Rycote To Design Custom Shock Mounts For Milab Microphones

Milab Microphones is proud to announce a collaboration with Rycote, the British manufacturer of industry-standard microphone windshields and suspensions.

The first fruit of this closer working relationship is a custom version of the Rycote InVision USM (Universal Studio Mount) suspension for the Milab SRND 360 surround microphone, and further Milab-specific Rycote products are currently at the design stage.

To fit the large 60mm barrel of the Milab SRND 360, Rycote designed a modified version of the USM — the standard version accommodates any large-diaphragm microphone from 18 to 55mm in diameter.

At the heart of the USM, the microphone mounting ring is acoustically decoupled from the rest of the suspension by the use of Rycote's patented vibration-resistant Lyre clips. Made from a non-elasticated thermoplastic which can be bent completely out of shape but always returns to its original form, the 'W'-shaped Lyres are virtually indestructible, and neither need rethreading nor sag over time like the elastic in conventional microphone mounts. The Lyres also provide much better isolation from unwanted vibrations: in controlled tests at the Rycote factory, the USM provided up to twice the isolation of traditional microphone suspension systems.

Mattias Strömberg, Marketing Manager at Milab said: "The SRND 360 was designed for location recording and is often suspended over live music stages, symphony orchestras or even audiences. In these situations, it's often subject to unwanted vibrations and you really have to be sure it's suspended safely. We weren't really satisfied with our previous mount for the SRND 360, but fortunately Rycote came to the rescue. The InVision USM is a much more solid product, and does a far more efficient job of isolating our microphone. The SRND 360 has never looked better!"

Simon Davies, Rycote's Managing Director, also commented: "We have a long history of working closely with a variety of microphone manufacturers, but it's always a pleasure to be able to take the relationship one stage further. We're delighted to be producing custom designs for Milab and look forward to many years of working together at this level."

The SRND 360 is an innovative, versatile and very compact single-unit surround microphone that records up to six channels simultaneously using only three microphone capsules. A separate processing unit uses the signals from the three physical capsules to create three virtual capsules in-between them. The result is six cardioid pickup patterns at 60 degree spacing which can be mixed down to a number of different formats, e.g. 5.1, 6.1 or 2.1. Another rather unique feature for a surround system is that nothing has been compromised in sound quality to achieve the surround function. Connecting only one of the capsules turns the SRND 360 into a normal large-membrane condenser and it will do a great job on vocals, guitars etc.