Europe - Samsystems’ Integral IM10 - IM12 is billed as an alternative concept to conventional close-cabinet miking methods and received positive reviews at Musikmesse in Frankfurt.
For over 60 years, guitar players and sound technicians have struggled with the whole perception of miking up a guitar cab or guitar combo, and are all too familiar with the related pitfalls that occur, both live and in the studio.
These include time to set up awkward weighty mike stands, far too long spent with sound engineers at sound checks to find the sweet spot, the drooping mike stand and more recently, installing sound-deflecting screens to eradicate overspill from other instruments
Installed in minutes as a ‘fit and forget’ concept, the Integral IM10 and IM12 (10 and 12 denotes the speaker size) feature a circular constructed rigid frame mounted internally between the cabinet grill and existing speaker.
A high quality super cardioid dynamic microphone with an exceptionally high/low, full range frequency response, pressure tested at extreme volumes, is housed within the central ‘pepper pot’ strategically aimed off-centre of the speaker coil, delivering the true, balanced ‘analogue’ output from the speaker via an XLR connector to the mixing desk and onward to monitors or FOH PA.
For a stereo output from a mono cabinet loaded with more than one speaker, an additional unit can be installed, wherein two speaker feeds via the internal microphones deliver the true analogue output to separate left and right channels on a mixing desk, and onward to onstage monitors and FOH PA system.
The central domed microphone-housing also acts as a ‘frequency blender’, thus creating the optimum integral position for the microphone to capture the speaker’s high and low end frequencies. These are now mixed within the area of the speaker cone, hence the player on stage can now hear at close quarters, the reflected sweet sonics the audience hears some 20 feet away without wrestling with a false sound onstage.
(Jim Evans)

Latest Issue. . .