EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN: My brother sent me an MP3 file of a cut from his next album and wrote: “Here’s the first recording in the new studio space. The ‘phone mic’ is the handset from an old Bell dial-phone that has been modified to take an XLR plug. Totally nails the “telephone tone” — if you can imagine such a thing. The guy who makes them even offers some where you plug into the base, so you can keep the whole phone as a mic.” I love that.