old or vintage mics

[llmonty]

Hey all. I walked into a salvage store the other day looking for some things for my house and the guy had a ton of old mics. He said about 1/2 of them worked. Anyhow, while I know my way around other old things (guitars, amps, watches, cars, ladies) I don't really know anything about mics. My curiosity was piqued and there were some cool looking mics. I would figure that for the most part many of these mics would have some limited frewuency and kind of be 'effect' type mics.

Some of the particular mics were the Shure 556S Elvis mic (basically new old stock), a few RCAs (cylinder shape, not the squarish 50's news desk ones), some 60s-70s sonys. What should I look for? Are they compatible with modern pre's and recorders (other than the obvious mic plug type). At this point, I would be interested in spending a couple of bucks to give them a try, as opposed to becoming a collecter/broker.

Any hints on what to look for? Thanks

[biasvoltage]

Nah. You don't want any of that old junk.







by the way, where is this store?


Looks like you could score pretty well here. One thing to watch out for, or at least be aware of, is that some old mics have unusual connector son them. Most are still available, but you may have to put a little effort into constructing a proper cable for a mic with a weirdo connector.

Old microphones are definitely compatible with today's equipment. Be careful with the RCA mics, they may be ribbon mics (sounds like you might have some 77dx's or bk5a's there), which are not only very sensitive to physical shock, but will be fried instantly if you should hook them up to a phantom powered input.

[djimbe]

Any of the Sony model C37 mics (37A was tube, 37P was FET) work on modern systems just fine. Can't go wrong with them if'n they work - the C37P is a favorite of mine. Sometimes you'll see Sony mics badged as "Superscope" too. Same deal. I have an old Superscope SD condensor that sounds pretty damn good. Just make sure you hem and haw alot and tell the guy yer taking a flyer on the "non-working" ones, and buying up a package of "bad" ones just to get that "Elvis" model Shure 'cause it looks so cool Lucky bastard! Good luck...

[Max]

Be careful with the RCA mics, they may be ribbon mics (sounds like you might have some 77dx's or bk5a's there), which are not only very sensitive to physical shock, but will be fried instantly if you should hook them up to a phantom powered input.

Have you ever plugged a ribbon mic to phantom power?
I'm just curious.

[wing]

Nah. You don't want any of that old junk.

why not? maybe he likes old junk.

[Fletcher]

Be careful with the RCA mics, they may be ribbon mics (sounds like you might have some 77dx's or bk5a's there), which are not only very sensitive to physical shock, but will be fried instantly if you should hook them up to a phantom powered input.

Yeah... or JV-74's... or 77C's or a bunch of other stuff... and no, they won't be instantly fried if you hook them up to phantom power... the only way they'll be instantly fried if you hook them up to phantom power is if your phantom power is wired wrong... or the mic's transformer is wired incorrectly... other than that, you can run phantom through them all bloody day long with absolutely no adverse effects.

Did you know that you can't turn the phantom off on individual channels on a Neve 8068 or 8078, nor can you turn off the phantom on individual channels on a Trident A-Range, nor a Trident 80 Series for that matter... yet somehow year after year after year people somehow manage to run ribbon mics right next to condenser mics through these consoles... </rant>

As for the Sony mics... if there is a C-57 in there or a 117a... you kinda hit the Sony mic lottery!! The C-37's and C-38's are way cool... but the 57 and 117 are two of my absolute favorites.

FWIW, you can use any "old" mic with damn near any modern mic amp... you should have the mics checked to make sure they don't have "issues"... but other than that, you may have just stumbled across a pretty cool score.

[llmonty]

Thanks for all the responses. I will be making my way down there again for sure and will keep you comments in mind. It would be great to expand my rather modest mic cabinet with some unique gear. Wish me luck!

I assume there are people out there that repair mics, but I can't say I have ever come across anyone. I need to find a mic repair guy (to add to the 'amp guy', 'teac guy', etc.).

[auralman]

I did have a very cool experience once - I saw a RCA 44 ribbon practically disintegrate - I was hanging out in the shop with our Tech, who was testing out a mod he'd read about making a 44 transformerless (beginning of bad idea begins here) - as the fletchster said - no problems if the mic is fine, but I guess our tech didn't notice the 48v was in on the pre he was testing it on - POOF!
I swear I saw a flash. One minute, a full french fry of ribbon suspended between 2 magnets. The next? 90% gone....
Two weeks later after some TLC from Clarence the man, the transformer was thankfully added back to the circuit.
Does Clarence have an apprentice or will we someday lose the only ribbon man on the east coast? Clarence, please take your vitamins and train someone to do what you do as well as you do it.

-cheers

[rhythm ranch]

For repairing ribbon mics, I highly recommend Stephen Sank. He's done great work for me.

Steven Sank, here.

[todd]

why not? maybe he likes old junk.

blue, you really need to turn on your sarcasm detector once in a while....