The Take Nobody Could Keep

Indie band Fathom booked Live Room B from 9 PM to dawn to lay down the master vocal for their single 'Undertow' — the take a label scout would hear at noon. Sometime in the small hours the room's vintage ribbon microphone, the one that made the vocal sing, was quietly ruined: its delicate ribbon element stretched and torn, leaving the master unusable and the session dead. Nothing was stolen. Four people had run of the building overnight; find who broke the mic on purpose.

Subject

The RD-77 ribbon microphone

The studio's prized 1960s ribbon mic, kept in a padded case and hung only for keeper vocals. Its foil ribbon was found stretched slack and split — damage that takes a deliberate hand, not a bump.