Neumann History 1928 - 1998 English

Neumann History 1928 - 1998 English Georg Neumann GmbH, Berlin • Ollenhauerstr. 98 • D-13403 Berlin • Tel.: +49-30 / 41 77 24-0 • Fax: +49-30 / 41 77 24-50 E-Mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] • Website: www.neumann.com Neumann History 1928 - 1998 Georg Neumann – Neumann had never been one to settle for compromises. In An Inventor and His Life’s Work and of itself, the microphone was indeed a sensation. Con- Company founder Georg Neumann was born sumed by the idea of mass pro- on 13 October 1898, in Chorin, some 80 km ducing a microphone using the Northeast of Berlin. He received his vocation- capacitative transducer princi- al training at the firm of Mix & Genest in ple, he soon parted company Berlin. Later he worked in a research labora- with Reisz to found his own tory at AEG’s Oberspree Cable Works where firm in Berlin, together with the focus was on building amplifiers. Eugen Erich Rickmann, on 23 No- Reisz was director of this laboratory. A short vember 1928. while later, he founded his own firm and took on Georg Neumann as an employee. Since until then the only place in which it was possible to manufacture a condenser micro- In those days, the microphones commonly phone was in the laboratory, his plans for in- used for sound recordings were carbon micro- dustrial production seemed rather fantastic. phones. These resembled a shoe polish tin, partially filled with carbon grains, with openings on one side to admit the sound. These The Neumann Bottle openings were backed by fine gauze to pre- vent the carbon grains from falling out. By modern standards, the quality of these micro- The CMV 3 was the first ever mass produced phones was dreadful. The transducer princi- condenser microphone, far superior to the ple used in these microphones was also jok- Reisz microphone, and it gained recognition ingly referred to as a “controlled loose con- under the nickname of the ‘Neumann Bottle’. nection”. It wasn’t exactly small, measuring approx. 9 cm in diameter and approx. 40 cm in height. Its weight of nearly 3 kg made reporting a very Georg Neumann examined this microphone, strenuous job. scattered powdered carbon on a marble slab, inserted two electrodes, introduced a direct Telefunken, a subsidiary of AEG and Siemens, current, and spoke into this configuration. took on the marketing rights to Neumann’s A corresponding response microphone. which, by Georg Neumann’s account, was very “thin”, em- Between 1928 and the end of World War II anated from the attached the Bottle’s design remained virtually un- loudspeaker. changed, during which time it became firmly established as the standard for studio use and Next Neumann stretched a was used extensively in the 1936 Olympic rubber membrane over the Games in Berlin. At this time there existed al- contraption, spoke into it ready a selection of exchangeable capsule again, and suddenly the low heads with different polar patterns. frequencies were there. A new microphone was born, the Reisz marble block microphone. It was into this microphone that the first German radio station, a Berlin station broadcasting on the 400 m band, sounded its “first yawp” from Vox House on Potsdamer Platz in 1923. With a linear frequency response between 50 Hz and 1 kHz this microphone had an ex- cess of 10 dB up to 4 kHz, which decreased to approximately 15 dB at 10 kHz. Not quite what we would call a studio microphone these days. 2 3 Neumann History 1928 - 1998 More than Just Microphones ... pressure which could be controlled optically with great accuracy within the 20 Hz to 600 Hz range via the movement of a piston By 1928 Neumann had spread his attention which displaces a given volume of air. The to other aspects of studio engineering, such amplitude of the piston was observed through as record making. It was his interest in record a microscope, enabling the microphones to be technology that was, in fact, the real reason calibrated to an exceptionally high degree of for the split with Eugen Reisz. accuracy. His enthusiasm and Reisz’ opposition were stirred by a commission from Neumann’s friends in England to build a machine for cutting records. This machine was to become the basis for Georg Neumann & Co’s secondary line of products. The earliest disc cutting machines were belt driven. The head was moved forward by a spindle, which was itself driven via a worm His Most Important Invention? The Big Success It was during the course of this widening de- In retrospect, 1947 was a prolific year for the velopment work that Georg Neumann made Neumann company. On top of one major dis- his most important contribution to modern covery the company launched electrical engineering. In 1947 he developed a the microphone that has prob- gear and a further gear from process by which nickel-cadmium batteries ably had the greatest influence the base of the