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WELCOME TO THE ATK PLAYER
Audio examples created by artists. Bias removed by scientists
Just like a producer or engineer, gear has a discography. Discover the tracks made with each product
The essence of what makes each product special and how to listen for those qualities
Really these should be called “hearing helpers.” One look and you’ll hear deeper into the sound
Comprehensive and cross-comparable between products
Trust your ears
Find the best place to buy and the best deal
If your goal is to make a final product selection for purchase, it's important to listen in a quiet environment on familiar equipment. We recommend you listen on the same equipment you use to produce your audio.
Use your best wired headphones and speakers. (Wireless headphones use a data-reducing codec that throws away important audio details).
If you're just exploring and playing around, listen wherever and however you like. Have fun!
The Frequency Graphs let you “see the sound.” Tap the graph for listening tips. When you see extreme peaks and dips in the response, listen for them as you switch back and forth between products. Imagine how a microphone’s response would affect the recordings you want to make.
The Listening Guide is like receiving a demo from the people who created the products. It will help you understand the unique qualities of each product and differentiate them from the others.
You may be shopping for a vocal mic, for example, but listening to a source besides vocals can highlight what’s important in a vocal microphone. For example, the hi hat or tambourine sources are excellent at revealing how smooth or harsh a mic is.
Listen to microphones on multiple sources in the ATK Player to gain a collective understanding of how that microphone will sound on your recordings.
Focused listening sessions are productive for about 30 minutes at a time. If you’re on a roll, keep going. If different products and sources start losing their distinction, take an ear break. You can use the SHARE feature to save your progress, email or text your session to yourself, and come back when you’re refreshed.
Would you buy anything online without being able to see it? So why would we buy audio gear without hearing it first?
Audio Test Kitchen was created to answer the question: “What does it sound like?”
We audio creators deserve this information.
Audio Test Kitchen was created by Alex Oana. Alex has been engineering and producing records for 30 years, winning some awards along the way. He mixed live sound for Pharrell Williams around the world. He created and developed the Slate Raven touchscreen controllers. Alex reviewed products for the industry's top magazines and helped thousands of customers at a top pro audio retailer.
Through these experiences, Alex learned there's a huge information gap when it comes to product education: Why can't we hear the sound of audio products online before we buy? It's like shopping on a website and seeing no product images.
But the sound of one product in a vacuum (by itself) doesn't tell you a lot. You need reference points. You need to hear one product relative to another. This is the foundation of Audio Test Kitchen. We make everything cross comparable. No easy task. How do you get a singer to deliver an identical performance into 300 microphones? Well, we figured it out. You’re welcome to visit www.audiotestkitchen.com/blog to read all about it and watch behind the scenes videos.
Founding ATK engineers include James "Fluff” Harley (Prince, Korn), and Grammy winning mixer Jesse Ray Ernster (Burna Boy, Drake, Doja Cat).
Audio Test Kitchen’s audio sources are real recordings of every microphone in 11 different acoustic spaces captured under precisely standardized conditions: no variation in mic position, signal chain, level, or source.
Every microphone was exposed to sounds from low to high, soft to loud, smooth to sharp, near to far, with both on-axis and off-axis information.
The sources – drums, percussion, piano, guitars, vocals – made the same sound consistently as every microphone recorded it using various techniques from robots to anechoic chambers.
Pure signal chains, and multiple quality control and level-matching stages ensure that when you compare the sound of mics in your Taste Test, the only difference you hear is between the microphones themselves.
Because we carefully, methodically, painstakingly control the conditions of every recording to eliminate all variables. When every product is recorded exactly the same under the same conditions, the only differences that show up are the differences between the products. Afterall, that’s what we want to hear.
A STACKED MIX naturally amplifies the personality of every microphone by combining — S T A C K I N G — all the sources in the song together at once. When you hear all the song elements — bass, guitar, drums, vocals, percussion, etc. — recorded through that one mic, the character of that microphone comes leaping out, compared to if you were only listening to one source at a time on that mic.
Email info@audiotestkitchen.com and contact the manufacturer via their website to request inclusion of the product(s) you want to hear.