Group photo after the event.
CRAS AES was honored to have Rodger Cloud, CEO of Could Microphones, come to CRAS to host an AES event. Cloud Microphones is based out of Tucson, Arizona. Rodger opened with the history of Cloud which he and Stephen Sank began in 2006. He then played a video previewing one of their microphones, the Cloud 44-A, which is an active ribbon microphone with a selectable switch for music or voice. Following the video Rodger continued to discuss their microphones. He demonstrated the voice and music switch, which acts as a frequency response. With music selected, the 44-A captures much more low end, and exhibits very obvious proximity effect. Unlike many ribbon microphones, Rodger revealed to us how their microphones contain a metal fabrication surrounding the ribbon. After that he played another video showing how the microphones are built by hand from start to finish in high speed, which he said takes about six hours per microphone.
Rodger continued on by showing us one of their other products, the Cloud Lifter. the Cloud Lifter is a clean a gain stage for a microphone. Rodger was asked a what a normal work day was like for him and he ventured to say that during business hours, Monday thru Friday, he is handling customer service and that he prefers to go in on Saturday or Sunday to assemble microphones. Rodger also stated how all of Cloud's product parts are locally manufactured, including all metals, circuit boards, and transformers, to help communities and small businesses within the States. He then took questions from the students. One question he was asked was how he could spread the Cloud name around the industry and he expressed how they advertise by attending many trade shows including AES conventions, Summer Namm, and Musikmesse in Germany. Cloud's care for customers has helped greatly to give positive reviews for nearly all of their products. He then presented the new Cloud Lifter Z with its very many attractive features which incorporates a variable impedance, high and low pass filter, and a selectable gain setting. After demonstrating the new product, he opened it back up to questions, one of which he responded by saying Cloud was mainly focused on popularizing their current products in earlier years and we will likely see new products being released fairly soon. Rodger then presented the winner of CRAS AES Cloud Mix Contest, Malcolm Harrison, a new Cloud Lifter Z!
CRAS was very grateful to have Rodger come down and speak and we hope to see him back soon!
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