Did I get a Deal?

[Herm]

Hey Harvey I hope you or someone can help me out on this mic I got.
I was in an old music store today and saw this mic laying on the shelf .
I can tell its an electrovoice and it will take sound from the front and the side.
I know its a 6forty something but not sure. It also has a bass rollof slider switch
I ask them if they wanted to sell it the guy said yea give me 20 bucks and its
yours.
Only thing I hav tried it on is over the drums alittle and it dont sound to bad.
Any suggetions on what its for and what its worth.
Thanks

 

[Mark H.]

Herm,

Well, it's not an Electro-Voice 642, 643, 644, 645, 646, 647A, 648, 649A or 649B; nor is it a 635 or 635A. It's also not a 652 or 652A, 654 or 654A, 655 or 655C. It's not a 660, 664, 665 or 666. It's the wrong shape for a 667A or 668, as well as the 726 and 731; not to mention the v2, v3 and original Model 50.

But it's probably worth every penny you paid for it!

Mark H.

 

[Bear'sGnFission]

Looks like a beaten-to-hell RE-15 to me. Nice mic, nice price, assuming it sounds better than it looks. If you can compare to another and find it isn't in good tonal shape, EV might still be able to refurbish it.

Bear

 

[Harvey Gerst]

Bear has it exactly right - it's an old EV RE-15. It was a very popular studio and broadcast mic in it's day and still a very good sounding mic.

 

[Herm]

Thanks for the help guys, The mic is not in as bad of shape as what the picture shows.
Alot of that is just my crappy camera.

 

[Bear'sGnFission]

I guess I should let you know what it's good for. Great on guitar amps; toms; lots of folks use it on bottom snare, though you might try it as a single mic on the side of the shell; lacking another canidate, it'll work on kick drum; it'll do acoustic guitar alright if you can't spare a small diaphragm condensor.

It is variable-D, which means that the directional proximity effect is minimized. If I recall, it's cardioid, but it may be hyper or supercardioid. It has very clean, neutral response for a dynamic mic, which some find boring, while I think it can be damned useful. Taylor Johnson of the Sound Room suggested to me that if you have no interest in using these as vocal mics, it can help the sound to cut out all the foam in the head (I think EV used R-13 fiberglass?) and just use a light foam wind screen, though I haven't tried this and don't know exactly how much improvement it'll give.

Enjoy.

Bear

 

[Herm]

Thanks for the help, I used it a little today on a few things and found out it is a very useful
mic.
Now I just wish I could find some more like this.