LEWITT: LCT 1040 Microphone System

I’m going to immediately annoy a lot of people by describing this microphone with the worst cliché and overused marketing term ever: Innovative. The only difference here is that LEWITT actually pulled it off – it only took them a decade to do it, though. Even if you’re completely burnt out by “another new microphone system,” you owe it to yourself as a recording engineer to try the LCT 1040. It’s absolutely crazy what it can do sonically, as it will go from an RCA 77 tone to an AKG C12 (or anywhere in between) with the turn of a few knobs. I don’t know if the word “versatile” gives this microphone enough credit. The icing on the cake is how LEWITT has executed all of these options. The final trick the LCT 1040 offers is that the remote control unit can be detached from the power supply and placed almost anywhere! Rear power supply connections include XLRs for Mix and FET modes (see below) and remote connection when decoupling, plus a dedicated 10-pin cable for the LCT 1040 mic itself.

So, what does this microphone sound like? Well, just about anything and everything! The LCT 1040 has both a FET and tube circuit built in that you can blend via the power supply/remote control unit from a large Circuit knob. A Mix XLR output sends whatever blend you decide upon. Another brilliant option that LEWITT offers is an additional FET output on the back of the power supply/remote control unit. By setting the Circuit knob to 100% Tube (fully clockwise), you can record the Tube side of the mic from the Mix output and the FET side from the FET output, then blend between the two later in the mix! That’s a must-have for all those indecisive people out there, but also opens up a world of possibilities for unique parallel processing experiments. I achieved some fantastic results on vocals by setting the tube side to a darker sonic setting (more on this below), while crushing the FET side with a compressor, then blending that in a little bit. Aside from more bizarre ideas like that, the LCT 1040 can definitely sound like two different mics on one source at times, while maintaining perfect phase. Pretty wild!

The FET side of the power supply/remote control unit is straightforward and doesn’t have any additional voicings. It’s on the brighter end of the spectrum with a nice presence boost, rarely sounding harsh. Transients come through accurately, and the mic performs precisely as you would expect from a good FET design. Then, you get to the Tube side’s four voicings. Starting with Clear, it’s a subtle but appreciated change to the FET side. The high frequencies are rounded off ever so slightly, there’s a little bit of saturation, and the mic seems to come alive a little more when compared to the FET side. Moving down to the Warm setting, it’s pretty much what you would expect. You’ve basically moved from a Manley Reference Gold [Tape Op #112] style sound to a Neumann U 47 character. The Warm setting seems to add a good amount of body in the low mids and rounds off the high end in a pleasing way. On vocals, the sibilance is somewhat tamed without loss of clarity or sounding muddy. The Warm setting is my happy place for most vocalists. Switching down to Dark is where it gets interesting, as it sounds pretty extreme on some sources. You’ll lose a lot of high end, but without adding as much character to the midrange as Warm did. Most recordists are probably going to switch to Dark, and then want to jump back to Warm immediately. I found the beauty of the Dark setting comes with how you set the blend in the Circuit section. If you’ve got the mic on full FET, and something is just a little too harsh or bright, set the Tube section to Dark and blend a little of that in with the FET signal. It did wonders for me to the point that I was using it a lot more than I thought I would.

Lastly, the Saturated Tube section was definitely my favorite! It’s similar at times to Clear, but with more harmonics. The Saturated also tended to round off the high frequencies nicely and was always an excellent choice when something was a little harsh or had too much high end in the Clear setting. It’s a night and day difference on drums, though. Snares seemed to come alive, and everything had more energy. They could have just as easily named this voicing “Character.” This setting will be the sound most people associate with tube mics.

In addition to the super practical Filter and Attenuation settings/options, the other handy addition to the power supply/remote control unit is the variable polar pattern knob. Though many tube mic power supplies offer this feature, it was an excellent reminder that switching the polar pattern can change the sound of a mic significantly. We’ve all become so accustomed to walking back and forth to change the pattern on a mic and forget how useful it can be to control this remotely. This power supply/remote control unit enabled me to sit in front of my speakers and manipulate the polar pattern (and other mic settings) in real-time. Going from omni to figure-eight on some sources made it sound like a completely different mic. That was a great reminder of how laziness has made me take a really common, but useful, tool for granted.

I think the takeaway is that LEWITT was actually smart enough to recognize many of the shortcomings of 100 years of microphone design and found a way to serve it all up on a nice plate for us. There’s nothing really new or unique here on its own. There’s a FET mic, a tube mic that can sound like an old or a new one, and you can change the patterns. We’ve seen this before. However, I’ve never seen this put together in one mic, and have never been able to control it all in front of my monitors without leaving the listening position. There’s never going to be that much that’s “innovative” about another vintage mic clone, no matter how many times a marketing team tries to convince us we need another one. The LEWITT LCT 1040 is probably the first microphone I’ve used that is actually innovative. They simply gave us something and said, “Here, have it all, conveniently.” Whether you’re in a bedroom and looking for something versatile, or in a million-dollar facility trying to work quickly to dial in sounds, you’re going to walk away with a smile on your face after using this microphone. It’s not necessarily because of its sound either (and it does sound amazing), or because it’s different, but because of how you got to the right sound, and how convenient it was to do so. This is what makes the LEWITT LCT 1040 exactly what it says it is: “a truly innovative microphone system.” The LCT 1040 comes with a dedicated carbon fiber shock mount, pop filter, stand mount, Pelican-style case, power cable, and custom 10-pin cable.