Oddball mics

[Meriphew]

Let's hear about, and see some pics of your unusual, out of the ordinary mics.

I just got this in the mail, and I'm really digging it. It has a beautiful antiquated sound that makes you feel like you're listening to an old, old jazz/blues recording (minus the pops and crackles). Aside from recording with it, I'm going to use this baby for live shows.

Placid Audio Harmonica Mini:



I also have Placid Audio's Copperphone mic which I get quite a bit of use out of on guitar amps and vocals.

[Summa]

Well, I have several oddball mic's but I just wanted to comment on the Placid Audio mic's. In my opinion they just sound like crap and if that's the effect you want you could just record them with a sm58 (as in the samples on the website) and add your eq-plug to that, HP/LP bandpass or whatever and you'll have that result without the need to spend the extra $$$'s

just my 2 cents though...

[Greg Curtis]

Mics you don't see too often:

RCA KU-3A (aka 10001). I've got 4 of these, 2 sound incredible, the other two are very nice:



Neumann TLM50s:



AKG 420 (stereo 414). Great mic:

[illiummusic]

This thread isn't about why you hate Placid Audio mics.
Why are there so many f###ing downers on GS now.
Try posting things relevant to the thread instead of throwing
in you 2 cents when no one asked for it.

Bring on the oddball mics! I too would like to see some.

[jchadstopherhuez]

Originally Posted by Summa

Well, I have several oddball mic's but I just wanted to comment on the Placid Audio mic's. In my opinion they just sound like crap and if that's the effect you want you could just record them with a sm58 (as in the samples on the website) and add your eq-plug to that, HP/LP bandpass or whatever and you'll have that result without the need to spend the extra $$$'s

just my 2 cents though...

well...i also like sm58's on guitars so...what do i know...

but.....

to my ears....what i capture with the copperphone is often VERY different than if i use a full range mic and process it after the fact with filters. i have used the copperphone often for acoustic guitars, in the room for an additional drum "room" sound, and a few times just for a single mic singer/guitar track. i really like them.

or maybe i just think they look cool.

either way...i like em'

back on topic...i have some weird old oktava ribbons that get used often in my world, and i have found many uses for the BLUE kick ball mics...except kick drum. also found an old ham radio mic at a yard sale...and through it up quite often next to the main vocal mic often using it for a send to a verb that is mixed with the track...has a really weird midrange thing that sounds really cool. finally, i have an ancient ev mic that is shaped like a gun that sounds pretty damn cool on snare drum.

sorry..no pics around.

cheers,

jchristopherhughes

[tINY]

Looks like someone used to work in motion picture sound ... You can still rent those M50s out for a fortune when someone wants to score a movie with a big orchestra - they just sound like movie music....

I've got a Stedman n90...




-tINY

[greatgreatriver]

Maybe not so odd but kinda cool - Sennheiser md21.

[Rick Sutton]

Greg Curtis, I love that "spare boom wingnut" in the RCA KU-3A case!

[decibike]

Beyerdynamic m 320. (picture is taken from the web but mine is in the same condition.) Rare and amazing fully hand made cardoid ribbon mic from the 60s. Kills on guitar cabs, acoustic guitar, vox, violin.. well just about anything. Nice; it has a HPF knob with two settings sprache (speech) and musik (music).

great thread. keep those pictures coming!

[Meriphew]

Originally Posted by mixman499

to my ears....what i capture with the copperphone is often VERY different than if i use a full range mic and process it after the fact with filters. i have used the copperphone often for acoustic guitars, in the room for an additional drum "room" sound, and a few times just for a single mic singer/guitar track. i really like them.

I've never tried it on acoustic guitar before. Thanks for the idea, I'm going to give it a go next time.

Greg - That RCA mic looks awesome.

[jomo1234]

I get a lot of use out of the Gefell M900...it always gets a few odd stares. Everyone asks if it's a Lomo 19A19. These are great mics...I am always surprised that they don't get more love here on Gearslutz.

[malaclypse]

EV 664

[DJamesGoody]

FWIW, here is my soviet hall of fame, which I have all in pairs. And of course, my table of toy mics, which receive reverence here for their utility.

[Piedpiper]

Here's a Crown SASSP stereo PZM mic that I've gutted and rebuilt to be single ended (no xfrmr) dual mono battery powered incorporating battery powered mic pres using minimal circuitry and premium parts. The ribbon cables coming out of the back are by Mapleshade/inSound. I originally used to run the thing with a load of D cells that made it slightly more effortless sounding but more effortful to use.

[DJamesGoody]

I almost forgot Vladimira.

