Who here has used a speaker for a mic? (NS10 on kick for example)

Wazzit like?!

I never done it myself..

yuktyy

[vsl666]

:eek:
huh ? will that work ? *LOL*

i guess it might .. what a strange idea ...

do u lie in bed late at night thinking about these things ??

anyway i dont have a nastey 10's so u better go try it out and report back sargent ...



im getting quite a kick myself imaginin you stickin a ns10 infront of the kit and trying to get a sound out of it ! bet the drummer thinks your cracked ...

[BevvyB]

me

[vsl666]

you ?


*i would like to add as a footnote to this thread that anyone who has invested some of their finite time on this wonderful and amazing planet doing said ns10 idea should be presented with a big shiney medal and then immediatley commited*








grggt

[Bob Olhsson]

I tried it once with an Auratone around 15 years ago. It sounded pretty bad on both kick and on a Hiwatt cabinet.

I suppose if you are desperate to obtain some character it's one approach.

[vsl666]

*approaches Bob with big shiney medal*

[ZEUSS]

I tried it. It is basically to blend the sub area that the NS-10 picks up with the mic. Works very well especially if you want that Metallica/black album type kick drum sound. Definately have to have some moniters that go real low in the freq responce. or a sub to hear it. I was able to use mackies to get it right. But when on the ns10's it was inaudible obviously. I think it is a cool "extra track" to print. Another engineer that I worked with on the project had a cool idea how to attach the NS10.

Take an old mic clip and unscrew the actual mic holder off the threaded base piece. Attach the mic clip base onto a goose neck. Mount the gooseneck on a low profile mic stand. Then take a zip tie or the correct sized screw and attach the mic clip base to one of the holes on the NS10 basket. Then let it hang down so that it is adjacect to the front Bass drum head. Works great. Make sure you have the drummer hit the bass drum real hard so you can get it close without the speaker hitting the head when its hit.


-Z-

[vsl666]

yuktyy

mmmm intrestin thanx zuess....

u learn somthin every day !

stoopid question ..... how do u stick a mic lead in to a speaker ?
do u need to make a lead .. i guess so

.....intrestin *nodding slowley*

*quickley throws straight jacket over your head and bundels you into white van*

[ZEUSS]

VSL,
Take a mic cable and cut off the female end. You only need like1-2 FT. Strip the sucka and solder it to the posts and leave the male end of the cable on so you can plug it in. Hope this helps. I didnt end up wiring it but I am pretty sure thats what it was.

-Z-

[vsl666]

grggt
great !

thanks jules zuess u are geniuses!

a use 4 all those old woofers

nice ill try it one day



*wondering what his mix would sound like fed back down the
mic .. ? then re recorded and remixed ?grggt

[mwagener]

Done it two weeks ago, I tried it with a 6" speaker (soft rubber cone) from an Infinity 2001 cabinet. I used to use those for mixing, it's a 30 W speaker and I used a 500W Bedini poweramp. Needless to say I had to subscribe to speaker parts. I'm not using the Infinity's for mixing anymore, so I had a couple of the 6" speaker laying around.

I built a little stand out of aluminum strips which suspends the speaker in mid air, placed it in front of the kick about 4-5 " from the front head. Soldered a mic cable to the speaker and plugged it into the old GrooveTubes MP-1. It needs about the same amount of gain as a ribbon mic. Inside the kick I'm using a Shure SM-91 plate mic, which goes to a very old API mic pre and then to a LittleLabs IBP variable phase box. With the IBP I could literally dial in the amount of low end I wanted on the Kick and the amount of "spongyness" for the low end. No EQ at all and it sounds great. A friend of mine borrowed the contraption and he is going gaga over it too. When I get it back I post a picture of it.

The speaker obviously doesn't pick up any high end from the cymbals, snare and toms, just fat low end mainly from the kick. I guess the soft rubber cone is important (dunno if the NS10 have a rubber ring around the cone?)

So far everybody who heard the ruffs commented about the kick sound in a positive way, so I must be doing something right.

[alphajerk]

i just put my R121 on the kick. ahem. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, why the **** must this mic torture me like this. i need it on guitars, and now kick. how many am i going to need in the end? damn you royer. damn you to hell.

i have a R121 on kick, a B&O BM5 overhead and a crown CM700 on snare. im thinking of putting my U195's on the toms... but i like my 604's on them. hmm.

a U195 gives me tons of bottom on the kick, like i need anymore of that... but if i do, my trusty dbx120xds [with the 4 bands of control :)] will do the trick.

[Tim L]

The first time I heard about the "speaker mic" was in an interview with George Martin. It was used on some of Mcartney's bass tones. Damn I wish I could remember what interview that was... I can't recall what songs they used it on.

[Fibes]

I've tried the speaker trick and found that the old intercom ones work best for me. I also love to use an old drive in movie speaker for "amped" vocals. There is something cool about screaming into that big hunk of aluminum that really gets a vocalist going.

[Kev]

Yep,

BUT mostly for live gigs. Mount small (4inch say) speakers into Guitar Cabinets and then used resitors, caps, an audio transformer and an XL3 to create a DI for FOH.

The reasoning was to get on and OFF stage as fast as possible. AND to have the minimum dollar value on stage at the time.... It was a Punk band and Damage was part of the show.

