Microtech Gefell
| Microtech Gefell | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| Seat |
Gefell , Germany
|
| management | Matthias Domke |
| Branch | Audio technology |
| Website | www.microtech-gefell.de |
The Microtech Gefell GmbH (MG) is a manufacturer of condenser microphones from Gefell in Thuringia . The sole shareholder of the company is Georg Neumann KG ( not to be confused with Georg Neumann GmbH, see Sennheiser ), which emerged from the limited partnership Georg Neumann & Co. founded in 1928 by Georg Neumann and Erich Rickmann.
history
Founded until the end of the war
Georg Neumann, born in 1898, learned his electrotechnical basics at the Berlin company "Mix & Genest" and at the AEG cable factory in Oberspree under the direction of Eugen Reisz. When Reisz founded his own company, Georg Neumann was one of his first employees. In 1923 the newly founded German broadcasting station in Berlin used the so-called "Reisz microphone", a carbon microphone. Georg Neumann played a key role in developing this microphone and in 1928 founded the limited partnership Georg Neumann & Co. with Erich Kühnast. The aim was to manufacture microphones based on the capacitive transducer principle , which was achieved with the Neumann CMV3 condenser microphone (Neumann bottle), which was ready for series production . In addition, the company developed modern equipment for significantly improved recordings. From 1933 onwards, branches were set up in England, France, America and India.
At the height of the Second World War in 1943, production in Michaelkirchstrasse in Berlin was severely restricted by fire and bomb damage. As a war-important company, the entire company and the company headquarters were relocated to the 1500-inhabitant village Gefell in Vogtland in the province of Saxony . The families of Georg Neumann and Erich Kühnast and almost all of the employees moved to Gefell and rebuilt the company on the premises of a former textile company. The "Neumann bottle" CMV 3 continued to be produced there.
Division of the company
After the end of the war, parts of the originally American-occupied Thuringia were handed over to the Russian military government in exchange for part of Berlin. This completely changed the situation for production in Gefell. In 1946 Georg Neumann founded Georg Neumann GmbH as a second foundation and in 1947 he moves to Heilbronn. There he builds nickel-cadmium batteries in a new production facility based on his own patents.
Erich Kühnast stays with the other employees in Gefell in the Soviet Zone. Georg Neumann transferred the management of the limited partnership Georg Neumann & Co. to him. In 1949 Kühnast designed the Neumann brand logo: next to the stylized microphone bottle in the middle there is also the name “Neumann”. In 1972 the use of this brand was banned by the GDR authorities. From 1950 Neumann mainly built measurement microphones.
In 1956 the company was forced to become jointly owned by the state and Georg Neumann & Co. became a company with state participation (BSG). With the reconstruction of the broadcasting corporations in Berlin in the 1950s, production of the well-known microphone types was continued in Gefell and others were developed. With the UM-57 in the M7 capsule, Neumann Gefell produced a microphone that was comparable in sound to the legendary Neumann U47 .
In 1972 the limited partnership Georg Neumann & Co. in Gefell was expropriated and renamed VEB Microphone Technology Gefell .
Microtech Gefell
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the two companies in East and West established contact. The Treuhandanstalt managed the business in Gefell. In 1989 Georg Neumann GmbH was founded in Berlin-West, which signed a contract with Microtech Gefell and sold its program worldwide. After the introduction of the DM, the export of Gefell microphones collapsed. In 1993 the limited partnership Georg Neumann & Co. - now Georg Neumann KG - received their company, Microtech Gefell GmbH, back.
The company then began building its own worldwide sales network. Jochem Kühnast, the son of company co-founder Kühnast, took over the management in Gefell. MG always uses the addition "founded 1928 by Georg Neumann".
Products
MG continues to build large-diaphragm condenser microphones in the tradition of the Neumann U47 and U87 . In addition, MG has concentrated on the development and production of measurement technology and measurement microphones. The M7 capsule of the U47 is still made by hand in skin.
The Microtech Gefell M930 Ts was developed for ORTF recordings . It is one of the smallest large-diaphragm microphones ever made. In other developments, the company picked up on its tradition and with the CMV563 rebuilt the microphone of the same name from the 1940s, true to the original. The tube amplifier is equipped with an EF86 pentode tube , which is connected as a triode.
commitment
MG microphones are used worldwide. The KEM 970 cardioid plane microphone is used in the German Bundestag . It has a largely frequency- independent directional characteristic , in the horizontal plane it has the property of a cardioid characteristic and in the vertical plane it has a hypercardioid characteristic with an opening angle of about 30 °.
The organizer used the MG M950 for the approval of the upright and grand pianos at the 2015 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
Publications
- Ulrich Apel: Microphones made from Gefell. Theory and application. Microtech, Gefell 2008, ISBN 978-3-00-024643-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Imprint ( Memento of the original from April 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Company profile
- ↑ 90 years of Microtech Gefell , by Dr. Andreas Hau, on: soundandrecording.de , June 9, 2019
- ↑ Microtech Gefell. on: recordinghacks.com , viewed Jan 21, 2016.
- ^ Neumann (Gefell / MTG). on: hifimuseum.de , viewed January 22, 2016.
- ↑ history. Retrieved on February 21, 2017 (German).
