Shotgun shell microphones, well that’s something different! A unique idea, a useful product and inexpensive. I don’t remember exactly how I came across 12 gauge microphones but I’m really glad I did. I sent an email to Brad Martin, the guy that builds these mics to request some samples to review. www.12gaugemicrophones.com
12 Gauge Microphones
Brad makes two models, the Red12 omnidirectional condenser, and Green12 cardioid condenser. The mics don’t just look like shotgun shells, actual Winchester (red) and Remington (green) shells are used for the body, they’re the perfect size to house an XLR-M jack. Both mics use 10mm electret capsules and require 48V phantom power, though 9 or 12V would probably work also. To create the cardioid pattern, the Green12 has a 6mm cutout on each side below the capsule. The jack is glued in so unfortunately I couldn’t peek inside to see the other components.
Connecting these to a cable is a tight fit but easy enough. Finding a clip to attach them to a mic stand was a little more difficult. The mics don’t come with clips and these are super skinny with a diameter of just 19mm. I hate having to use duct tape but that was about all that worked when I first got these. Standard spring clips should also work if you’ve got some.
Green12s in Shure A75M mounts
How do they sound?
These don’t sound like most small diaphragm condensers, they don’t have extended highs or super fast transient response. These have lots of mids, like comparing Genelecs to NS-10s. Maybe that’s what you need, maybe not. They have a fairly strong output level and moderate self-noise.
Here are some examples of the mics in a spaced overhead technique on acoustic guitar.
First up is the Green12 Cardioid condensers.
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Now here is the Red12 Omnidirectional condensers.
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I don’t have any great small diaphragm true condensers but I have two other electret mics, the Audio-Technica AT2021, and the Karma Audio K-Micro.
To compare these, I set up some test files to play out of a monitor with each mic 12 inches away, midway between the tweeter and woofer. The mics were at the same distance and were going through the same preamp with the same amount of gain.
Here is the test file.
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Here is the One of the Green12 cardioid mics pointed at a Yamaha HS50 monitor. Please note, the hum you hear is not the mics but my neighbour’s dishwasher that started up right when I started recording these examples. (yes I know this is a stupid excuse)
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Here is the Red12 omni condenser
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Up next is the Audio-Technica AT2021 cardioid condenser
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And lastly the Karma Audio K-Micro omni condenser
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Each of these mics sound very different. The K-Micro had the most output level, about 2.5 dB hotter than the Red12 and pretty close to the Green12, but almost 10dB hotter than the AT2021.
The differences in level between each model in the 12 gauge stereo pairs was about 1/10th of a decibel, although there was a slightly brighter mic in each pair.
Tonally, the Red12 sound the best to me, the others seem to have a shrill high frequency ringing, each at different frequencies. The Green12 has a more pronounced mid frequency and low frequency rolloff.
Obviously if you don’t like DIY gear, you’re not going to like the look of these. All the people I’ve shown these to thought they were really cool. They make a good useful gift for musicians and engineers.
For $35 each the Red12 work pretty nicely on acoustic guitar, and would probably be great for dirty room mics. The Green12 for $50 has a more contoured frequency response that I didn’t prefer for acoustic guitars, especially one that already has a lot of midrange. I could see it working well under a snare, or as an extra mic on electric guitar to get an aggressive tone.
Are these my favorite mics in the world? Definitely not. Would I recommend them? Yes. They work well, they’re hand built and met my expectations for the price point.
Electric guitar has had all the glory for too long when it come to microphone shootouts. Well, when it comes to just about anything, but that is beside the point. A conversation with a listener of The Home Recording Show about what microphone to put in front of a bass cabinet got me thinking more than a normal human should think about the subject. My stock answer has always been to use a large diaphragm dynamic moving coil microphone. This would be your standard Shure SM7b, EV RE20, Sennheiser 421, Heil PR40, et cetera. Now the reasonable doubt to this approach started to creep into my head.
I decided to test my usual choices and conventional wisdom to see what actually happens when you try different types of microphone designs, polar patterns, and distances from the source. It was once again time for me to slip into my studio lab coat and get down to some serious business (as I have convinced my wife). I would have liked to use every microphone that I have available to me in the studio, but I knew that would do none of us any good. What I ended up doing was taking one microphone to represent each of the different varieties. (more…)
I’m getting sick of seeing things like “A D112 is a kick drum mic”.
