Darwin Audio: Beer & Soda Can Microphones

Kendra Lynn, our former long-term studio manager and now staff engineer at Jackpot! Recording Studio, recently gifted me with a very unique-looking (and sounding) microphone. Housed in a vintage steel can that used to contain Pittsburgh Brewing’s Olde Frothingslosh’s Pale Stale Ale (circa 1969), there’s a hand-painted wooden handle attached (spring mic clip included), a steel mesh on the bottom end held by a mason jar ring, and a 1/4-inch jack output on the (still sealed pull tab) top. The Portland-based maker of this mic, Darwin Audio, touts “Microphones Made from Vintage Beer Cans and Landline Telephones” on their website, and that’s what ya get: A vintage steel can from the ‘70s (or earlier) “before companies switched over to aluminum. Aluminum was so thin that it picked up every crinkle of movement,” as Darwin notes. It’s a shamelessly low-fidelity mic. I mean, really low-fidelity! It’s like someone broadcasting sounds through a broken AM radio twice over. It’s harsh, raspy, and thin as hell, but it’s so fun to hear what it’ll do to your sources. I put it up as a drum room mic through a dimed CAPI Heider FD312 preamp [Tape Op #100] into a Chandler Limited TG1 compressor [#37], also turned way up. This mic may have the lowest output of anything I’ve encountered. You’re advised not to open it, but inside, I found bits of what might be an old sock, hot glue, and some duct tape holding the element (affixed to a disc) up against the screening. I was scared to remove the tape, so I didn’t see the actual element, but Darwin says it’s a piezo disc. It could be nice to install a phantom-powered boost circuit inside the can in order to provide more gain, but most people might be plugging these into guitar amps or shitty PA systems with no 48 volt capability. I obviously should have used a Cloud Microphones Cloudlifter [#85, #115, #123, #156] or Royer dBooster [#131]. I took the drum track I recorded with this mic, put a gate plug-in on it, and had the kick drum trigger it. You could not believe how cool the messed up “scratching” rhythm this created is. Awesome. Collect them all or pick a custom can of your choosing!