Ok, lets have it... what do you have??

  • Thread starter Thread starter cjacek
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The PZMs they used to have were great. We used to use one all the time. Did they start making them again? :)
 
They looked like this pzm It looks like Crown and Realistic got together and made a new one. The old ones from the 80s and 90s were all metal and the mics were welded on there and they were cheap. Like 40 bucks. I bought a crown one a couple years ago. The one I got was WAYY over priced for the piece of plastic it was. It sounded pretty good but pretty much started having problems immediately and now it doesn't work at all.
 
Stick an MSH-1 extended-lead mic in the housing and you'll be quite pleased.
 

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SteveM said:
They looked like this pzm It looks like Crown and Realistic got together and made a new one. The old ones from the 80s and 90s were all metal and the mics were welded on there and they were cheap. Like 40 bucks. I bought a crown one a couple years ago. The one I got was WAYY over priced for the piece of plastic it was. It sounded pretty good but pretty much started having problems immediately and now it doesn't work at all.
Click to expand...

Looks like the one in that link is from the late '80s… $49.95 in the 1989 catalog (no, I never throw anything away :o ). The two I have from about 1992 look just like it but they are the second generation, 33-1090B with a small hole at the top of the plate for mounting. I modified mine by removing the stock cable and putting an RCA jack at the base of the mic where the wire came in. I also put an RCA jack at the other side on the power supply/transformer box.

I replaced the stock cable with thicker Canare cable with better shielding. The skinny stock cable was bad right out of the box... it crackled whenever you moved it. After removing it I found it was green with corrosion throughout the entire length on both of the brand new PZMs. :eek:

I mounted the front half of the stock box on a larger project case, also from RS, so I could power them with 18 volts (two 9v batteries), and made them balanced with an XLR plug from the transformer. Yep, hiding inside that little box is a transformer, and it’s a simple matter to make a balanced connector. Radio Shack just decided to wire them with an unbalanced ¼” plug. I also added a main switch and an LED for the batteries so I wouldn’t accidentally leave them on.

I kept the wire length for the XLR pigtail short so I could use any length of balanced extension cable. Same idea behind the RCA jacks… I can use longer or shorter RCA cables, whatever is needed, but I do have designated cables for each… about 10 ft long. This makes the whole kit really easy to manage.

They sound incredible on about anything, but could probably sound even better if/when I get around to replacing the transformer altogether.

Drum roll………………… and here it is… one of the two for your viewing pleasure. :)
 

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Great idea Tim! Nice job. That was the exact problem I had with the Crown. I had to replace the crackling 1/8" plug right away so I put a 1/4" plug on there. It worked for a while then it eventually crapped out somewhere else in the mic itself.
I might be wrong about the older ones being welded. I thought I remembered them being but maybe they weren't.
 
I think I'll leave out the stuff I don't use much and am trying to sell. I broke it down by categories, roughly in decreasing order of importance, except that monitoring is toward the end.

Instruments:
10 string ironwood Stick
Gibson Melody Maker
Lotus LP copy
Ibanez Strat copy
Ebow
Yamaha steel string
Yamaha nylon string
Gibson Ripper bass
Roland Juno 6
Roland SH-09
Roland TR-505
Casio CZ-1
Yamaha TX802
Suzuki Q-Chord
Czech violin from about 100 years ago
Conn tenor sax
Buescher cornet
Various harmonicas
Soprano recorders
Home made drum set with UFiP cymbals and Ludwig snare
DrumKAT
Lots of percussion (dumbek, bongos, slit log, boxes of miscellaneous stuff)
(I used to have a ton of cool MIDI gear, but almost all has been sold)

Amps, etc:
Traynor YMP-1 Bass Master
Traynor Custom Reverb (with GT EL-84 adapters)
Home brew 1x12 bass cab with Eminence driver and piezo tweeter
Home brew 2x10 guitar cab with separate inputs for Peavey and Jensen drivers
Home brew preamp unit for Stick (or most anything) with 2 preamps, 2 compressors and 2 super tone controls and 2 small mixers, all made from PAiA Anderton kits (it's modular, each unit with 1 input and 2 multed outs and no labeling on it anywhere, so only I can operate it!)
2 Korg PME-40X modular effects boards with about 10 modules
MXR 1000 ms Digital Time Delay
Roland SVC-350 Vocoder
Morley wah
Roland stereo volume pedal

Treatment:
Home brew corner bass traps
Home brew broad band diffusors
13 ASC Studio Traps and 2 9" Tube Traps on mike stands, 2 11" Tube Traps

Mikes:
2 modded Shure SM-81s with 4 SM-80 omni capsules
4 EV RE-55s
2 SM-57 Unidyne IIIs
2 AKG D19s
1 AKG D24E
1 AT 4050

Preamps:
Sound Devices MixPre
GR ME-1NV
Altec 1567a

Recorders:
3M M-79 1/2" 4 track (with spare transport)
3M M-23 1/4" 2 track
Nakamichi 482Z cassette deck
Teac A3340s 1/4" 4 track
M-Audio MicroTrack
Mac 2002 Quicksilver G4 800 MHz
M-Audio Delta 66 with Omni I/O
MOTU Fastlane MIDI interface
Ableton Live 6
Peak Pro 5.2
Ramko distribution amp feeds 2 VU meters hanging off Delta 66 output

