Favourite dirty, dusty, honky, funky sounding mics..? (AKA THE UNHIFI MIC THREAD!)

[OneginO]

Hi guys

I'm about to start an album production and to add to the tonal pallette I'm looking for suggestions for utterly un-hifi mics - I very much like to 'paint' with mics when tracking - going for some quite extreme colours.

So I'm after honk, colour, dusty old sounds - whatever, stuff for effect... A range of distinctive colours..

Rather than buying random old carbon mics say off ebay (most of which probably wouldn't work) I thought I'd ask here in case anyone had ideas..

Examples of things I already use for this sort of application would be... Shure Green Bullet (fab for making dusty old backing vocals), Sontronics Sigma ribbons (instant sonic sepia).

Anyone else found anything really cool and funky, just plain weird or lovely and dusty sounding? Bring out your weird stuff!

[Teddy Ray]

The Copperphone - Placid Audio

[dustyreels]

How bout wiring a telephone so you can plug it in a preamp?

[ianbryn11]

or plugging a headphone into an amp and singing into it... Havent tried that myslef, but i thought it was a cool suggestion when i heard it...

[goldendeathmusic]

i have a newer electro-voice dynamic mic that my brother dropped: the damage really narrowed the frequency range of the mic and gave it this weird super mid-range spike that makes it cut through the mix like nothing else...works great every once in a while for certain things. so maybe take your spare u87 and smash it on the ground to give it a little extra special flavor?

[beingmf]

[Ken Walker]

How about this?

[dustyreels]

Originally Posted by goldendeathmusic

so maybe take your spare u87 and smash it on the ground to give it a little extra special flavor?

I tried this this morning and my '76 u87 no workie no more!?

Man, this was some bad advice. Maybe I shouldn't have thrown it down so hard on the wet concrete outside?!

[dustyreels]

Originally Posted by Ken Walker

How about this?

I could've just mic'd the speaker with my now dead u87.

[goldendeathmusic]

ah,damn,i forgot to mention, it only works if you smash it on an old vintage console (my brother got time at abbey roads to do ours, but any console will probably work, as long as it's way overvalued) it really imparts the vintage warmth of the console into the mic somehow...don't ask me how,i'm not a tech guy

[dustyreels]

Originally Posted by goldendeathmusic

ah,damn,i forgot to mention, it only works if you smash it on an old vintage console (my brother got time at abbey roads to do ours, but any console will probably work, as long as it's way overvalued) it really imparts the vintage warmth of the console into the mic somehow...don't ask me how,i'm not a tech guy

Well then it's partly your fault! Will you buy me a u87? A new ai version will be fine. PM me and we'll work it out.

[BudgetMC]

Originally Posted by dustyreels

Well then it's partly your fault! Will you buy me a u87? A new ai version will be fine. PM me and we'll work it out.

Seems only fair to me... but Dusty should pick up shipping.

[jaguarsg]

ampex 2001 has enough high end to kill every cat within a 3 mile radius.

[OneginO]

This is all excellent advice. I'm blown away.

[mrjfender]

I like to use baby monitors sometimes.Cool for vocals or to get a dirty distorted ambient drum sound.

[audiogeek]

have two cell phones, one in each hand. dial one with the other, answer, then turn it upside down so they're facing each other and feeding back... you can control the amount of feedback by playing with distance between the two.

now, bring your mouth close to one of them, and start singing/talking/whatever.

i've always wanted to tap off the line from the phone i'm not singing into, and capture that... probably pretty cool sounding.

this is what i daydream at work.

[AstralPStudios]

Anything by behringer and nady.

[goldendeathmusic]

Originally Posted by OneginO

This is all excellent advice. I'm blown away.

glad i could help!

also, i managed to pick up a lot of about 30 microphones for super cheap off craigslist from the smelliest individual i've ever met the other month.
after letting the mics sit in the garage for a week (they litterally had soaked up the smell of his B.O...) I have tons of different lo-fi sounding mics. The ones that I like the most so far are a couple Realistic/Radio Shack battery powered stereo condenser mics, and a CB Radio Talk mic that you have to press a big button on use...sounds like you are broadcasting straight from the 50's when you record with it. I bet you could find these types of mics for pretty cheap at your local flea market or pawn shop/thrift store and they work great for some lo-fi flavor. I remember someone saying up here a while ago that there's no such thing as a bad mic, and I took this to mean that even the "worst" sounding mic can find a welcome place in a song if it's used the right way.

[dustyreels]

Originally Posted by BudgetMC

Seems only fair to me... but Dusty should pick up shipping.

Sure, I'll cover shipping!

[rogerbrain]

go to a ham fest and get some ham radio mics or old tape recorder mics

i find it easier to do using hi and low pass filters and some tinny slap .. that way I can adjust it to the song

[Michael_Joly]

Oktava MD-186.

Sounds like it swallowed an AM radio signal chain and transmitter. Not easily obtained though.

[trompetfreak]

How about a really old version of the MD21?
I have a Grundig GDM121, wich is quite terrible!

[Batchainpuller78]

I have some old Telefunken & Philips microphones, those little plastic table top things, Old AKG dynamics can be very funky, I have an AKG D120 that's a bit busted but sounds great, an AKG D125 which sounds very strange but is not broken, and the old AKG D25 which has a great honk to it in the low region. A Green Bullet to put things in overdrive, oh yeah and an old announcers mic from a Bus, which also goes straight to overdrive.

Another way is having hifi mics but putting various sources through amplifiers & speakers of all sorts. good way to quickly get to dirty dusty funky stuff.

[Soundwaves]

Great stuff !!! Recently i have spotted old TV sets dumped and thought of taking out the drivers for some try outs in this field..
Though i bet the day i wander around with that screw driver there wont be any old tvs on the pavement and i will be swiftly arrested for looking suspicious with a screwdriver !!! '' you say you want to make a mic out a speaker??? sir??.!!! yeah right!!! ..Lock him up!!!''