The Coles 4038 is a truly iconic ribbon microphone, with the currently-manufactured mics almost completely unchanged from the originals designed by the BBC and built by STC in the 1950s. The 4038 sports a wonderfully dark, heavy sound that lends itself particularly well to drums, guitar amps, horns and any other sound source that can benefit from a rolloff of high frequencies. The 4038 initially gained its massive popularity in recording studios after being used above Ringo Starr's kit on a huge selection of The Beatles' recordings. The swiveling "waffle iron" head houses one of the thinnest ribbon elements ever produced, and allows the engineer to fine-tune the positioning of the microphone to best capture the sound as well as make use of its deep null to cancel out unwanted bleed from other instruments.