:eek:

[planet red]

From what ive heard using a 45 ohm speaker..... like the ones used in certain intercoms you can find replacements for at radio shack work the best. If you use a regular speaker you'll need to do a couple other things I dont remember to get everything out of it. Do a search on R.A.P and you'll see a couple guys explaining how to do it. If youre using the 45 ohm speaker take a mic cable and cut the female end off and attach + and - to the speaker and solder the ground to the metal casing around the speaker. Then you'll be ready to go. I have one setup but havent had a chance to try it yet.

[Fletcher]

The speaker in front of the kik drum thing has been around for more years than I have... which is quite a few.

I've had some of the best results with a "Green Back" Celestion 12"... I actually tried it with a 4x 12" cabinet once... it was definitely a "sound"... it worked well for the song but I don't think I'd make a steady diet of it.

[BevvyB]

This link points to a jazz piece I wrote for a short film.
Set in the 1920's, we wanted the track to start off sounding like an old record, and then fade in the 'proper' recording.

We recorded the track as normal, but also on another track we recorded through the biggest and most ancient loudspeaker we could find in the building (this was at Angel Studios, London UK) which was set right away from the band (it was a v.large room usually reserved for full scale classical)

Then for the film we did just that, started with the mono speaker recording, then faded in the other stuff.

The only time i've ever done it!

http://www.julianbevmoore.com/speaker/jazzintro.mp3

If anyones interested, two of the guys in the band were under 30, the other 6 were well over 65! The banjo player had to be brought out of retirement!

[heylow]

MY GOD BEVVY!!

That rules! Nice job on the "old time" feel. Where did you place the speaker? Was the speaker in a cabinet? How big WAS the speaker?

Interesting stuff here



heylow

I think they used an old 15 inch Tannoy.

[e-cue]

I used an old 21" woofer once... Got a MASSIVE "woof" subby sound. I gated it for attack (but I had plenty of attack from the SM57 I planted deep inside the kick) and used a Urei Little Dipper to roll off some lows that were inaudible (and made near fields crap out)... I was in PT so I nudged regions to compensate for delay... These kindly tricks make recording "fun" and always impress clients...

[RKrizman]

I used the NS-10 woofer thing on my last recording, which was a kick-ass blues band going straight to Protools (throught a Neve 8088). We put it a foot in front of Tony Braunigal's bass drum and it picked up all that low boombox warmth. Mixed in with the standard kick mic it was all the eq we needed. Furthermore, I swear it warmed up the entire mix. I'll never *not* do it again. I swear, for those people who think Protools has a wimpy bottom end, I say go out and fearlessly record low frequencies and then just turn them up. It's amazing how much clean low end you can push without woofing out like analog does. (please, I'm not trying to start something here--I just think the NS-10 woofer trick really made a difference in light of this being a digital recording).

-Rick

I get that pilow to the chest low sub 'thwamp' from Royer 121 at present or a condencer outside the kick a foot or two.. in a tunnel.

Keen to try the speaker one day soon!

[e-cue]

Jules, another few to try:

Mic a kick beater hitting a pillow, a basketball against the control room window (I totally stole this idea from Bob Clearmountain, so props to him), and someone pounding their fist into their chest. These make for some incredible cool "sound replacer" samples. Also when doing the 'chest' sample, try to have the person flex their muscles to the "key" of the song. (or pitch shift it). I had to do this due to the numerous "Make the kick sound like someone beating your chest" requests... I always add these in with the original signal. Any other ideas anyone? Chime in anytime.

Wow!

Cool stuff I feel a fool (often BTW not just now!) for not using Sound replacer more often.. I just normaly use the real sounds. I need to compile a a central drum sample collection. I dont have one..

I do however have 'the worlds best cymbal samples" - I made em myself in the best sounding drum room I have ever worked in (a barn at a residential studio)

[e-cue]

Between Soundreplacer, my Forat F-16, and my Akai's, I think I have more drum samples than god. I've been looking for some place online to trade such gems. Anyone got any sources? I was hoping Rec.Org was gonna start something like this, but they lost me after they started chargin admission to look at their banners and such...

[e-cue]

lol, new 'kick drum' sample:

An overweight runner made a suggestion (which we built on):

Tape a PZM mic to and "portly" stomach, (Pzm-> 1079/1073, DBX160XT or Disstressor-> Pultec blue -> 'tape') strike opposite side of 'beer gut' with tympani mallet... I'm bringing my pzm's tommarow to try it out and will report results.

[juniorhifikit]

I have thousands of samples ready to go, so many that I don't even know what I have! I always seem to go back to the same 10 or so kick & snare drums to suppliment what's already there. It's pointless, after a while, to collect a huge library unless you have a photographic memory and endless hours to poke through them. I'm starting to use them less and less, and record better drums in a better room more and more

[Volodia]

Originally posted by Tim L
The first time I heard about the "speaker mic" was in an interview with George Martin. It was used on some of Mcartney's bass tones. Damn I wish I could remember what interview that was... I can't recall what songs they used it on.

It was used for the bass on Paperback writer . Geoff Emerick took a blame from EMI for "bad impedance matching" . I've used the trick a few times with a fender twin . as everyone said a lot of sub and it impresses the client.

[Wilma]

Originally Posted by Volodia

It was used for the bass on Paperback writer . Geoff Emerick took a blame from EMI for "bad impedance matching" . I've used the trick a few times with a fender twin . as everyone said a lot of sub and it impresses the client.

Its a little off topic I know but I recently read a blog about Geoff Emerick
and this recent project he did - the remaking of sgt. pepper...
I am dying to hear the finished product.
got to admit - the man is a legend.