I guess I do, but only because someone who passed away himself nearly 20 years ago shared the following just days after Johnny’s death; from:
“I was the mixer on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from about 1980 to
about 1991 when I left NBC. The microphone on the desk was originally a
Shure ribbon microphone. Sometime after taking over the show a gentlemen
representing AKG brought me an AKG 414 P48 and wondered if I would be
willing to try it on the desk. After getting approval from the production
company and Johnny we put it in service. The mike was in the cardioid
pattern with the 100 hertz filter switched in. Early on it had a black back
and silver front. The art director on the show thought it showed up too
much on camera and wanted to paint the front black also. Instead I was able
to obtain from AKG another black back that was installed on the front side.
The microphone sat in a Shure "donut" shock absorber on a Shure desk stand.
A short cord about one foot in length made out of boom cable was installed
to keep any desk vibrations from traveling up the cord into the microphone.
The boom microphones were originally Sennheiser 414s. The 414 was a good
microphone but its off-axis response was not good as when someone further
down the couch spoke the sound was "colored." Later the boom microphones
(two booms) were changed to Schoepps CMC-5 preamp/CK-41 head with a screw-in
10 db pad. This combination of AKG 414 desk microphone and Schoepps boom
microphones were a very good match.”
-Ron Estes
Also, I think you can tell from the shape (esp the height) of the polar pattern switch just visible under the tape applied (presumably to hide the markings) in the attached photo that it was a P48 variant. Heck, I think you can even tell it was in the cardiod position.
