What's the most expensive Mic you've ever dropped?

@?,*???&? · Post by **@?,*???&?** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:25 pm

Oh yes, it was one of those self-engineered sessions at Master Control. It seemed necessary at the time to have my coffee next to me on the producer desk to the left of the SSL. I think I was on the phone or something and wham, the first bucket of 8 got it.

Things moved pretty quickly after that. As I quickly dove under the patchbay at the other end of the console to switch off the bucket and then making a quick trip to the machine room to power down the console and computer. Then the screwdrivers came out along with the rags. Panel-by-panel, fader-by-fader.

The session stopped dead in its tracks.

New policy, all drinks are kept on the floor. If you kick them over, it's only carpet!!

The only worse spill I saw at that studio was Chris Fuhrman working with Susannah Hoffs- channels 25 thru 40 took a candle hit. Parafin everywhere!! Nasty cleaning that shit off the console too. Is vibe really that important? My advice on that, never a candle on a near-field monitor!!

Slider · Post by **Slider** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 6:13 pm

A buddy of mine once tossed a U67 that belonged to Glyn Johns across the room to me. I thought that was really funny at the time. Hmmm maybe it actually IS still funny.

johnny7 · Post by **johnny7** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:06 pm

My small control room seems to slip towards the forest-of-wires state making tripping a real threat. I have a heavy mic stand that i had recently welded to make it all-powerful. Unfortunately, it was no match for me tripping on the short cable to my RCA 44bx which crashed into my old Mackie board. Small dent to the grille but it seems to function properly. Don't think i ever checked the Mackie...

joel hamilton · Post by **joel hamilton** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:21 pm

scott anthony wrote:I was once anchoring a gobo, moving blanket fabrication over a cracked open iso booth door once with a heavy cast iron weight about half the size of a cinder block. Marc Ribot then tried to open the door to squeeze in, pulling the iron anchor off the booth and into his skull. He hit the floor, bleeding quite badly. Luckily after 10 minutes rest he was fine and didn't sue me... was all my fault...

That sucks! I had to laugh, though... I just finished up producing and engineering the new Ceramic Dog record, which is marc's new band. We had a lot of fun, and not one of us bled, I think... maybe Ches did, the drummer. Maybe Marc hitting his head at your studio is what gave him some sort of mistrust of vocal microphones...

scott anthony · Post by **scott anthony** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 4:00 am

joel hamilton wrote:Maybe Marc hitting his head at your studio is what gave him some sort of mistrust of vocal microphones...

Aw, c'mon, you can't pin that on me!

I suspect Marc was a suspicious dude long before I got to him. I've done a couple of records with his brother Greg, Marc would sit in, and they both are really pretty... interesting... ugh, can't find the words, but think it's in the Ribot genes...

percussion boy · Post by **percussion boy** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 11:29 am

This thread makes me extremely nervous.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:44 pm

I had a bass player some years back, loading his Firebird after a gig, put his "P"-bass on the roof, never to be seen again.

One can only suppose that it fell off as he drove away; it wasn't there the next day.

the finger genius · Post by **the finger genius** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:54 pm

I once assisted on a session where a grape fight broke out inside our studios brand new ssl xl room between the producer and artist. Almost ended my career, very quickly.

directaction · Post by **directaction** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:11 pm

I dropped my BLUE Mouse once. Minor cardiac arrest ensued.

Another time, I was hired to teach basic recording skills at an after-school program. They gave me a small equipment budget, so I got a cheap condenser. I think it was the MXL 990. In an effort to be as interactive as possible, I was having these kids hook up all the equipment when it arrived. I set up a stand for the mic, screw on the shockmount, and asked this 15-year-old to put the mic in. Apparently she thought that there was a basket on the bottom of the shockmount, because she let it slide right through onto the floor. She was mortified, but I didn't really care.

nestle · Post by **nestle** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:25 pm

I teach a graduate sound design class, and I got the dept. to buy that new wonder mount thing from RED, it's stopping the dropping of our 414 colleection at school. great aftermarket shock

fossiltooth · Post by **fossiltooth** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:25 pm

My first and worst was a Coles 4038.

I was assisting on a session years ago, and I was asked to set up two of them as drum room mics.

I put up the first 4038, but I didn't adjust the counter-weight on the stand too well. I figured it was good enough for the moment, and it would be fine for a minute while I put up the second mic.... dumb move!

I'm much more careful these days.

touched1 · Post by **touched1** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:55 pm

I was outside testing a field recording rig on loan to me the other night.
A Soundfield ST250 ($5k) into a Core Sound Pre ($600) running optical into an iRiver ($200).

So I'm out there getting sounds, and I thought I'd let my 90 lb German Shepherd into the yard at the same time....

Real smart

The resulting recording is hilarious. You can hear my dog running towards me full speed, in all the Soundfield's sparkling fidelity, right up to the point where it sounds like me getting knocked over and me yelling "MMRRRFFF!!" then the recording stops.

Hilarious.

All that happened was my headphones were ripped off my head and the optical cable was ripped cleanly from the Core Sound pre. No damage whatsoever.

A valuable lesson, and a hilarious recording.
I'd be happy to post it if anyone wants to hear it....

xSALx · Post by **xSALx** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 2:05 am

Dropped my BLUE Mouse the other day while taking it off the bass drum mic stand. My jaw dropped for a second, but it was fine.

Dropped my BLUE Baby Bottle while it was in its velvet pouch onto concrete. The front grill fell off. I shit a brick, because it was the nicest mic I had at the time. Luckily it worked fine, I even recorded some vocals without the back grill. Needless to say the back grill was back in place after the session.

The worst however, was dropping a pair of 184s while in their box, 20 feet down the open side of a stairwell. This is when I worked for my school recording concerts. The boxes fell apart and the mics bounced out to hit the concrete yet again. To my luck, one of my professors walked by when I was picking the mics up, but we both applied the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. I got back to the control room, plugged in the puppies and got pristine 10k as usual.

the finger genius · Post by **the finger genius** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 5:12 am

touched1 wrote:
A valuable lesson, and a hilarious recording.
I'd be happy to post it if anyone wants to hear it....

Please do

Smitty · Post by **Smitty** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 6:14 am

the finger genius wrote:
touched1 wrote:
A valuable lesson, and a hilarious recording.
I'd be happy to post it if anyone wants to hear it....
Please do

+1

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What's the most expensive Mic you've ever dropped?

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