National WM-706

The National WM703 is a unidirectional ribbon microphone manufactured in Japan in the late 1960's by National, which turned into Panasonic/Ramsa in the 1970's and was one of the primary professional microphone manufacturers in Japan alongside Aiwa, Toshiba, and Sony since the 1950's (they were called Matsushita in the early years).

This mic is pretty beat up, missing its National badges on the front and back, and has a very solid but clearly "rigged up" stand mount situation going on with the yoke. With all that being said, it's been fully serviced with a new ribbon by Cole Suddarth (Cole Picks).

The WM706 has a distinctly mid-range focused sound that tows the line between lo-fi and mid-fi which provides a unique and surprisingly useful role in the studio as a "characterful workhorse" ribbon that isn't dark and muddy, but instead bright and strident, helping the source stand out boldly in a mix. What's nice is that it appears to have a clean high and low cut, with the midrange being very flat and balanced. It would make a perfect mid-side companion to the the National WM703, which is it's figure-8 brother It's also particularly useful as a secondary mic to blend in with another more traditional mic, its benefit over lo-fi dynamics is its excellent transient and phase response as a ribbon microphone.