Interesting Microphones - less common mics - and tips and tricks

R

rob aylestone

Moderator
Revisiting some old stuff - but many people might not know very much about shotgun mics - especially one that is extremely long and strange! AKG actually suggested one of it's uses was for singing!!
 
How about a TLM103 copy? Oddly - this doesnt' have the Neumann logo or branding - it just looks like one, but does that make it a counterfeit? Perhaps not. It certainly isn't dreadful?
 
This video has some unusual results I think - I've explained some of the facts and features of double basses and then tried a variety of mics and some of the usual favourites performed less well and other better I think? Handy if you ever get presented with recording these ratheer awkward instruments.
 
This one is not so much about microphone comparisons, but about why recording saxophones can often be really hard to do well. Lots of the things in this video could be totally new to you but the info could be really handy. The soprano at the end clearly demonstrates what comes out of the very end of a sax - quite a nasty sound.
 
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spantini said:
Hey Rob, I hope you don't mind. I dug up a related thread from earlier this year - one of mine.

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No absolutely great - add more if you have any - I started the topic to sort of expand thinking a bit on mics and mic positions. I did these a while back and forgot about them, so after re-watching them thought maybe the content might help. The strange thing with videos of this kind on Youtube done my people over 25 is they're boring and dull - so never get much exposure, but a had a messsage from somebody saying they'd never heard these kind of comments before. I think we are all guilty of not considering alternatives when we need to do things we've done before. It's also quite fun when discover new uses for things and other times when your go to mic is not the best!
 
I have the Electro Voice “twins”: “The Cardinal” condenser and “The Raven” dynamic mics that I bought many years ago. They are a beautiful design, I think Blue was responsible for the design of them. They are adequate, but honestly nothing special beyond looks and expected functionality. That’s not to say they are bad, they are good, just not “impressive”. Still, I keep them becuase they look great! ha ha
Sound on Sound EV Raven & Cardinal Review
 
I don't hear anyone talking about PZM mic's anymore. This thread reminds me that I still have a couple of those old realistic PZM's that I have not used in a while. I remember them sounding good for certain things so I need to bust those back out and have another go with them.
 
I’ve noticed that too. I wonder if this is because we actually used those PZMs to fill a hole in our mic inventory. The old Tandy ones were very good for certain things. But the reality was they were a very cheap electret mic, with all the benefits boundary mics had. The PCC160 was a nicer sounding mic and the sort of cardioid pattern was more useful. Bartlett carried on making them but now AKG seem to have resurrected them. The Tandy/realistic things were just dirt cheap and a bit magic I guess? They broke and they hissed but could be gaffered onto all sorts of things. Piano lids, walls, ceilings, floors windows. Boundaries in small rooms made them far less boxy sounding. Nowadays we have so many mics they’re just out of favour. They’ll return.
 
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I'll take any mic, as long as it records and isn't hissy. I'll find a use for it. Not every mic is optimal for every usage, but a mic is a mic.
 
I've a number of "odd ball" mics not usually discussed for recording. Among them, EV RE55 omnis that get used for kick drums when I want lots of "smack" without proximity effect & RE15's when multiple amps are in the room and good isolation is needed.
 
markmann said:
I don't hear anyone talking about PZM mic's anymore. This thread reminds me that I still have a couple of those old realistic PZM's that I have not used in a while. I remember them sounding good for certain things so I need to bust those back out and have another go with them.
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I have four of them. When RS went out of business (sadly) I picked them up for $5 each. The packaging makes me think they were in the store for at least 15-20 years.

I have two I keep mounted to large pieces of glass and one on the back wall of my studio. The other is still in the box.

The legend was always that the Radio Shack was made by Crown, but IIRC it was a licensed copy or something. I could be wrong.

When I was maybe 12 and just getting into guitar playing and gear I used to love going to RS and looking at the mics and pa equipment!
 
noah330 said:
I have two I keep mounted to large pieces of glass and one on the back wall of my studio. The other is still in the box.
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What does the glass do , reflect the sound waves? ...if you mount it to wood, would those reflections record better in a microphone?

how about one of these? it looks like it has flight capability or something...
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Sunday night the BBC did a series of programmes on the Beatles. I was fascinated to see so many old microphones, mainly on vocalists. I spotted a Grampian DP4. I was also struck by the almost total absence of the now ubiquitous Shures and quite a few mics that I was sure were SDCs used for close voice with a foam gag.

Dave.
 
The glass works because it does absolutely nothing - which wood or other surfaces would also do. The American Pressure Zone mic was called a boundary mic in most parts of Europe. They're also the most popular microphone for police interview rooms, because they're small, boxu and reverberant, and PZM mics have less 'room' sound. The key feature of all these mics is that the actual mic capsule is as close to the wall as possible. A PZM inside a drum, on a pillow does not operate in the boundary mode. This, as when they're stuck with gaffer tape to a wall or window means that the element is actually part of the wall. The boundary of that plane is where the wall touches the next wall, or floor or ceiling. No reflections from that plane can enter the mic. In practice the element is a mm or two above the wall/surface, but wavelength wise, it's as near to the wall as possible. In a hard surfaced room with 6 surfaces - 4 walls, ceiling and floor, a boundary mic reduces it to 5 surfaces reflecting sound. Normally omni, some like the PCC160 we sort of cardiod, half of a cardioid really. Bartlett who designed the 160, sells them direct now. The Radio Shack/Tandy (in the UK) PZM was a brilliantly performing mic and was often the one chosen by the police because it worked so well. The little plate they are mounted on is not big enough to work as an effective boundary on a stand or soft surface - but still produce better sound in many problem rooms. There are quite a few chinese ones around now and they're pretty good because they're just a small capsule mounted over the plate. Gaffer them to a wall and they're pretty good.
 
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