Derek used to fix studio gear in the days between his work at Avantone and starting Vanguard with co-founder Ken Avant.

One of his least favorite mics to work on, and one of the most common ones he got asked to fix, is the AKG C414B (both ULS and XLS versions). Soldering in there is like dancing the tango in a phone booth, and there’s a couple (ok, more than a couple) difficult and/or poorly designed bits that make disassembly and reassembly a real chore.

In this particular case, the first mic of 3 had a bad pad switch. The switches on the 414s are not made to be durable – between ultra-thin brass and a plastic toggle bat, they tend to be one of the first parts to fail on these fairly ubiquitous microphones.

In a 6-part vertical video saga, you can hear Derek curse the name of AKG Acoustics a fair few times, and give some tips on how to do this delicate bit of surgery yourself – if you are into electrical repair masochism, that is. Otherwise, email Derek at derek@vanguardaudiolabs.com and he’s happy to take that particular burden off your shoulders. So if you’ve got an AKG C414B-ULS or C414B-XLS that needs a bit of TLC, shoot him an email and save yourself a few hours…or just buy a Vanguard mic with much higher-quality toggle switches!