Welcome to AMI, the home of TAB Funkenwerk,
custom transformers and Oahu products! Our mission is to research vintage audio design and manufacturing techniques,
understand how it achieves its quality of sound and then use that knowledge to create new products based on the needs
of today's audio engineers. For example, talking with the original engineers who designed the transformers
that drive the quality of sound in the historic Telefunken equipment, we refined the knowledge to build our own
custom transformers to meet the needs of a specific or new application. That's how we can achieve 76 dB of gain
out of a historic V72 circuit that typically yielded 34 dB (our V77M Ribbon Mic Pre) and how the Lucas CS-1 achieves its tremendous "reach" with less proximity effect than the historic
C-12 microphones. We will continue to explore vintage technology and collaborate with working engineers and
producers to create products that solve their problems, while delivering that special, vintage sound with parts that
can be readily built or replaced.
The 127th AES Show was a success!
2009 AES Booth
It's been almost two months since we came home from the 127th
AES Show in NYC and things are finally getting back to normal. Armed with our newly revamped website,
we are ready to give you a glimpse of what went on in our booth at the show. We
feel that the show was a success for us. Our goal was to show some new products, gets some direct feedback from
working professionals as to what other products they would like to see and connect with our fans.
On the new product front, we showed off our V78M with its newly designed face and back plates. It is rumored that the .54 inch aluminum plates could actually stop
small armaments. We also showed off our new V72M Mono Tube Mic Pre. This unit is the mono version of our world famous V72S which is now only available through custom orders. Putting the unit into a mono format will allow us to keep up with
the demand for this sought after design while lowering the price of entry to capture the vintage sound of historic
V series modules. Our V77M Ribbon Mic Pre is also a new design. Based on the same circuit path as our V72M but using the switching controls similar
to our V78M, this unit can achieve 76 dB of gain and provide the user with a switchable input impedance selection from 12
to 1000 Ohms. We also brought a prototype of our next microphone project with Terry Manning, the Lucas CS-4. Inspired by the historic U47, this mic will provide the user with all of the polarity patterns of both the historic
U47 and U48. With lots of new products to show our booth was always active.
You can click HERE to see more pics and hear more news about what went on at the AES Show!
Inside the CS-1: Hand model, courtesy of Tom Spiker, picture courtesy of Terry Manning
The substitute list was long and it only got
longer due to showing off the Lucas CS-1 at the 127th AES Show. As a result, we were able to secure one more batch of
100 capsules, bringing the final quantity of CS-1 microphones to 300 in total. Since coming back from the AES Show,
we have now sold that third set of 100 mics out. A special thanks to David Bock of Bock Audio for graciously allowing us to purchase another 100 of his proprietary mic capsules for this project! The goal is to
start the production of the second 100 in Jaunuary 2010 and to have all of the mics done by June, 2010. If you would
like to get on the substitute list, you can go here to get more information.
Winner of the First V72M!
We held a drawing at this year's AES Show for everyone who signed up on our mailing
list. The winner would receive the very first TAB Funkenwerk V72M directly from us. Lots of folks signed up but there was only one winner. Brian Montgomery of Avatar Studios in
NYC was the lucky winner! We contacted Brian to let him know that he won and boy was he happy! Apparently he had
already been saving up to buy one of our V72S units so he was ecstatic to find out that he would be getting a V72M for free.
Congratulations to Brian! We will post some pictures of the first unit as soon as we start making it.
