Warm Audio WA-FT Fen-Tone Instrument Ribbon Microphone With Selectable In-Line Preamp

“This style of microphone has been around for a long time and the tone has evolved since the original, we're excited to deliver an affordable version of its most contemporary tones,” said Bryce Young, founder and President of Warm Audio. “We’re all familiar with the body style of this mic, but not everyone knows it originally comes from a design from the 1950s. While other B&O-inspired designs have used upgraded ribbons & components like ours to deliver that guitar tone we all know & love, we’ve also upgraded the original switch that cycled between various modes for “Talk”, "Music", and “Orchestra”, to now being an active inline preamp to offer even more value. We revived the trademark to keep it authentic to its history while bringing the Warm formula of premium components to the build to deliver today’s most sought-after guitar & instrument tones.”  Like the original design, the Warm Audio Fen-tone recreates the popular, pencil-style design with ventilated sides that can easily be placed in crowded recording environments. Unlike the original 1950s mic, the Warm Audio Fen-tone features modern upgrades including a custom Japanese ribbon, rare-earth Neodymium magnet, and custom CineMag USA transformer to deliver the iconic ribbon tones made popular in contemporary music. 

The Fen-tone, with its Figure-8 polar pattern, excels on loud sources that require detail while handling high SPLs, like electric guitar cabs, overheads, and horns. The upgraded components in Fen-tone deliver intricate midrange detail that helps guitars shine in dense mixes. In addition to the bass and midrange emphasis, Fen-tone shows off its warm “forgiving” tone by taming top-end harshness above 15 kHz for smooth presence without exaggerated sibilance or harshness. The Warm Audio Fen-tone takes the value a step further by adding an all-analog 26 dB JFET in-line preamp, allowing for active use. This feature is critical for those users who plan on plugging their ribbons directly into audio interfaces or inferior preamps without volume, tone, and frequency loss. This active circuit is true bypass and does not impact the integrity of the passive ribbon mic circuit.