Studio Lament

My home is the recording studio. Minute after minute,hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month,year after year, I am subjected to the abuse of hard and soft consonants.

They come without warning and are projected at me by every spewing wannabe singer that comes into my house. These singers all have a mantra. It usually goes like this: "If I practice really hard, I'm gonna be the next sensation!" Unfotunately for most of these hacks, they are tone deaf and can't write their own songs. More money for my boss, my owner, the studio engineer.

Let me clue you in on these consonants. Some are hard like B's and P's, and some are soft like S's and R's. The B's,C's,F's, G's,K's,P's and T's are the worst, while the H's, M's, N's, R's, Ss, etc., are more tolerable. However,the the S's are trouble when words beginning with the letter "S" are sung in succesion leading to a problem called sibilance, when the "S" sounds become unbearable and have to be removed.

Let me introduce myself. I am a pop filter. I am a thin screen of meshed resin and foam encased in a circle attached to a microphone stand. My primary function is to soften and remove hard and soft consonants from words sung into my friend, the microphone. He will

tell his story at a later time, and brother does he have a story to tell!

One of my special duties is to protect my friend the microphone from flying projectiles of human saliva or spit that can cause damage to his diaphragm and innerworking electronics.

The diaphragm is usually gold plated and quite delicate especially in vintage, rare and expensive microphones, such as Telefunken, Neumann, Brauner, AKG, Sennheiser, etc. However my duties also entail protecting cheap, affordable micro-phones as well. The enemies are smoke, dust, and moisture from spit.

I am the Centurion of the spoken and sung word. One question is brought to mind. What happens to the all the B's and P's and all the hard consonants? Do they disappear into thin air, never to be heard of again?

"I think not." Although I do catch them In my screen mesh of synthetic skin. They are far from being lost forever.

They just hang out and talk incessantly about how they miss being part of the words that they come from. The B's are babbling about bats and balls and bold and beautiful, while the P's are gossiping about power and pies and parts and perfect, etc. It's the same for all the other hard and soft consonants. They all want to be part of words again.

To begin a word would bring them joy. But, it's too late for them now. Their time has come and gone. They look at me as some kind of joke that was played on them. Some have said that If it wasn't for me they could still stand proud at the beginning of many words. I too, am in danger for I am growing old and my skin is wearing thin. It looks like I will be replaced soon by a younger, newer pop filter just recently purchased by my owner, the studio engineer. I can see the shiny new box through the control room window.

R.IP. The Pop Filter