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[John Horvath]

analog Tom wrote on Tue, 13 July 2004 10:53

One purpose of my collection is to preserve the studio electronics of the 2nd half of the 20th century..

Stop it Tom!  Ya got me again!  You wanna know the purpose of my mic collection?  To own some old mics that look cool in my living room!  

Nah, seriously though, I respect what you're doing and I think it's awesome.  Are you going to setup a museum someday?  With your knowledge, and your collection, it sure sounds like you could.  Or maybe a website?

BTW, I hope you have that collection insured.  I had 18 of my mics stolen once.  After thinking about the time and passion that went into aquiring them all, loosing them was very hard to swallow.  

[analog Tom]

"Are you going to setup a museum someday? With your knowledge, and your collection, it sure sounds like you could. Or maybe a website?"  

I keep planning to develop a website museum.  So far most of the mics have been photographed and cataloged, as has some of the collection of test equipment.  But the numerous radio and recording consoles, speakers, turntables, processors, the almost complete line of Ampex tape machines, etc., etc. are still in the process.  My hope is that the web museum will also have an online documentation section, so people can look at the paperwork associated with various pieces of gear.  

"BTW, I hope you have that collection insured. I had 18 of my mics stolen once."  

Insurance is always important, but it really only provides money, not replacement, of important items.  I also rely on a 'friendly-to-some-not-friendly-to-others" trained German Shepard.  The Shepard doesn't provide replacements, but it does discourage intentional 'losses'.  

Cordially,  
Tom

[Craig Leerman]

I've got a pretty good mic collection myself. Must be around 200 or so mics now, with a few doubles.

I started to collect when I was renting a warehouse from Maryland Sound.  My neighbor was a vidio playback guy (He hooks up to the film cameras on location and records the takes on video. Then the director can review the scene and decided which takes to actually print to film. Cheaper than printing every take to film for later review) and had a side business. He also rented out vintage and antique TV sets to the  video and movie industry. Some of the sets actually worked, while many others had no screens or CRT tubes. In use, a modern video monitor was placed behind the antique TV's glass and made to look like an operating TV.  

We got to talking one day and I discovered that the movies always needed strange props like old microphones, TVs, Radios, Cameras, etc.  I got hooked and started to collect old tube table radios, old home style picture cameras (like Brownies and Poloroids) and of course, old microphones.

Over the years I only rented one radio for a shoot (used in a commercial) but I started to rent a bunch of mics for comercials and films. I never really got into the cameras, and ended up selling most of my camera collection to a guy in town who was an avid collector. I liked the radios, but I was running out of places to store them (I had about 100 radios at that point) and I also sold many of the older wooden ones to a collector. I kept a few of the art deco and bakelight models because they are so neat looking (I also kept a few that are worth serious money, and will sell them someday when I need to pay the monthly rent at the old soundman's nursing home)

But, being an audio nut, I kept collecting mics.  At first, I would buy any mics that looked neat and were in good cosmetic condition, working or not. Then I started to specialize in mics that were mainly used for live PA and had a built in stand socket. (think the EV 664 or Shure 555)  Now I'm back to collecting any type of mic that looks neat or different. I collect all brands of mic EXCEPT RCA!  I find that they are too exspensive, and other collectors will pay outrageous prices for even beat up models.  

I get a lot of my mics on eBay, but I also find a lot of them at flea markets, pawn shops, antique stores, and Ham fests. A Ham fest is an amatuer radio flea market. Great place to pick up old parts, and odds and ends!


Lately I have been going after boom mics (mics that are used in tv and movie production and used on large mic booms suspended over the talent)  Here is a recent buy from eBay. Its the EV 642 Cardiline Mic. Its the second of this type that  have now, but this one came with the warranty registration cards and booklet (booklet not shown in pic)  The two holes on the body of the mic are to adjust impedances (50, 150, 250 ohms) and to adjust frequency response (flat, curve 1, curve 2)  In use it would be mounted in a shockmount and attached to a boom stand.

[analog Tom]

Craig,  

That's a great picture of the 642!  Thanks for putting it up.  Congrats on getting the warranty card & booklet - that stuff disappears so quickly in most real life situations.  

Would it be possible to post a picture of the back end of the mic, so folks could see the UA-3 connector EV used on this and the 666 mic?  

For the general readers, this mic represents an evolution of the "variable D" design which we see in the 664 and 666 mics.  I mentioned that the 664s have three acoustic openings: 1) the front grill; 2) the side holes; 3) the hole at the end of the spine.  

The 642 represents a "continuously variable D" design (or "interference tube), in which a long tube is put in front of the mic capsule, and has openings all along the sides of the tube.  These openings create acoustic interferences in the tube for sound arriving from the side, but not for sound coming straight in the front.  The actual mic capsule is located in the fat part of the mic, just to the right of the silver band in Craig's picture.  

The interference tube characteristics are frequency dependent (as well as dependent on the length and diameter of the tube).  So it is common to see specs for such mics refer to them as "hypercardiod/cardioid" or similar words.  They get more directional as frequency rises.  

The interference tube has long been the standard design for shotgun mics, both dynamic and condenser (the 642 is a dynamic mic).  

Craig,  

If you're collecting studio shotguns now, try to get an AKG D-900e.  This was an excellent interference tube shotgun, but was a dynamic, just as the MKH-4xx and 8xx were taking over the shotgun world.  There aren't that many around, but they are often low use mics, since they got pushed aside by the Sennheisers.  

Also look at the EV-667/668 and other dynamics designed to go after market held by the RCA BK-5 (all 'short' boom mics for in studio use).  

Cordially,  
Tom

[Craig Leerman]

I would love to show you the original connector, but both of my Cardiline mics were converted before I got them to XLR.  The conversion was so good on the first mic I bought I almost thought the XLR was original equipment!  This mic has a little rougher conversion, but its still a good job.

[analog Tom]

Thanks for the shot, Craig.  I would think that if your replaced those screws with a pan head phillips, to match the ones in the case, it would look even more as if it were "original".  But it looks like a nice clean job.  

The shot also gives a good look at the rear entrance grill, just where the case and connector block meet.  So thanks again for useful, educational pictures.  

Cordially,
Tom

[Andy Peters]

Ya know, Craig, the picture is soooo big that there's no sense of scale.  The mic looks like an electric cattle prod.

-a

[Craig Leerman]

The pics are a little large!  

I need a easy program that will allow me to resize pictures.  My camera seems to make really large pictures.

Anybody know of some shareware or other free picture resizing software?

Craig

[John Horvath]

Craig Leerman wrote on Fri, 16 July 2004 20:49

Anybody know of some shareware or other free picture resizig software?

Photo resizer 1.0

It's pretty cheesy, but it's simple and gets the job done.

[Scott Raymond]

Craig,

I'm betting you've got Paint if you're using a PC.  (Accesories folder in Win98, can't recall about XP on the other machine)   It's capable of loading and saving jpg's.  Find "Stretch and Skew" and use Stretch to resize the image and save it to a new file.  That's what I used for my avatar.

Scott