turntable. The could be made without the excessive forma- in the development of modern obvious parallel between this tion of gas and so totally gas tight – an inven- studio microphone technology. configuration and later record tion that has direct links with virtually every The U 47 was the first switch- playing deck is particularly modern electronic apparatus. able pattern condenser micro- significant when it is consid- Flash units, hearing aids, cam- phone. Its impact, especially in ered that by 1930 Neumann eras, radios, etc, all rely on America, was such that the had already made the transi- minute nickel-cadmium bat- dominance of RCA’s ribbon tion from belt drive to direct teries, whose availability is the microphone as the studio drive with the motor acting result of this development. standard was eclipsed. as a direct extension of the turntable spindle. One of the by-products of The U 47 had a double dia- Neumann’s process were sta- phragm capsule. Both dia- Throughout the ’30s and early bility cells, containing a cath- phragms could be polarised ’40s the company began to take on a recog- ode consisting essentially of with the same voltage or neu- nisable shape. Diversification brought contin- cadmium, cadmium oxide and tralised with respect to the ued innovation, ranging from electro-acoustic a nickel anode. These cells had a comparative centre electrode, so that the measurement equipment to cinema gongs and capacitance of 100 to 160,000 µF at a fre- omnidirectional and cardioid station identification code signals (used by quency of 50 Hz, depending on the size of the characteristics were adjustable. broadcasting companies to broadcast their cell, and Neumann was able to use them to A ‘special’ (U 48) was also pro- station identification) to standard linear mi- stabilise the heating voltage for condenser mi- duced, in which the dia- crophones. crophones. phragms could be polarised with opposite voltages with respect to the cen- Neumann also developed a pistonphone for Their outstanding filtering capacity was ex- tre electrode, so that it was possible to switch calibrating both standard and pressure micro- tremely useful for filtering the heating current, between cardioid and figure-of-eight direction- phones. The pistonphone generated a sound particularly for directly heated tubes. al characteristics. 4 5 Neumann History 1928 - 1998 The First el recorder. This became the standard measuring equip- Remote-Switchable Microphone ment in acoustic testing labo- ratories for many years, notch- Other models appeared in 1949 and 1950, ing up world-wide sales in the both bearing some notable progress. In 1950 process. the M 50 featured a pressure capsule embed- ded in acrylic glass to give an outstanding om- In this connection, one also nidirectional pattern. But more important was should not overlook the cali- its predecessor, the M 49, which was the first bration microphones devel- microphone that could be remote-switched. oped by Neumann. Neumann’s work on the M 49 coincided with a similar invention by an engineer called Grosskopf, of the Central Laboratory of the Nordwestdeutscher Rund- their time/amplitude response funk in Hamburg. Here, one From Tubes to Transistors microphone diaphragm was was coincident. The ideal so- fixed in the opposite direc- lution therefore was to mount The aforementioned miniature microphones of tion to the centre electrode two capsules in one housing. the fifties and sixties were, of course, all tube while the other one received In 1956 Neumann produced microphones. Considering the small diameter a capsule bias which could be the SM 2, which was to re- of these microphones, this continues to amaze varied via a potentiometer. main the only stereo micro- many users even today. The tube used was usu- phone in the world for many This made it possible to ally the Telefunken AC 701 tube, which had years. switch the characteristic been developed especially for use in micro- smoothly from omnidirec- phones. For the time being, Neumann’s last tional, via cardioid, to figure tube-driven microphone circuit, developed in of-eight. 1960, was destined for use in the U 67 switchable large-membrane microphone. It also But it was Neumann, who marked another milestone. This microphone somehow managed to acquire model, which survives today as the U 87 A, can rightfully be called one of the world’s most the patent for this, that went Measuring Technology on to produce the first remote-switchable mi- well-known studio microphones. crophone, the M 49. Soon there were numer- In the sixties, tubes used as amplifiers and im- ous versions being launched by his competi- During the course of the next two and a half pedance converters were increasingly replaced tors, all of course made under license from decades the potential for realistic sound repro- by transistors.

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