Mixers/processing:
Mackie CR-1604 with OTTO-1604 MIDI automation
2 Roland SMX-880s
PAiA 8x1 Anderton mono mixer
RNC
Rolls headphone amp
AP Audio 1/4" TRS patchbay
GE 1/4" TS bay wired with fixed pads and mults

Monitoring:
2 Hafler DH-200s
Custom Shallco stepped attenuator (0 to -19 dB in 1 dB steps + off)
Polk RTA-12Bs
Sennheiser HD540, modded HD580s (HD 600 grills, HD650 cable), 2 HD490s

Test gear:
Tektronix scope
HP oscillator
HP analog VU meter
HP frequency counter
Fluke digital multimeter
Extech sound level meter

That's most of it. I've got some processing gear that I'm trying to sell that I didn't list.

Cheers,

Otto
 
Recording gear:

Tascam Porta 05
Tascam 424 mkII
Tascam 388
Tascam 2-22 (heads only ;) )

Tascam 238s
Soundcraft 200B 8 channel mixer
IMG_8225_1_3_1.jpg



KRK V8 monitors


Hamptone JFET 2 channel preamp (built from kit)
Joe Meek VC3 pre/compressor
ART Pro VLA compressor
Empirical Labs Distressor w/Brit mod (my token high end piece)

2 TapeOp group buy ribbon mics
1 Rode NT1 condenser(original issue)
1 Groove Tubes GT 66 condenser
1 Beyer dynamic
1 Shure lavalier

Electrix Repeater
Electrix filter factory
Electrix warpfactory
Electrix mofx

Korg A3 rack effects
Lexicon MPX1 effects
Line6 DL4 delay
ebow


Sony minidisk deck JB940
Onkyo cassette deck

Instruments:
Korg M1 keys
Roland xp80 keys
Roland TD-10 mix n match V drum set

70’s Fender tele deluxe with Seymour duncans (bridge Jeff Beck/ neck ’59) w/ coil tap
80’ Charvel Model 6
90’s Les Paul
06 Michael Kelly Valor Limited
Peavey EXP w/ piezo
Yamaha nylon string
Boogie studio pre
Line6 pod, Vox tonelab
Fender 112

G&L 5 string bass
Eden head, Epifani cab

Oh, and a Mac G4 w/digi02 hehe
 
Last edited:
1966 Rickenbacker 360 12 string
1969 Gibson ES 335 TDW
1976 Rickenbacker 4001
Vox Beatle (head)
Vox Royal Guardsman (head)
1967 Fender Dual Showman w/2 12 bottom loaded with Altec 418-8H spkrs
Custom made bottom loaded with JBL J130DF
1956 Fender Pro amp
Fernandes 6 string acoustic
Framus 12 string acoustic
Casio CTK - 411 keyboard
Fostex VF 16
Urei 1176LN
Alesis Micro Limiter
Alesis M-EQ230
Alesis Nanoverb
Alesis Nanopressor
Ampeg V4 speaker cab
BBE 422
Behringer DI 100
Behringer GI 100
Dean Markley Overlord pedal
Digitech DSP 256 XL
Gorilla GB 30
Hosa 803 snake
Korg DDM-110 drum machine
Mackie MS 1202
Maestro PS 1 Phase Shifter w/PSFS foot switch
Scholz Power Soak
Univox Super Fuzz
Yamaha MT 100 Mk II 4 track
Teac 2340 S
Sony 540 TC
Sony 322 TD
Sony 630 TC
Whirlwind IMP DI (2)
Tone Plug
ProTools Free
M Audio Delta 44
Mac G4
AKG K240 phones
Radial Snack Minimus 7 speakers
 
corrections: the Showman bottom is 2 x 15, the JBL is a D130F and the Sony is a TD352 NOT 322. What a bonehead!!!!!
 
RE/P had an article way back when the Radial Snack version of the PZM was made available on modding one to balanced state instead of unbalanced allowing the use of phatom power to boot. Always wanted to find that article, but never was able to do so.The Crown PZM was a great mic for a lot of things. We used to place one on top of the kick drum shell (with addtional cushioning like a handkerchief) facing the toms. Adding a 40 to 55 ms delay to the signal and mixing in to taste and extremely panned with the miked tom tracks gave a nice live sound to tom rolls. Ear candy for sure, but cool when used in moderation.
 
Pioneer RT-909
Tascam 424 mkii
Shure AXS-1 mic (yeah I know, cheap mic)
AT ST95 Mkii mics (yeah, yeah, another cheap mic)
 
Now that is some funny siznit....I like the bling on the ice.
 

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Pinachi,
Not sure if your pictures are there just be funny or if it's the real deal. They are just soo big and there are like 4 of them and they all look really gangsta and sometimes people attach pictures that they think are funny just to be funny, and I thought that's what you were doing because the file names of the pictures are kind of funny. If if that's your thing I'm sorry, no offense. For real:o
 
some of what I have is on my space (click below/see pictures):

Casacard.jpg
 
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