You can put ANY MIC in front of ANY SOURCE, it may or may not sound how you want.
How to mic anything:
Step 1 – Put a transducer where the good sound comes out.
Step 2 – Listen. If the result is worse than real life then it’s the wrong mic. If it sounds good, start recording.
Step 3 – Repeat until you find the right mic or run out of options.
Once you start using multiple mics (non-stereo) it gets a tiny bit more complicated but the rule of thumb I go by for placing a single mic.
I saw this on a forum yesterday, someone found a craigslist ad selling a Rode NT1A with this picture. If this was the way he was using it, no wonder he’s selling it, the mic is really not going to sound good in that position.
This is a guest post from Geoffrey Granka of Fresh Produce Productions. Find him online at www.freshaudio.ca and @gmgranka on Twitter.
Wouldn’t it be lame if I said, “The history of the Shure SM57 is the history of rock and roll itself”? It’s a good thing I’m not saying that.
The Shure SM57 is one of the most popular (if not the most popular) microphones in the world. Virtually everybody that has heard a recording since 1965 has heard the sound of an SM57; on snare drums, on guitar cabinets, and on the Presidential Podium (that recording of Nixon saying “I am not crook.” was recorded by the SM57). So how did this cheap little microphone become so prolific? Let’s take a look at where it came from:
Before 1965, Shure had already made quite a name for itself in the audio industry. It was the most popular maker of cartridges for record players and had found microphone success in everything from securing the contract though making throat microphones for the US Air Force (allowing pilots to speak to each other over the roar of engines) to miking the man who brought rock and roll to mainstream America: Mr Elvis Presley.
The microphone that was often connected to Elvis was the Shure Model 55. This mic garnered acclaim because of it’s awesome-stupendous art-deco styling, its affordability (ribbons were the predominant microphone type at the time), and its excellent sounding capsule: the Unidyne (developed by Ben Bauer in 1939). Engineers at Shure continued to develop their successful Unidyne capsule to make it better and better as time went by. Eventually a grumpy/ingenious engineer named Ernie Seeler developed the Unidyne III capsule, the very one used in the modern SM57 today. This capsule first found itself in the Shure Model 545, a microphone that looked veeeeeery similar to the SM57.
The Model 545 was pretty successful because of its great sound and its ground-breaking end-address capsule. Prior to the 545, microphones were more prone to feedback and less accommodating to close-miking because the capsule didn’t get right up against the sound source. This allowed more ambient noise to enter the recording. The 545 found itself in a lot of US studios, again because of it’s low price and superior rejection. The Model 545 was most notably used on Brian Wilson’s voice on a little album called Pet Sounds to track his voice separately while recording vocals shoulder-to-shoulder with the Beach Boys.
Meanwhile, back at Shure Brothers Incorporated, the crazy engineers kept trying to improve upon the 545. Television was becoming a big thing, so they decided they would build a mic for this demographic.
They already had an excellent capsule, but they needed a microphone casing that would withstand the rigors of TV studios. So they did what any 11-year-old child would do and tried out their designs by cooking them, dropping them, and immersing them in salt water. Once they had a superhero microphone that survived the tests, they gave its body (same as 545) a non-reflective coating for the cameras, and removed the on-and-off switch (you don’t want pesky talent accidentally turning off their mics). In 1965, when the uncreative naming people at Shure affixed an SM to the model name to indicate that it was a studio microphone, they were referring to TV studios.
Eventually word of this microphone’s infamous durability traveled into the burgeoning live sound industry, and techs starting bring along these trusty little mics. Studio engineers loved them too, not only because they sounded good, but also because they had extremely high SPL ratings. This meant that they could use these mics to get the sound that was becoming increasingly popular: close miking.
There you have it: the indisputable history of the Shure SM57. Tell your friends.
The Shure SM57; the classiest thing in this photograph.
Sources:
Shure Incorporated Official Website
Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Beatles – Geoff Emerick
Wouldn’t It Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds – Charles L Granata
