I'm looking for a microphone that can bring out the bass in my drum, will the model 347 do that? Oh
yes. The microphone is as flat* as possible and will most often
deliver more bass than you actually need (you can always take it
out if it's there, but you can't add it in if it's absent) I almost
always have the engineer roll-off or shelve the lows depending on the
bass response of the soundsystem.
*With a truly flat microphone fixed on a pandeiro, one would expect that simply rocking back and forth playing the platinellas would sound just like the platinellas; "chick-chick-chick." However, there's an immense amount of low-frequency engery that is absorbed by the frame and the left hand of the player, so low in frequency (and therefore volume) that you would never hear it without a microphone because it dissapates quickly. However, this low-frequency energy travels physically into the microphone and underneath the "chick-chick-cick" there's a "thud thud thud". Rejecting the boomy thuds without rejecting the fundamental pitch of the skin is paramount. This can be tricky, because these thuds excite partials, rattles, and overtones too. The result was a combination of a subtle filter cicuit and the physical shock-mounting scheme. Can I record with it the 347? No. (but sometimes yes) Do you give endorsements?I never intended this microphone to be a recording microphone, it is designed for live sound reinforcement. It could never compete with the sound of a studio quality condenser microphone shockmounted on a stand a few feet away from the instrument in a good sounding room in terms of sounding 'natural'. No recording engineer would ever place a microphone so close to a sound's source nor anchor it so rigidly to the body of the instrument. After all, not even the player listens with his ears so close to the skin. I developed this microphone to solve the problems of amplifying pandeiro in the clubs and stages on which I've struggled to be heard (without adding unnecessary weight). While the platinellas come through an overhead mic clearly quite clearly, bass tones dissipate over the distance of a few feet and this microphone was designed with this proportionality in mind. That said, I've been very happy with the extra amount of bass tone that I can get by blending in this microphone with a recording microphone(s) in a controlled studio environment. Delicious recording recipe: Position a quality studio microphone (or stereo microphone array) in front and overhead 2-4 feet from the drum. (use your ears, this will depend on the critical distance of the room in which your are recording). With the 347 attached to your drum, bring both channels up on your mixer and blend to taste. You can even roll off the highs of the 347 (use it to capture the close bass sound) and roll out the lows of the overhead microphone (using it to pick up the sound of the highs and reflections of the room). You will need take time to listen and adjust the crossover point while adjusting the blend of the two microphones, but the results can be dazzling! Just be sure to mind the 3:1 rule of microphone placement which states that the second mic should be three times the distance from the first mic that the first mic is from the source. In the case of the 347, this would mean that your second mic should be at least 8 inches away (in most cases, even 8 inches will be to close for playing). No.
If
you are happy with my microphone, by all means, feel free to
'endorse' it to anyone who asks and you can consider yourself an
endorser. I'm an one-person operation and simply don't have the
corporate advertising budget to facilitate 'endorsers' -- nor would I
if I
could. I find disingenuous the idea that anyone would use something
exclusively because they are being compensated for it. I'm
manufacturing these microphones more-or-less as a hobby and sharing
them as a service to musicians who want to get consistent sound on
stage. Why is the external circuitry it in an electrical junction box and not a barrel connector like so many other
similar microphones?I
specifically chose to not house the electronics for my microphone in a
barrel connector because I've seen how these things, when plugged in,
give the impression that there's one long cable that runs from the
microphone to the sound system's input bay and therefore tends to get handled as such (yanked,
pulled, and stretched) by musicians and engineers alike. The boxed power module (like the power supply of a U-67) insists to be picked up and moved and allows me to use a Neutrik
XLR connector (far and away the
best and most rugged design for keeping the solder joints safe and
cable gripped - also the most expensive) to
run to the microphone The mini XLR connectors
(which I use only on the microphone transducer output because it's small and it locks) grip
the cable with only folded tabs - meaning the stress of the cable can
come all the way to the solder joints; a disaster constantly in the making.
This is one of the reasons for the elastic strain relief I use to
keep the weight of the cable suspended and off of that connector. Furthermore, the
box has room for the 9V battery holder and 1/4" jack for feeding
high-impedance inputs (amps/effects). I've looked into getting
different assemblies made or using off-the-shelf enclosures of
different shapes and sizes, but the very cheapest ones would add to the
price significantly and would require a great deal of machining.
These boxes I can get surplus or from an electrical supplier for very
little money and they
come with holes drilled and even tapped. Not for Looks! Like I said, the elecrical box comes with holes pre-drilled... too many holes. So the tape is just there to seal the holes that aren't used on the box, keeping stray floor particles from finding their way into the driver circuitry. No. The clamp and the microphone chassis are machined at the same shop and
together are barely enough of a job to make it worth the while of the
machinist. They are made together, packaged together, and sold
together. I love your small microphone and it's clamping mechanism, can you make me one to fit my ______? Sure,
I can give it a go. I will need to have your ______ on hand at my shop
while I develop a custom fitting microphone for it, though. Email me
and we can work out the details. I notice that you used to offer choices in cable length and a choice for switchable output modes, why do you no longer offer these options?Respcting cable length: 99% of all orders were for 10' cables. Since 10' is the longest the cable should be for optimal electrical performance, I've decided to make 10' the standard length that the 347 ships with. This makes my shop significantly easier to organize. Why do I need to measure for the maximum shell thickness when ordering a 347? Can't the clamp be adjusted to fit any drum?Likewise, nearly every order has been for the switchable output modes and it just makes sense that this should be a standard feature. Even if you intend to use your 347 with a conventional PA system at the time you order it, eventually you will get curious about running your microphone through a looper, overdrive, or other effects and this will allow you to do so without needing a phantom-power supplying mixing board with direct outs or insert points; you'll be able to plug it straight in just like an electric guitar/bass. The clamp can be adjusted to fit shells THINNER than what you specify on the order form, but it will not be able to expand to fit thicker shells. The adjustment screws are permanently fixed into the clamp so that they will never come loose during playing or adjusting and I keep them as short as possible to both keep the weight down and to prevent the protruding adjustment screws from catching on fabric or scratching other surfaces. Below is a photo of on clamp made to fit a 7/16" shell, and the other is a standard 1/4" pandiero clamp:  In the photo below, the large clamp is fitted to a thin shell.  (Notice the two adjustment screws significantly protrude from the clamp) |