using a woofer as a large dynamic mic.

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Uladine

Uladine

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I've heard rumors of this techinique but always scoffed at it and said "aww humbug." But in the latest issue of electronic musician there is an article about getting big bottoms on your recordings ans a couple of engineers descirbe how they use woofers from NS10 monitors to mic bass cabs and kick drums.

They say you can take a raw frame woofer, somehow attach it to a snare drum stand or suspend it from the lugs of a bass drum and use it it cunjunction with another mic to capture more low end. This way instead of eqing the main kick mic for more low end you could just add more "woofer mic". Apparently the larger the diameter of the diaphragm the more low end.

They take a mic or instrument cable and wire one end to the leads of the speaker and connect the plug to a mixer or preamp. They say the signal isnt too strong but gets the job done.

Anyone ever try this? Thoughts? I was thinking of using one of my brothers old car subwoofers for experimentation but I dont want to hurt my mixer.
 
ive seen a guy in a pinch mic his kick with a 6X9 speaker...but it wasnt for a recording, just a small club....
 
I read about an engineer at Abby Road did this trick with the Beatles once and was written up for knowingly setting up a recording chain with such a blatent impedence mis-match.
 
Yup. The bass on "Paperback Writer" (and I assume "Rain" too) was recorded like this, according to Norman Smith (Beatles' engineer). They stuck another bass cab on front of McCartney's amp and wired it into the desk inputs.

It was one of the first recordings where McCartney used his Rick rather than his Hofner, too.
 
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