Coles 4038

The #Coles4038 is a strange looking microphone but it is one of the most popular #ribbonmics ever made.

Ribbon mics are in fact a type of dynamic mic but instead of having a diaphragm attached to a moving coil, they have a very thin piece of metal suspended in a strong magnetic field. The compression and rarefaction of air vibrates the ribbon in the magnetic field, which creates voltage changes that are run through an output transformer to the external amplifier of your choice.

Although the #Coles is considered to be a very British microphone, part of it’s origins can be traced back to North America. The mic was originally made by #STC or Standard Telephones and Cables which was the British division of the American company Western Electric. The earlier #STC4033 (a unique microphone which includes an omni moving coil dynamic element and a figure of 8 dynamic ribbon element which when combined produced a cardioid pickup pattern) was basically the same mic as the Western Electric 639 birdcage mic.

In the early 1950’s the #BBC who were until then largely reliant on the large and heavy Marconi BBC microphones were in need of something a bit lighter and more portable for TV productions and drew up designs of what would become the Coles 4038.

The BBC and STC worked together to manufacture the #4038.

The 4038 continued to be manufactured by STC until 1972, when they outsourced the microphone work to Coles Electroacoustics, a small British firm that had been set up in 1964 by two former STC engineers. Thus the STC 4038 became the Coles 4038, which it remains to the present day. But not a single bit of the design has changed since then. The American influence can still be noted by the use of the Western Electric jack connector.

The 4038 is an unrivaled microphone for brass instruments, drum overheads and sounds fantastic with violins, cellos and pianos due to its very detailed mid range. Its attenuation of high frequencies mean that it is an obvious choice whenever you want to reduce harshness.