Nashville, TN (September 09, 2024) — Songwriter. Singer. Nashville ringer. All these talents and more are found in Jonathan Wyndham, who initially lit up the music industry’s radar with a blind audition on singing competition series The Voice in 2014. He originally sought to write songs on Music Row, but soon found his prowess on guitar brought such leading country and pop artists as Colbie Caillat and Jesse James Decker to his door. In 2021, his album Nashville Rock & Soul, Vol. 1 brought him full circle to his performing songwriter roots. In March of this year, his original tune and live show favorite “Naive” was captured at the legendary Studio 606, exclusively through AUDIX microphones: the PDX720 and i5 on guitar cabinets, an OM5 dynamic on his vocal, D6 on kick drum and bass guitar cabinet, D2 and D4 on toms, and a pair of high-resolution SCX25A condensers as drum overheads. AUDIX documented the session, which took place at the Studio 606, as part of their “All Access” YouTube series.
“The way the session came together is a fun story,” recalls Wyndham. “My manager is an amazing audio engineer, Kevin Majorino. We met on a tour, and sitting on a flight from Hawaii to Japan, I’m binging Jason Bourne movies and he’s just working on his laptop. I spent the next year convincing him to manage me. Kevin is a bigtime AUDIX user and said, ‘I think we can do an entire session using only AUDIX mics.’ We wound up at Studio 606 because he knows the guys there. It’s not open for public bookings, so it was amazing to be in the hallowed halls!”
A dual-dynamic approach recorded Wyndham’s guitar, yielding results that delighted the artist. “Oliver Roman, the house engineer there, let me use some amps from the studio’s collection,” says Jonathan. “I chose an older (& modded) Marshall and a mid-’90s Vox AC30. I ran stereo, with both an i5 and a PDX720 on each amp. Normally I’m a fan of pairing a dynamic with a ribbon mic, but they had this dialed in perfectly in-phase and we quickly hit this moment where the tone was just perfect.”
As to drums, Wyndham recalls that, “When I pulled up the tracking session, they’d sent me to start the mix, and just listened down to the raw tracks off the board I was stunned. The sense of imaging through the SCX25As was just bananas.”
Wyndham, who first turned heads as a singing contestant on The Voice, was no less impressed with the A231 as primary vocal mic. “Honestly, I don’t think we needed much EQ at all,” he says. “I can definitely say my own vocal had none. The great engineer Al Schmitt once said that a microphone is to an engineer as a lens is to a photographer. He thought if you needed EQ, you had the wrong mic or placement for the source. That’s the thing about AUDIX. They make so many different mics tailored to different sources that you don’t need a huge budget to have something like the options Al was talking about.”
Asked what microphones he’d recommend to beginners, Wyndham is as crystal clear as his A231. “I never recommend starter gear,” he proclaims. “I recommend AUDIX because it’s not starter gear. The ironic thing about AUDIX, I think, is that the company started out wanting to be known for not being so pricey that the stuff is out of reach. People bought them for that reason, and then started really working with them and realizing what they had. I’m now one of those converts who thinks that when it comes to bang for buck — both in terms of performance and just how well the stuff is built — AUDIX is the best open secret on the market.”
About AUDIX
AUDIX began in 1984 and to this day their mission remains unchanged – to design, engineer and manufacture high‐quality microphones for the professional audio, live sound, recording and installation markets. With passion and ingenuity, the company strives to provide their customers with products that exceed expectations. The company’s headquarters in Wilsonville, Oregon is home for their research and development team, combined with an in‐house manufacturing facility. From concept to completion, the company prides itself on having high-performing products and a loyal customer base. www.audixusa.com
About Videndum Media Solutions
Videndum Media Solutions is a division of Videndum plc, an international group of companies serving customers in the growing content creation market. Videndum Media Solutions designs, manufactures, and distributes premium branded photographic and video equipment such as tripods; bags; filters; backgrounds; motion control; lights and microphones for professional and hobbyist photographers and video-makers; and content creators. Positioning Videndum Media Solutions as the leading global provider of accessories within the fast-growing digital multi-media content market, the portfolio includes the following premium brands: AUDIX; Avenger; Colorama; Gitzo; JOBY; Lowepro; Manfrotto; Rycote; Savage; and Syrp Lab. All products are distributed on a direct basis in 11 markets across the world through Videndum Media Distribution, as well as many other markets through a network of qualified retail partners.
