An obsolete microphone has turned out to the best thing that ever happened for Royer Labs. The small Burbank company took a device that dates back to the 1930s and improved upon it with modern materials and manufacturing techniques. Today, Royer ships out no less than 100 of its “ribbon” microphones a month to its dealer network, which puts them into the hands of recording engineers and mixers for uses ranging from capturing an orchestra performing a film score to the more intimate setting of a home studio. Early this year, Royer Labs received a Technical Grammy from the producers and engineers wing of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences for its hand-assembled microphones. The award, said Royer President Rick Perrotta, validates the company’s seemingly unusual methods in a high-tech age. “This contribution we made to the recording industry was recognized and valued,” he said. The ribbon microphone – so named for the ultra-thin strip of aluminum foil placed between two magnets to capture sound – had fallen out of favor for decades before being revived in the 1990s. The timing worked in Royer Labs’ favor. The music industry was transitioning to digital recording techniques and as it turned out, Royer ribbon microphones were perfectly suited for that use because they lack complex harmonics – a type of distortion – resulting in an easier and more accurate conversion of electronic signals. “We weren’t aiming for that,” Perrotta said. “It was a fortuitous byproduct of what we were doing.” Ribbon microphones, however, are not for every musical use and won’t be found in the hands of some band’s lead singer. They work best with reed instruments and percussion and are used a lot by classical musicians who play string and brass instruments, Perrotta said. Kevin Becka, technical editor of Mix magazine, a trade publication for the professional recording and sound production industry, traces the resurgence of ribbon microphones to alternative rock producer Steve Albini using vintage equipment when recording the drums on Nirvana’s debut album. Royer, Audio Engineering Associates in Pasadena, and other companies got caught up in this wave and started getting product into the market. But Royer produces microphones with a look all their own, Becka said. “They are cool and have a signature style and do something to the sound that people really like,” Becka said. Royer microphones range in price from less than $1,000 to the top of the line SF-24V costing $6,200. Model #121, which costs $1,395, is the firm’ most popular with more than 12,000 sold. Perrotta declined to give a specific figure for revenue but said it was “several millions of dollars” annually. Low-key presence Royer began its operations in 1998 in Perrotta’s back house, and later moved to a two-story building with no identifying signage along Empire Avenue in Burbank’s north side media district. The company has been issued two patents and received many industry accolades for its different models of microphones. On the wall in the sales and marketing office hangs a board covered with photographs of artists and engineers using Royer microphones including Quincy Jones, singer and pianist Norah Jones, former Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick and film score mixer Alan Meyerson, whose credits include “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Transformers” and “The Dark Knight.” “They are basically our family,” Perrotta said of the faces pictured. Perotta and business partner John Jennings, head of sales and marketing, are the owners. The chief engineer is Dave Royer, who first came up with the idea for the microphones and for whom the business is named. (Royer is majority owner of Mojave Audio, a manufacturer of condenser microphones operating out of the same building as Royer Labs.) The upstairs conference room is where new product ideas are conceived and then turned into diagrams and blueprints via a computer program. The company keeps a small milling machine and lathe for creating prototypes. The downstairs is for administrative functions and is dominated by the production area, where most of the 16 employees work. There is no assembly line. Each microphone is assembled by hand from parts that are sourced from Southern California sub-contractors. Working with the aluminum foil ribbon 3/16 of an inch wide and 2.5 microns thick is tedious work requiring steady concentration. The ribbons are placed inside a machine using precision gears to give a corrugated pattern and then relaxed to provide the right amount of tension, not unlike working with a guitar string. “There is a lot of art that goes into manufacturing with the ribbon,” said Becka of Mix magazine. Before each part gets assembled, David Royer will test each one via computer, and the finished product is tested in an anechoic or echo-free chamber. The higher-end models are shipped with a hand-made presentation case carved from a single block of wood so there are no joints or seams. The microphone’s bullet-shaped casings, the transducer that converts vibrations into electronic signals, frames and metal plugs for cables are made at Aamstamp Machine Co. in Palmdale, where owner Matt Starr said that Royer has been an important client for the company since 2001. The orders helped Aamstamp get its contract manufacturing business going during periods when its collection of lathes and mills weren’t needed to make machines that imprinted images on foil. “A lot of the time it sits idle so it is great to have someone to fill that time,” Starr said. The importance of Royer’s subcontractors was expressed in what the company did after winning its Technical Grammy this year. The suppliers were sent personal thank you cards for their work in helping Royer achieve the honor. “The subcontractors were almost as excited about it as we were,” said Jackie Lewis, the office manager at Royer. The Technical Grammy, presented since 1994, recognizes individuals or companies making contributions of outstanding technical significance. The recipient is chosen by the vote of national trustees of the Recording Academy. Not every idea at Royer, however, has met with success. In an attempt to lower costs, Perrotta and his team designed a microphone made from parts cast in molds and not handmade. The project made it to the prototype stage but didn’t get beyond that. “They were never made because we found out they were not less expensive,” Perrotta said. “People said (the design) didn’t look like anything else we made.” January will see the release of the SF-2V, the latest in a series of microphones using small vacuum tubes originally designed for use by the military. Another new model still being worked on incorporates a laser pointer so that it can be precisely aimed where to pick up sound in a theater setting. “We want these to be passed along like it was a fine instrument,” Perrotta said.