FAQ

Are these microphones made in the US of A?

They sure are: made in America by an Italian-American. All the parts, with the exception of the transformers, are custom machined in small shops in the Pacific Northwest and assembled, by hand, in West Seattle Washington. The transformers come from Sweden but I think we can all agree Swedes pretty much kill it at transformers, Black Metal, and candy fish so let’s not trip on that.

Is this the right microphone for me?

I don’t know, man. Is it? I’m not reinventing the wheel over here and no one mic is gonna solve all your problems (except maybe a 57 but someone already invented that so we’re all competing for second place there). That said, I make great sounding and road ready active ribbon mics with a modern response curve which takes EQ really well. Listen to the samples, use your earholes along with your critical thinking skills and abstract conceptualization abilities to decide for yourself if these are tools you can make use of. Maybe it’s what you need/want, maybe not. I’m not at all inclined to run a bunch of used car salesman shit on you just to get your money and I’d rather you not buy anything if you’re not sure it’s what you really want/need.

Dude, I’m slightly alarmed at your lack of salesmanship and marketing bullshit talk.

That’s not really a question but sure, I’ll go for it. If you’re the kind of person who is likely to be swayed by some “this mic will solve all your studio’s problems and make your bullshit Crate combo amp sound like Jimi’s #1 Woodstock Plexi!” kind of blah blah marketing talk then you’re almost certainly going to be better served by going and buying a shitty Chinese made ribbon mic that looks really cool and comes in a fancy wooden box. You won’t know the difference anyway, you’ll save some money, and I won’t have to deal with you. Everyone wins!

Speaking of fancy wooden boxes, where the hell is my fancy wooden box? People won’t know this is a serious mic if it doesn’t come with a fancy laser engraved box.

I like to think (and by “like to think” I mean “have been forced to accept there is no other possible conclusion than to believe”) that there are two types of musicians and engineers: those who sit at home, spending a lot of time polishing their $3000 guitars while being very upset that their overpriced fancy boutique overdrive pedal has a slight imperfection in its powder coating, and those who work hard in a different city every night to make the songs sound great regardless of the difficulties at hand. These microphones are for the second variety; if you need a fancy wooden box then maybe go buy one on etsy. Point being: the cases are designed to allow you or your audio crew to fly with 8 of them in packed securely in individual cases inside a Pelican 1560. My crew and I tried a lot of things to keep ribbon mics safe on the road and we feel that apart from taking them in your carry-on luggage this is the best move. Your fancy wooden boxes quickly become unfancy broken and splintered kindling at the hands of the TSA.

Alright, I get it. No fancy box then. Fine. You sure as shit got a fancy custom Y cable for that stereo mic though, right?

Hell no. Custom cables are like catnip to local stagehands. I think we can all agree that no amount of screaming “ALL THE MICS AND CABLES BELONG TO US, MY ENGINEERS AND I WILL STRIKE THEM. DO NOT TOUCH OUR MICS AND CABLES!!!” will keep the most dedicated of sleep-deprived and drug fueled festival stagehands from immediately wrapping your custom cable and tossing into an unmarked local audio company bin deep in a dark corner of the loading dock, never to be seen again. The time you spend cozying up to the soldering iron on the bus in the middle of the night trying to frankenstein a new custom cable out of some DMX jumpers and a pair of XLR cables (while you’d rather be in your bunk drinking cough syrup and listening to Slint) is time you’ll never get back. With that in mind, my stereo mic has a pair of standard 3pin XLR tails. Not at all exciting; just about impossible to fuck up.

Why all these active ribbon mics and no passive ribbon mics?

A couple of reasons. The output level of a passive ribbon mic is often so low that anything less than an incredible preamp will be too noisy at useful levels. You can sometimes get around this by using two decent preamps inline operating near the middle of their range but that’s a clunky solution which is a bit of a pain in the ass to implement. I’ve tried touring with a bunch of fancy 500 series preamps and even with special care and gentle handling they just couldn’t survive life on the road for a reasonable amount of time. Even if there were truly roadworthy ribbon mic preamps readily available, that doesn’t mean they would be easily accessible or affordable. I’m of the opinion that access to expensive preamps should not be a requirement for getting great ribbon mic results. Also, I think every touring engineer has had the pleasure/horror of seeing 48V (and, every once in a very rare while, 96V) of phantom power accidentally sent down the snake to somewhere it should not go. Dynamic mics can usually handle that, ribbons usually can’t. If your passive ribbon mic ends up on the receiving end of that phantom power, it’s probably fucked. Romito Active Ribbon mics need 48V of phantom power so you don’t have to live in fear of killing them that way. So yeah, if given the option, why not increase the usability of the mic while decreasing the likelihood of it getting fucked up?

