About Our Microphones
We have a wide variety of mikes available, but the majority of our
acoustic recording work is performed with a single mike pair, usually
in one of the following configurations:
Jecklin Disc
A Jecklin disc, consisting of two 1" B&K measurement mikes. These mikes
have response flat down to 2 Hz, and modified preamplifiers with very low
distortion. The Jecklin configuration provides very good off-axis response,
meaning that the tonal quality doesn't change across the field of pickup,
so when miking a large orchestra, the instruments at the edge aren't colored
in sound. Also this results in less coloration to the room sound itself, and
more realistic pickup.
ORTF Pair
This is a near-coincident cardioid pair of Josephson 606 microphones, which
have a very tight hypercardioid pattern and very smooth response off-axis.
This configuration does not give as good low end response as the omnis with
a Jecklin baffle, but it is much less sensitive to acoustical problems in
the hall and is very effective in more reflective rooms or rooms where the
Jecklin system would be impossible to place.
Blumlein Pair
We have a number of figure-8 ribbon microphones, from the common RCA 77DX
to the Shure 300s which are pictured here. The Blumlein configuration has
a very narrow angle of acceptance and therefore pick up very little room
ambience. Because the figure-8 mike has a very tight null, they can be
placed to eliminate slap echo problems in soome rooms. The Shure microphones
pictured are less sensitive
than the more popular RCA ribbons, but they have a much cleaner high frequency
response.
In addition, we have a wide variety of other microphones, including various
instances of the Shure SM57, SM11, SM7, 315, and SM81, the EV M-43,
EV PL-10, EV 635a, EV 644 shotgun, EV 647A, EV 664, and EV 666, the
Countryman Isomax, the EV666, Bruel and Kjaer 4145 with modified 2627
followers, Bruel and Kjaer 4133 with 2615 tube followers, Beyerdynamic M-500
hypercardioid ribbon, Tandberg TM-6, Sennheiser MD 416, MD-421L, MD 441,
MKH 405, MKH 105, Crown PZM, RCA BK-5, 77DX, and 74Bs, Josephson Series 6,
the Nikfi ML-219 hypercardioid ribbon, Paul Stamler special, Neumann KMS105s,
and a few others sitting around.
In the kit, some of our favorite tools are some hotrodded
Crown PZMs, including one pair modified to employ B&K 4034 capsules, which
has found use in several environments with very poor acoustics where more
conventional mikes would have been impossible. In addition we have a number
of standard stage mikes for PA use which have very tight patterns or
specialized patterns for live multitrack concert recording.
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Last updated September 21, 2000
Scott Dorsey (kludge @ panix.com)
757-229-1547