[Meriphew]

Originally Posted by DJGoody

I almost forgot Vladimira.

Ha! That's really cool.

[Rick Sutton]

I owned one of these many years ago. It sounded as bad as it looked!

[greatgreatriver]

Originally Posted by Piedpiper

Here's a Crown SASSP stereo PZM mic that I've gutted and rebuilt to be single ended (no xfrmr) dual mono battery powered incorporating battery powered mic pres using minimal circuitry and premium parts. The ribbon cables coming out of the back are by Mapleshade/inSound. I originally used to run the thing with a load of D cells that made it slightly more effortless sounding but more effortful to use.

Hi

Mapleshade? wow - I love Midnite "ras mek peace" - That CD sound absolutely dope amazing grace to my ears. Tell me more about that mic.

[BenJah]

Vladimira is amazing. It's gonna take something pretty special to beat that mic. How does it sound?

[jaglesis]

What an amazing selection you guys have

makes me really jealous

[FAT]

Originally Posted by Greg Curtis

Mics you don't see too often:

RCA KU-3A (aka 10001). I've got 4 of these, 2 sound incredible, the other two are very nice:



Neumann TLM50s:



AKG 420 (stereo 414). Great mic:

Not so much oddball, but awesome (esp the m50s)

[Piedpiper]

Originally Posted by greatgreatriver

Hi

Mapleshade? wow - I love Midnite "ras mek peace" - That CD sound absolutely dope amazing grace to my ears. Tell me more about that mic.

Yup. Pierre Sprey is a friend of mine and helped me tremendously in my early pursuit of audiophile recording. It was he that turned me on to the Crowns, helped me with the rebuild and showed me a working model of commitment to minimalism. His recordings are stunningly transparent, demonstrating beautifully the impact of purity and fanatical attention to detail. I've been exploring the other end lately but hopefully integrating the value of minimalism as well.

The SASSP employs the ORTF configuration with a pair of PZM capsules, separated by a baffle that shadows high frequencies shorter than the 6 inch distance between the capsules. It's a great value stock, but is improved immensely by removing the circuit board and replacing with a minimum circuit which then consists of two or four 9V batteries per channel for the mic capsules, a 38k resistor on the B- per channel, a .047uF cap to ground per channel, and a 5uF coupling cap per channel. I then install a pair of chip based mic pres using four more 9V batteries per channel, a pair of BB 217 ICs, a 10k resistor to ground per channel, a 5uF coupling cap per channel and a pair of 6 position switched arrays of resistors to control gain, all wired point to point with very thin solid core minimum dielectric OFC copper. With the parts count so low I can splurge on the best caps and resistors. The housing gets lined with lead sheet to minimize resonances. The circuit is left single ended terminating in RCA jacks since I use short premium audiophile home stereo interconnects. A meter or two of the extremely revealing Mapleshade cables allows the lack of hype to work for me.

The frequency response has a slight dip in the mud zone between 300-400Hz, a slow rise to 2k, a slight smooth dip at 4k, then smoothly rising to a 10k shelf. The tiny PZM capsules are very fast and clean on transients and harmonics.

The effect is still underwhelming for those used to color and hype but in the right situation it's spooky good. As well as using it for live to stereo mic recordings, it can work well for piano, drums and anything that can benefit from a stereo image and a minimum proximity of 3 feet.

You can listen to my last binaural project at Rock Paper Scissors on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos. This was done bypassing the internal mic pres with a four meter pair of Cardas cables into an all tube Manley Dual Mono mic pre into a Mytek stereo192 into a 002R and isn't quite as open as I would have liked by contrast, mostly the fault of the Cardas wire. I had to use the Manley as there was a problem with the internal pres that I didn't have time to trouble shoot. No EQ and a minimum of spot ITB compression was used.

[DJamesGoody]

Originally Posted by BenJah

Vladimira is amazing. It's gonna take something pretty special to beat that mic. How does it sound?

I use it as a fukko mic. It's two old soviet electret condensors, and I usually run them into my Lomo valve pres, and fuzz them up a bit, then squeeze. An excellent "front of kit" placement.

And, it looks extremely cool.

[Corran]

Originally Posted by DJGoody

FWIW, here is my soviet hall of fame, which I have all in pairs. And of course, my table of toy mics, which receive reverence here for their utility.

Neat, I've wanted one of those Oktava ribbon mics that look like a big black box (I can't remember the model right now, what was it?). What do you use them for? I have the Oktava ML-52 and it's used on bass cab a lot. Nice collection!

