Roswell Pro Audio Colares Condenser Vocal Microphone

The Roswell Pro Audio Colares is a large-body condenser microphone with a larger than life sound. As Roswell's flagship vocal microphone, and excels at injecting color, vibe, excitement, and life to a track.

This is not a neutral or transparent microphone. It is unapologetically rich in both tone and harmonics. The design inspiration was the Telefunken ElaM 251, but the goal was to deliver all the detail and vintage tone of the 251 without the cost, maintenance hassle, or noise floor of a tube microphone. The Colares has two unique features: a pad/voicing switch, and a 3-way filter switch.

Roswell build every Colares by hand in their shop in Northern California. Each mic is "burned in" for at least 24 hours on their proprietary conditioning rig, then extensively tested before the Roswell badge goes on the front of the mic. The mic ships in a custom, heavy-duty flight case, with a Rycote shock mount.

Roswell designed this mic to make your vocal recordings sound incredible. It also provides phenomenal results on a wide variety of other source material too, from bass cab to drum overheads. Thanks to its handcrafted circuit topology and uncompromising component selection, the Colares effortlessly delivers a harmonically rich, vintage sound.

The JFET is a NOS part, specially selected and individually "biased" using a custom test fixture. Critical audio-path capacitors are US-made film and foil parts. Resistors are audiophile grade, 50ppm 1% tolerance parts from PRP, Vishay Dale, and a third supplier. Switches are premium C&K parts rated for 90,000 uses (approximately 115 years of regular sessions). The output transformer is a custom-wound unit from Cinemag.

THE PAD/VOICING SWITCH

The mic's pad switch reduces signal at the input of the circuit, which creates two sonic effects:

• Level reduction of 10 dB
• Reduction of second harmonic content by 10–12 dB

If the Colares sounds too rich on a particular source, engage the pad switch and apply 10 dB of makeup gain on your preamp. You'll hear a cleaner, more modern sound from the microphone.

VARIABLE BASS RESPONSE SWITCH

In place of a common "high pass filter" switch, the Colares provides a 3-way switch to allow realtime sculpting of the low-frequency response. You can immediately roll off the lows to compensate for a bassy source or proximity effect, or increase the lows to allow for full frequency capture even on farther mic placements.

Features:

• The circuit has very low noise, allowing your sources to be recorded without sonic artifacts
• The capsule captures exquisite detail and articulation
• The 10 dB pad switch enables use with higher-volume sources
• The filter switch allows sculpting of the microphone’s low-frequency response, to compensate for proximity effect
• The included Rycote shock mount provides mechanical isolation
• Extensive, hands-on testing ensures that every Roswell microphone delivers high performance right out of the box