You know when a project gets tabled for so long you sort of forget about it, then it pops back into your life and is even more delightful than you ever expected? That’s what this video is like for us!
The backstory: in the fall of 2019, we were touring on the west coast and had been trying to figure out what the ideal microphone situation would be for a band like us. Until that point, we either performed unamplified or used whatever mics the venue provided. Four individual mics could have been an obvious choice for us, but we had had too many situations where we would tell a sound engineer, “Please balance us all equally,” only to hear a recording of the show afterwards and find out that they made… different choices.
One venue we performed at earlier that year had a mic made by Ear Trumpet Labs that we liked using, and we discovered that our tour route took us right past their workshop in Portland, OR! So we called them up and asked if we could come by to test out some different models. They said sure, and while you’re at it, want to record a music video in our workshop?
So we spent a day singing into various mics, listening to how they sounded, and recording this video of La Vielha, a traditional song from the Occitan region of France. Our arrangement was inspired by the singing of the Occitan group Lo Còr de la Plana–you can read the translation of the song (and download the track!) in one of our earliest Patreon posts here. The good folks at Ear Trumpet told us that they had a giant backlog of videos to get through, so we knew it would be a while before we saw ours, so we were really excited to get an email this week with the finished video! It will eventually be published on their website, but we wanted to share it with you right away
And what did we decide about mics, you ask? We ended up falling in love with their Delphina model, and if you’ve seen Windborne perform in the past few years, you have probably seen her front and center (yes, there are still some situations where we use individual microphones for various reasons). We love her warm sound and how she allows us to blend while also keeping each voice distinct. For us, using a single mic also lets us balance ourselves the way we would if we were unamplified. We love supporting Ear Trumpet as a small, family run business, and we love the funky old-timey aesthetic their handmade mics have. Plus, some of their mics are made with actual tea strainers, and as avid tea-drinkers ourselves, that was a clear sign!
Enjoy!
