Audio-Technica AT4047/MP
A multi-pattern version of Audio-Technica's FET-flavored condenser, with three polar patterns and a voice the company pitched as "vintage."
Overview
The AT4047/MP is the multi-pattern member of Audio-Technica's 40 Series. It arrived alongside some firsts for the company. Audio-Technica's own advertising, running across the trade magazines in 2010, introduced the AT4047MP together with the AT4080 and AT4081 - the company's first-ever ribbon microphones - and the mid-side stereo AT4050ST. The brand called the whole group its flagship 40 Series. The ad sold the AT4047MP on "the vintage sound of the new multi-pattern AT4047MP condenser," and the spec bullets under the copy promised "sonic characteristics reminiscent of early F.E.T. studio mics." That's marketing, not a measurement, but it shows who the mic was aimed at: engineers chasing the FET-condenser character of the classic studio era without paying classic-era prices.
The "/MP" suffix means multi-pattern. The defining hardware feature is a set of three switchable polar patterns: cardioid, omnidirectional, and figure-of-eight. That changes what the mic can do in a session. A cardioid-only large-diaphragm condenser is a workhorse for close sources. Adding omni and figure-eight makes the same capsule usable as a room mic, as a Blumlein or mid-side building block, and as a way to reject off-axis bleed that a fixed cardioid can't handle. For anyone who already liked the AT4047's voicing but needed pattern flexibility, the MP was the obvious ask.
Audio-Technica backed the 40 Series additions with a five-year warranty, and the ad copy repeated it in every placement. The AT4047MP was priced at $1,055 MSRP at launch, according to the product listing in EQ (2010, p.7). That placed it below the AT4050ST stereo condenser at $1,625 and above the AT4081 ribbon at $895 within the same 40 Series family. For a multi-pattern large-diaphragm FET-style condenser, that put it in direct contention with the usual suspects in the mid-four-figure studio market.
On the evidence of the period materials, the AT4047MP is not a reinvention. The advertising leans hard on the word "vintage," and the design brief - FET-style sonics, three patterns, a five-year warranty - reads as a play for engineers who want a familiar, slightly colored condenser sound rather than a transparent modern one. Collectors and working engineers tend to file the 40 Series as dependable session tools rather than exotic objects. Whether the "early FET" character is a strength or a limitation depends on the source in front of it. It flatters vocals and guitar cabinets, and it asks for care on sources that want neutrality.
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