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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Vintage mic mini project - any experts out there?
Vintage mic mini project - any experts out there?
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Tryharp
96 posts
Feb 19, 2009
4:03 AM
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I saw this old mic on ebay the other day, this is it:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=170299861377
It is an old bullet style mic from a radio station. I thought what the hell, I want to learn a bit about mics, and put in a bid, I won it for 10 bucks and it arrived today. It came with a male xlr connector on it. Anyway pulled it to bits, a bit of drilling, filing, and fixed the xlr it came with direct to the stand fitting on the body. I also have a bluesblaster ( japanese element )so checked out the way the blues blaster element was wired to the XLR and copied it so could use the same cable. Anyway an hour and a half later, whammo, I had myself a pretty cool looking vintage bullet mic with an XLR connector. The grill is a bit beat up, but I kind of like it that way. Plugged her in and it went like a beauty, and sounds pretty good to my ears, but my ears are not very reliable ears. I A/B tested it against the bluesblaster and I would say the noticable things are:
- much much stronger bottom end
- does not feed back anywhere near as much, can point at amp and hold it infront of the amp 3 feet away without feedback, where the bluesblaster is screaming at 6+ ft pointing the other way, same volume
- not as much definition in the upper and middle
I know bugger all about mics, I hoped someone might be able to help with some info, what I'm curious about is the following:
1. what brand is the mic, it has no markings except a code on the element?
2. how do I tell if it is high Z of low Z, I put a multimeter on the wires and it read 555 ohms? It plugs straight into a guitar amp and goes well with plenty of volume.
3. how do I tell what sort of element it is ( dynamic, crystal etc ). Its a little cylinder about 2" diameter and .75" deep. I could remove the front cover and there is a litter clear rubber diaphram in the middle that you can push in with your finger?
Ive tried to do some research on this stuff but coming up blank so far.
Another interesting thing is the body is packed tight with cotton wadding which is what holds the element in place, I'm thinging maybe removing this and replace with some sort of gasket to hold the the element in place might improve the definition of the sound.
I'd like to post a photo of the finished product, but I dont know how...
Anyway, thanks if you can provide me with any info.
Tryharp
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jbone
20 posts
Feb 19, 2009
4:28 AM
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that doesn't look like any bullet i've seen in a lot of years. must have been a short run for a small company.
first q is, what element are you running in your blues blaster? it's maybe a lot more sensitive than the one in the new mic. from your description the new/old mic has some sort of dynamic element but that's a guess only.
that cotton wadding in the new mic may indeed be muffling the high end. and 555 ohms seems like a very low reading based on what i see high-z mics reading at.
be forewarned too, if you remove the cotton batting that mic may be way to hot for a tube amp unless you use a low to high z adapter!
this is of course all speculation on my part. io'm interested to know what you find out about the mic and what you do to spiff it up.
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MrVerylongusername
154 posts
Feb 19, 2009
6:30 AM
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It doesn't sound like a crystal to me, they are usually quite flat and are normally well-sealed units. The fact that it survived poking fingers reinforces that suspicion as crystals are extremely delicate.
You can measure the impedance of a microphone, but unfortunately it's not as simple as using a multimeter: I found this link - it requires a bit of equipment I'm afraid.
http://www.eham.net/forums/StationBuilding/80
The lack of feedback, the XLR connector and the good bass response suggest a lo-z mic to me. with a high-z crystal mic, straight into a guitar amp you usually lose bottom end because of the impedance mismatch.
These are all best guesses though, I'm afraid the best way to answer your questions - as I'm sure you've already realised - is to identify the manufacturer/model.
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