[greatgreatriver]

Originally Posted by Piedpiper

Yup. Pierre Sprey is a friend of mine and helped me tremendously in my early pursuit of audiophile recording. It was he that turned me on to the Crowns, helped me with the rebuild and showed me a working model of commitment to minimalism. His recordings are stunningly transparent, demonstrating beautifully the impact of purity and fanatical attention to detail. I've been exploring the other end lately but hopefully integrating the value of minimalism as well.

The SASSP employs the ORTF configuration with a pair of PZM capsules, separated by a baffle that shadows high frequencies shorter than the 6 inch distance between the capsules. It's a great value stock, but is improved immensely by removing the circuit board and replacing with a minimum circuit which then consists of two or four 9V batteries per channel for the mic capsules, a 38k resistor on the B- per channel, a .047uF cap to ground per channel, and a 5uF coupling cap per channel. I then install a pair of chip based mic pres using four more 9V batteries per channel, a pair of BB 217 ICs, a 10k resistor to ground per channel, a 5uF coupling cap per channel and a pair of 6 position switched arrays of resistors to control gain, all wired point to point with very thin solid core minimum dielectric OFC copper. With the parts count so low I can splurge on the best caps and resistors. The housing gets lined with lead sheet to minimize resonances. The circuit is left single ended terminating in RCA jacks since I use short premium audiophile home stereo interconnects. A meter or two of the extremely revealing Mapleshade cables allows the lack of hype to work for me.

The frequency response has a slight dip in the mud zone between 300-400Hz, a slow rise to 2k, a slight smooth dip at 4k, then smoothly rising to a 10k shelf. The tiny PZM capsules are very fast and clean on transients and harmonics.

The effect is still underwhelming for those used to color and hype but in the right situation it's spooky good. As well as using it for live to stereo mic recordings, it can work well for piano, drums and anything that can benefit from a stereo image and a minimum proximity of 3 feet.

You can listen to my last binaural project at Rock Paper Scissors on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos. This was done bypassing the internal mic pres with a four meter pair of Cardas cables into an all tube Manley Dual Mono mic pre into a Mytek stereo192 into a 002R and isn't quite as open as I would have liked by contrast, mostly the fault of the Cardas wire. I had to use the Manley as there was a problem with the internal pres that I didn't have time to trouble shoot. No EQ and a minimum of spot ITB compression was used.

Wow very interesting... Must be nice to know such a great man. I will check out your myspace for sure. Thanks for the info. Midnite is one of my favo CD's. I love the sound. It's like you are standing in the room. I can feel everything. Great band!

[greatgreatriver]

Piedpiper

Wow man - Rock Paper Scissors - sound amazing cool. I would love to hear this in better quality.

I'm floored - this is the sound I want on my recordings but I'm stucked in a crappy basement.

[DJamesGoody]

Originally Posted by Corran

Neat, I've wanted one of those Oktava ribbon mics that look like a big black box (I can't remember the model right now, what was it?). What do you use them for? I have the Oktava ML-52 and it's used on bass cab a lot. Nice collection!

Those Oktavas are called the ML19, and sometimes ML219 (not MK219-totally different). They're unidirectional, and are a GREAT guitar cab mic, and some vocalists as well, with caution.

[warhead]

I have one of these Grundig ribbon mics I bought on a whim, and it can do pretty decent on guitar cabs and happens to be cardioid. This is somebody else's pic that I found on an image search. Made by Beyer, likely it came attached to a portable tape recorder in the 60's...



War

[Piedpiper]

Originally Posted by greatgreatriver

Piedpiper

Wow man - Rock Paper Scissors - sound amazing cool. I would love to hear this in better quality.

I'm floored - this is the sound I want on my recordings but I'm stucked in a crappy basement.

Thanks! With this kind of recording , the room is everything. We recorded it in a wonderful theater with a beautiful Steinway grand. I think you can order the CD from that site.

Pierre usually uses spot mics in addition to his big plexi stereo wedge with Crown PZMs mounted on it, mixed live direct from the mic pres to 1/4 in. tape. He's a tweeker's tweek for sure, but a very unpretentious one, and very generous with his knowledge.

[greatgreatriver]

Thanks bro! I will order the CD for sure. Keep in touch!

Originally Posted by Piedpiper

Thanks! With this kind of recording , the room is everything. We recorded it in a wonderful theater with a beautiful Steinway grand. I think you can order the CD from that site.

Pierre usually uses spot mics in addition to his big plexi stereo wedge with Crown PZMs mounted on it, mixed live direct from the mic pres to 1/4 in. tape. He's a tweeker's tweek for sure, but a very unpretentious one, and very generous with his knowledge.