By Luke Harper
Way back when, I did a good number of product reviews. Then I joined the teaching world for a bit, helping to shape the minds of young people wanting to get into production and post. More recently, I found my way back to making films and other production work, which reignited my interest in trying out new tools.
My first postPerspective review out of the gate looks at Tula, a sweet little portable microphone that records to itself and features a DAMN fine bit of noise reduction.
At this point in the review, you might be asking, “Why do you, a post professional, care about a $259 portable recorder?” And it’s a good question. My answer: “Because things have changed.” Workflows. Methodologies. Paradigms. Expectations.
Podcasts have started to proliferate like we haven’t seen since 2004, when the term was invented. Back then, businesses saw podcasting as a way to promote products and services, and they scrambled to take advantage of the new channel. The serious places with serious money started to reach out to people familiar with recording and editing the human voice so they could figure out the best way to capture and deliver their material.
Podcasts were started using everything from built-in mics to full-on Electro-Voice RE20 or Neumann U 87-based setups. New products were developed by some of the usual suspects — Røde, Roland, etc. — specifically for podcasting.
Then, everything chilled for about a decade — until COVID hit, putting us collectively back in a podcast frame of mind. But today we have far better gear, including the Tula, and can do a much better job.
Portable Recording
Now, I should mention that you can use this little beauty for anything that requires portable recording. It sounds great! (Certainly good enough for broadcast.)
Tula answers the question, “Do you have something that’s not all that complicated that I can hand to a client and have them record and upload material in broadcast quality?”
We still don’t want to be too close to each other right now, and Tula has an answer there too: It’s easy to mail. (A bit different from when I was doing ADR at the height of the pandemic and mailing actors customized Pelican cases full of gear and instructions. It was a lot.)
This microphone is well-designed enough to offer perfectly reasonable, nay, pretty darn good VO-style results for anyone. You’ll find a ton of examples in this accompanying video.
Ease of Use
Using Tula, clients can either upload the material themselves by connecting the included USB-C cable, thus turning the Tula into a hard drive, or they can simply ship it back to you. The size also cuts down on shipping costs. (The ADR Pelican was about $300 from NYC to LA. The Tula would be under $50.)
The Tula does have enough controls to be intensely useful unto itself. Have a look at the control diagram.
The two LEDs on the front indicate record status (left) and metering ballistics (right). The back offers battery level, the USB-C and a hard reset. (Let’s take a moment to thank manufacturers for hard resets.)
What Makes a Mic a Good Mic?
- Does it accurately yet pleasingly capture its intended frequencies?
- Is it aesthetically pleasing?
- Is it tough?
The answers relating to this Tula mic are:
- Demonstrably.
- Oh, yes. Sea foam, red, black and silver!
- Yes, unless you are particularly violent.
- Added perks: records to self, plus noise reduction.
Speaking of Noise Reduction
Klevgrand is a Swedish plug-in company that makes all sorts of fun. They have a sweet and chipper vibe, their UX is top-drawer, and their selection is extensive and intensely value-conscious. The majority of their offerings are effects and boutique instruments.
They also have a sweet little $60 noise-killer called Brusfri, which is integrated into Tula. It’s a standard “listen, identify [bad noise], then use clever algorithms to attenuate said [bad noise]” noise reducer. And before you worry, recording with it turned on yields two files: one effected and one raw/dry.
To use it, you simply hold the NC (noise cancellation) button on the left side for a few seconds so it can listen to your environment. This is how the plug-in version works as well. From there it’s either on or off, your choice.
In the video section of this review, you will hear it go up against Absentia, iZotope RX 9, Cedar DNS2 and Waves Clarity and come out in a very impressive place for $60. It’s very impressive.
My results seemed a little random; it either did a nice job of tempering HVAC, etc. and cutting down on room verb, or it seemed to do nothing at all. User error? Weird integration? I’ll keep testing.
As I mentioned earlier, the video (listen with headphones) will show you exactly what I heard. Also, you can enjoy my varied attempts at pronouncing “Brusfri.” (BroosFry? BruhsFree?) I’ll expect a chipper, vaguely Scandinavian correction from Klevgrand.
Luke Harper with Tula mic.
So, portable recorder and hella decent microphone. Anything else to note with Tula? Why, yes! Plug it into your computer, and you gain a far better system microphone. It has a mute button! You will be the leader of the Zoom/Google Meet/Webex/Fuze aural pack.
Summing Up
This microphone works for me because the demands on my time have shifted. I don’t want to spend extra time de-noising and de-verbing and EQing sourced client material, and for $259 I can drastically cut down on all of that. The client gets a small, dramatically attractive plug-and-play solution, and I get files that don’t require too much sweat and time. Win-win.
Luke Harper is an audio engineer and instructor of 25 years living in Minneapolis. He owns an Atmos mix facility, called DeCoded Audio.
