05/13/2026
The shared history of Mojave Audio and Rancho de la Luna is the story of two desert dwellers serendipitously united by proximity and a love of recorded sound.
In the 1990s, David Royer, self-described “high desert rat” passionate for capturing the wild beauty of the Mojave Desert’s lightning storms, started tinkering with microphones. When he wasn’t tearing across the flats of Joshua Tree chasing electricity, David obsessed in his garage over the mechanics of sound, modifying and building microphones from scratch. Inspired to share his latest Frankenstein mic masterpiece with neighbor Dave Catching at Rancho de la Luna, David took off on his trusty old Triumph motorcycle clutching what would become a Royer Labs ribbon mic. It was swaddled in a tube sock. He dubbed it “the pipe b*mb”. To prove its ruggedness, David literally pounded it with a hammer before plugging it in. It survived. In the middle of a tracking session, Catching immediately put David’s creation to use, fell hard for its sound, and a friendship was born.
Over the decades, Rancho de la Luna’s singular desert sound has been captured on countless iconic records: Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, and Iggy Pop are among the music legends who have created sonic magic there, and a big part of that magic comes from David’s microphones. Today, Rancho de la Luna houses a mic locker filled with a selection of Mojave Audio microphones including a pair of the soon-to-be-reissued MA-100s, the beloved MA-300s, and the instant modern classic MA-37. Mojave Audio and David Royer are proud to remain an essential part of Catching’s daily vocal and instrument chains and most importantly, we are proud to call him a friend ✨🎶🫶🏼
