I don't think you get recognized as much as you always should. 

So a big giant shout out to, to both of you and to everybody behind the scenes who makes all this happen and come together. 

Andy Leviss: Appreciate that and thanks both to you for coming to join us and also I feel like we'd, we'd be remiss if I didn't throw out the thank you both to the folks who built this before Sean and I came in and who introduced you and me, you know, Chris, Kyle, Michael, you know, Keith at PSW, all those folks, you know, like we've, we've spent the last, you know, not quite a year doing our best to just not fuck this up. 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

MIke Dias: That, I think sums up the whole theme of our talk on both sides of the halves here. So you guys, I really, anything else comes up, I'm an email away, a call away. That's for you guys, for your listeners. Just let me know how I can be of service. 

Sean Walker: Well, thank you very much. And thanks to RCF and Allen and Heath for letting us, you know, keep yapping away with cool people and that's the pod y'all. See you next week.


Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green