About the Microphone
The Brahma microphone is a high quality electrets based, phase accurate ambisonics microphone that captures the true 3-dimensional representation of an acoustical ambiance. It owes its design to an original paper on Ambisonics written by Michael Gerzon and Peter Craven in the 1970's. Due to technological and price limitations it has not seen wide-spread use, until now.
We have designed and packaged the entire microphone system to be affordable, easy to set up and simple to use without sacrificing the quality of the recording.
Design And Manufacturing
Four cardioid capsules are mounted on a 3d printed tetrahedron. The entire structure is shielded in a satin finished stainless steel mesh and two-piece ring.
The Zoom H2N is modified by removing the supplied microphone capsules in the recorder and mounting a 5 pin Amphenol connector in its place, to act as a 4 channel recorder for our Brahma Microphone.
Though the Brahma system is designed for use with the modified Zoom H2 and H2n recorders, they can also be used with our adaptor on any phantom equipped four channel recorder.
After the microphone is produced, each microphone is carefully calibrated.
Production Plan
The microphone is designed in house and manufactured at the Noida factory. Additional components like the Zoom H2n and microphone capsules are sourced from international suppliers.
Once the Kickstarter campaign closes, we will adhere to the following schedule and expect to ship in February 2014.
Why get the Brahma Microphone
If you are a passionate film maker or sound recordist and understand how hard it is to capture true surround sound, you should get the Brahma. Our prototypes are currently being used by documentary film makers, sound recordists, nature recordists, musicians, musical performance recordists and university professors around the world.
1. Affordability and Ease of Use
- The Brahma microphone is the least expensive ambisonic microphone in the market
- No additional components or software is needed if the Brahma built into the Zoom H2n or standalone Brahma with the modified Zoom H2n versions are opted for
- No rigs of multiple microphones need to be set up to make genuine surround sound recording
2. Post Processing Versatility
- In post processing, the sound image can be panned, tilted and zoomed.
- From a single four-channel recording, mic patterns such as omni, cardioid, hyper-cardioid, sub-cardioid, super-cardioid and figure-8 can easily be created
- Combination patterns such as blumlein, height-enabled blumlein, Mid/Side, XY (two crossed cardioids) separated by any arbitrary angle, three hypercardioids facing forward and two cardioids facing rearward (for 5.1 surround) can also be created.
- The B-format files can be processed in the following playback formats – mono, stereo, biannual, 4 and 6 sided array, 5.1 surround, 7.1 surround with height, 8 channel surround with height.
3. High Sound Quality with Reduced Noise, Errors and RF Pickups
- Brahma's unique tetrahedron design has enabled larger diaphragm (14mm) capsules to be brought very close together (15mm sphere radius). This design feature reduces noise and increases the sound quality and frequency response
- The calibration process ensures that each individual microphone is corrected and enables the creation of an accurate sound image
- An advantage the Brahma has over stereo microphones or stereo images from 2 or more microphones is that the capsule error between multiple capsules is much smaller and resolved in the calibration files, thus there are no set-up or placement issues.
- Brahma's tetrahedron capsules are shielded in a stainless steel mesh that reduces reflections and nearly eliminates electrical interference. The Stainless steel mesh also functions as a mount for the supplied windshield.
Brahma is available in 3 versions
What we will use the money for
1. Calibration Room and equipment
2. Manufacturing dies and equipment
3. Bulk sourcing of components and raw materials
Team
Nakul Sood, is a working video-audio professional, with 12 years of experience in various fields of expertise that include direction, writing, videography, editing, location sound recording and as line producer for documentary films. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in English (Honours) from Delhi University and certificates in screenwriting and cinema workshops from New York University. He is the founder of Embrace Cinema Gear, a company that makes over 85 original devices for filmmaking.
Umashankar is a sound recordist who has worked on over 100 films and television shows, followed by his current occupation as consultant to the archive at the Archives and Resource Centre for Ethnomusicology of the American Institute of Indian Studies in Gurgaon. He is also an associate member of the Audio Engineer's Society and the Acoustical Society of America. He has been a hobbyist most of his life, first making a crystal radio at the age of 8.
Umashankar and Nakul Sood are the engineering and manufacturing force behind the Brahma. They are supported by a strong management, marketing and technical team.
Media Coverage
Risks and challenges
Product & Quality: Over 10 prototypes have been tested by audio professionals around the world for over a year and have given excellent reviews. We expect similar quality for the production run as well.
Manufacturing: Embrace Cinema Gear has been manufacturing various cinema and audio products for the past 4 years and as such do not expect any unexpected manufacturing related problems. The factory has been fully functional for over 3 years and have 16 full time staff members and 3 consultants.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterSupport
Funding period
- (38 days)