I want to start swinging!

[The real Henry]

Some friends and me are going to get together for a swing band. I'd be the singer and maybe I'll play the piano, too. Now, what I first think of when I hear the singers in 1930s songs are those special round microphones where the part you speak into is hanging 'free'. I that's not a good description, but I simply don't know how they are called!

My question is: Does anyone know of a company that still produces them today?

Regards,
Henrik

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

I don't know about new ones, but here's a place that has vintage ones. Great pictures, anyway.

http://www.vintagephone.com/EWMics2.htm

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

I've seen them at music stores before. Kind of pricey but they look nice.

 

[The real Henry]

They all look great, but they're not quite in my price range.
Thanks much anyway Tony!

Seems like I've to get a repro of those 1950s chrome microphone, though the 1930s ones are much better eyecatcher!


Regards,
Henrik!

 

[Wild Root]

These are called Carbon mikes or Condenser mikes. I like these ones the best! Dean Mora's band uses one of these for his band... I think it may be a repro he uses... I'll have to ask him next time I see him!

Good luck with the band! If you're looking for music to play, you can find arrangements on Ebay as well!

=WR=

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have a carbon mike myself -- same model Root shows in his pic -- but I don't recommend trying to wire them into a modern sound system. They require a clean DC power supply to energize the carbon buttons, and a transformer to match them to modern inputs -- and even if you arrange all that, you'll get a thinnish, metallic sound that doesn't go much beyond 5 kc. Basically it's a bigger, heavier, fancier version of the mouthpiece in an old WE telephone. (I learned all this stuff from an old-school engineer at a station where I worked..)

The ring stand is simply to insulate the mike element from vibration -- they were occasionally used with other types of microphones as late as the mid-thirties, especially the early Western Electric dynamic coil mikes. If you can find one of these with a ring stand you'll have something really worth using.

 

[Wild Root]

Ooooh, you mean it would sound old fashioned? How swell!!!

=WR=

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

Real Henry, that's great, the world can never have enough swing bands.

Ooooh, you mean it would sound old fashioned? How swell!!!

=WR=

Didn't you used to have to hit those every once in a while to re-fluff the carbon granules when they got packed down to keep it working? lol gotta love the elegantly simple technology though; if I remember right, they were just variable resistors, guess you could just connect to a battery and drive a speaker with it, no "amp".

Nice looking for sure.


Swing High,
- C H

 

[LizzieMaine]

The usual routine was to whack the mike casing with a pencil several times before beginning a broadcast to keep the carbon from packing. A couple recordings of broadcasts from the '20s exist where you can actually hear this being done before the announcer begins to speak.

A better quality microphone all around was the condenser mike, which was first used for making records in 1925, and began to be widely adopted in radio by 1929.

Here are Amos and Andy using an RCA 4-A condenser microphone in 1932. The box contains both the mike element, mounted in one side, and a three-tube amplifier unit. A seperate power supply for the tubes is not visible here, mounted on the studio wall, and connected to the mike with a thick cable. This style of microphone was the dominant type until the introduction of the ribbon mike (the famous RCA 44 and its descendents) in 1933.

 

[The real Henry]

Great news!!!

Well, at least for me.

I finally got me this 1930s bakelite microphone:

I can't wait to get it and to see and most of all hear how it works!


Sure, the frame has to be fixed so I can put it on a stand, but that design is unigue!


Regards,
Henrik

 

[Snookie]

Congrats, looks good! How's the band coming along?

 

[The real Henry]

Well, at the moment it's still just me and a drummer, but that's becuase I wanted to get some leadsheets before searching for others. By now I got notes for "Yes Indeed" and "A Wonderful world".


Regards,
Henrik

 

[The real Henry]

Finally we managed to get a band together:


The Happy Emo Project!



At the moment we're working on a boogie version of 'In the mood' with singing.




Regards,
Henrik

 

[funneman]

Vintage Microhones

Most of the recordings that we remember from the golden era utilized what is known as an RCA or Electrovoice "Ribbon" microphone. A very thin, corrugated ribbon of aluminum was used to vibrate inside the case and reproduce the sound of the human voice.

All of those wonderful warm sounding voice recordings of Sinatra, Bing and most of the others used this type of mic.

The good news, they are all over ebay but costly.

The bad news, the ribbons are very sensitive, just blowing into the mic, or dropping it can stretch the ribbon and make it sound fuzzy. The're very costly to refurbish and there are only one or two guys who used to work for RCA who are still alive that have the old parts. They are also very low volumn mics which means they need a microphone pre-amp to get enough volumn out of them even to amplify.

If you're still married to idea of using a ribbon mic, there are a few companies out there that are making new ones styled like the old ones, but they still have the ribbon mic problems. There's AEA:

http://www.atlasproaudio.com/aea.html

which uses RCA specs and on the lower end of the price scale, Nady.

http://www.samedaymusic.com/product--NDYRSM2

if you're just interested in the look, Heil Sound has a "Classic Pro" that looks just like a DX-44 but is a dynamic mic, a lot louder and a will take a lot more abuse, and costs less than $300.00:

http://www.heilsound.com/pro/products/classic_pro/index.htm


I have one of these and I love it.