Whoopsie, I’ve gone and fucked up my mic. Can you repair it?

The original purchaser is entitled to one free re-ribbon in the first two years after purchase; you’ll just need to cover shipping both directions. Beyond that, re-ribbons, tensioning, repairs, etc. will cost you parts + labor + shipping. Shoot me an email, I can give you an estimate. It costs a lot less than you think.

Why you no sell a phantom powered activator for passive ribbon mics?

Cloud already sells the Cloudlifter and everyone else pretty much just copies that anyway. There’s enough people cloning it and slapping their own logo on it to satisfy everyone’s needs and budget. They’re all eagerly racing to the bottom on quality and price in that realm so there’s no need for me to jump on the bandwagon.

I’m noticing a lot of potty mouth here, I find that off-putting.

Bummer. Again, not a question but whatever. There are many other vendors who are eager to baby talk your pussy ass. If that’s your thing, I feel sorry for you but please take it somewhere else. In addition to people afraid of swears, I’d much rather not deal with racists, misogynists, xenophobes, homophobes, most kinds of cultural *phobes actually, cork sniffers, collectors, people who are rude to folks who work in the service industry, people who order complicated drinks, people who have a favorite menu item at more than one fast food restaurant, people who pronounce it “nucular”, and anyone who refers to the local sports team as “we”.

Man, you’re kind of a dick.

Not really, I’m just allergic to bullshit. Should you have ribbon microphone, DI, etc. related questions, concerns, problems, etc. I’m eager to help and always willing to take as much time and effort as is necessary to resolve any concern which may arise. In the immortal words of ODB “Baby, you know I’mma take care of you”

Alright, I get it. How’s about coming with some response curves, pickup patterns, facts, figures, charts, & graphs?

Sure, man. here you go. Remember: you can spend all day cozying up to the calculator and slide rule but all the great stats in the world won’t matter if your mic sounds like shit. Listen for yourself and decide if it’s a good fit for your situation.

Who the hell are you anyway and what gives you the right to talk to me like this?

I’m Justin. I spent a couple of decades playing in speed metal and thrash bands you’ve never heard of, I followed that up with a few years of outsider electronic shows where I usually played at 4:00am. I spent years working for a well known synth and effects manufacturer, worked on some very successful open source hardware synth projects in my spare time, added MIDI mods to all kinds of shit which should not be MIDI controlled, had a modular synth habit forced on me, and generally wreaked soldering iron hell all day. Having been born with a complete inability to be lazy I also spent about a decade as a venue production manager; promoter rep; or festival rep all over the pacific northwest working with roughly 400 different bands a year. A couple of years ago I decided to say “fuck this working in venues shit” and go out on the road with a variety of bands as a production manager, stage electronics tech, and/or soldering iron wizard. In addition to all that stuff I’ve tracked acoustic and electronic instruments for live and studio recordings in venues and studios all over America. I’ve used ribbon mics on stage and in the studio for the majority of those gigs and I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time repairing them or otherwise dealing with their limitations. I set out to build musical electronics that solved a lot of the problems we encountered on the road while sounding great and not being a gigantic pain in the balls to use.

Alright, I get it. Geez, calm down. Anyway, I’m trying to go all in on this Romito Engineering thing, You got any other stuff I can spend my money on?

Totally. Hop on over to the store and get your hands on a Romito Engineering Midnight Dream Rag, International stagehand’s union approved black t-shirt, maybe a couple of DI’s for your bass or synth player, Printed Gaff tape (since you might not get a chance to steal a roll of it whenever I come to your town), or some timeless and super classy stickers to stick on your home-made mic to trick folks into thinking you own one of these super sweet mics when you really don’t.