Please help us congratulate the winner of the amazing Lewitt LTC 640 TS who is Andy Kavanagh from Newcastle upon Tyne in the northeast of the UK.

Belfast-born Andy has a soft, engaging Northern Irish accent. With a wealth of voiceover experience, Andy’s voice is perfect for Commercials, Corporate, Documentary, E-learning, Telephony Systems and just about anything else you need a voice for.

His clients have included companies like Facebook and Twitter for their new employee videos in Dublin, Spar NI as their in-store radio voice in over 300 stores, Somme Museum as narrator for video attractions, Primark as the voice on their staff information videos, On-hold telephone systems with new clients added daily and radio and TV adverts which are too numerous to name.

Andy is also a Compere and has been hosting events in the North East of England since 2000. From Rink announcer for the Newcastle Vipers Ice Hockey Team to welcoming Her Majesty the Queen to Gateshead and most recently hosting at the Stadium of Light corporate lounges on match days, he has done it all!

No event is too big, charity events, auctions, conferences, awards dinners, fashion shows, sports event announcer, the list goes on.

“I have been using the same mic now in my voiceover career for nearly 5 years and it has served me well. It’s a Rode NT1 and is a quality mic and very reasonably priced but I always wanted to take a step up to see what the difference in quality would be like. My voiceover colleagues have been telling me about how good the Lewitt mics are for our particular use and I can’t believe that I’ve won the Lewitt LCT 640 TS through Production Expert. I’m sure it’ll help me grow my voiceover business mybigvoice in 2020! Thanks, Production Expert and Lewitt.”

Throughout December we offered the opportunity for over 30 people to win a prize of your choice from an amazing bundle of prizes that we pulled together from our generous partners, worth around £30,000.

Each day, we took a closer look at each of the prizes in turn. Today we are looking at the Lewitt LCT 640 TS multi-pattern studio condenser microphone Worth $899.

Lewitt Audio LCT 640 TS

The LCT 640 TS by Lewitt Audio is a sweet-sounding large-diaphragm condenser microphone that works really well with pretty much anything you point it at. It’s also a mic with a trick up its microphonic sleeve. You can use its Single Output mode by connecting a standard XLR cable to the main mic output on the bottom of the housing or use it in the Dual Output Mode by hooking in the TS cable to the mini XLR port of the side of the mic to record in stereo.

In effect, this means you can now create any polar pickup pattern when treating the stereo output with the Lewitt POLARIZER plugin either during recording or in the mix.

A Flexible One Mic Solution

The LCT 640 TS is a true allrounder of a microphone. It’s fantastic for precise, larger than life vocals and full, rich instrument recording. But it can also function as a single point stereo microphone or a mic that can change the polar pattern after the recording session has finished

Dual Output Mode

The LCT 640 TS features what Lewitt call Dual Output Mode. Engage it by holding the pattern selection button down for 2 seconds and you'll send the front and the back of the capsule's diaphragm to two individual outputs. The front signal goes to the main output and the rear is fed to the micro XLR port on the side of the mic.

If you choose too, you can now alter the recordings polar pickup pattern using the free to download Lewitt POLARIZER plugin from within your DAW. Just make sure you have both channels of recording on a stereo track and insert the plug-in. It’s very easy to use and means you can now tailor the sound-field being picked up by the LCT 640 TS. It’s clever and it just works.

Recording In Stereo

Imagine perfectly-in-phase stereo recording from a single microphone. You can use a single LCT 640 TS to record in stereo by switching to Dual Output Mode. Simply point the mic sideways to the source and adapt the stereo width in your mix using the software.

Hearing Is Believing

Snare Drum

Picking up from our recent article Snare Mic Shoot Out - 30 Different Microphones - Which Do You Prefer? we have first put the LCT 640 TS to work on snare drum. Take a listen to how the snare drum sounds, first solo’d, then in the context of the full drum kit mix.

Spoken Word & Male Vocal

The next audio files were recorded with LCT 640 using its included pop screen to stop any nasty plosives. Once again there is not processing of any kind on these recordings. No EQ and no Dynamics processing.

Solo Acoustic Guitar

The steel string acoustic guitar was recorded with the LCT 640 TS 8 inches in front of the 12th fret. As with all out standard tests the mic is being recorded in Single Mode with the polar pattern set to cardioid. To my ears the recording sound nice and detailed yet not harsh. I think in a mix the acoustic guitar would really cut through nicely without too much EQ or other processing.

Dirty Electric Guitar

The final of our 5 standard tests is the dirty or distorted guitar track. You can see below how we have set up the Chandler GAV19T all valve guitar amp to give us a rich distortion tone with plenty of bite and character. The mic is 3.5 inches of the cone of the speaker 2 inches off the centre dust cap.

What We Think

The Lewitt LCT 640 TS is a great allrounder of a microphone that would fit well into any studio’s mic locker and with its very clever Dual Output and Stereo recording options it really could be the only mic a solo producer or singer-songwriter needs at their disposal. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

See What Else You Can Win?

If you would like to win a prize like the Lewitt LCT 640 TS multi-pattern studio condenser microphone worth $899 then go over to our Win Page and see what prizes we have on offer.