Vintage microphone

anton foy · August 30, 2004

Hello everybody!

I m very fascinated by the sound of movies from the 1950s to 1970s.

The speech especially sound very distinct and contrasty (if one can describe it as that).

I really want to know what kind of microphones/ equipment they used to get that sort of sound.

Thank you in advance // Anton Foy

Matt Pacini · August 30, 2004

There are a lot of things that are responsible for a particular sound in old films, from the mics they used, to the recording techiques, equipment, etc.

A huge factor is from the optical soundtrack.

So even though magnetic recording was used for the original audio recordings, most of what we hear in old movies is from the optical audio on the print, which is not that good, and sounds really mid-rangey.

There are some really killer old microphones though.

The ribbon mics are actually really nice, and tube mics (tube preamps, that is) are really sought after and expensive, especially the older ones.

Find a Neuman U-47 Tube mic, for instance, and it's likely to cost many thousands of dollars.

The FX audio really suffered a lot from multiple generations of tape re-recording before digital came along.

There was simply no other way to do it. You had to copy the originals, do your editing onto another tape machine, and what you ended up with was many generations of copied audio, and it really shows (or should I say, sounds!?!?!)

Listen to the machine guns in Raiders of the Lost Ark sometimes, and you can just hear the crunchy sound of the high end, lots of compression, etc. (Not to mention they're slowed down quite a bit to make them big sounding.)

Really clunky sounding.

Matt Pacini

anton foy · August 30, 2004

Thanks a lot Matt!

I thought it had something to do with the optical track, I guess they had very directional mics because the sound is either extremely low or extremely high.

Btw. can you name a specific type of ribbon mic (a brand or type) 'cause the tube mics seems very expensive.

Thanks again!

Rachel Oliver · August 30, 2004

Hi;

check out the modern valve mics like the Rode series (just Google "Rode valve mic") they are very close to the older vintage mics in sound (grainy and warm) but cost well under 1K! I own a Rode K2 which is amazing for voiceover work, not really a location mic but it could be done, sounds like your talking about the affect of the optical soundtrack more than mic sound though.....

Olly

J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR · August 30, 2004

The Copperphone is a cool special effect Mic that makes things sound as if they are coming from a Grammaphone, old radio or telephone. It is pretty extreme though. I don't know if you would want to do a whole movie with one...

The Copperphone

anton foy · August 30, 2004

Thats some great info ina such short time!

You guys are great!

Yeah "jlamarking" maybe it's a bit too distorted but it's on the right way, I'll have to check it out, thanks ;)

The valve mics sounds like right stuff "Olly" :)

I forgot to mention that I was planning to use it on location but maybe it can be done, thanks so much for your help everyone!

Alvin Pingol · August 31, 2004

The Copperphone is a cool special effect Mic that makes things sound as if they are coming from a Grammaphone, old radio or telephone. It is pretty extreme though. I don't know if you would want to do a whole movie with one...

The Copperphone

Interesting! I wonder how close I could get using some good parametric EQ...

Matt Pacini · August 31, 2004

I've tried it using parametric EQ.

Pretty damn tedious, took a long time, and still didn't really sound the same.

Lots of mysterious things happen using certain gear, so it's not always easy to simulate!

(That's why tube amplifiers are still so popular for guitarists, for instance, myself included (I love my Fender Super 60!!!)).

Try actually recording your audio through a telephone if you want that crappy sound, or even get something like a little pignose amp, and mic it with a cheap mic.

Incidentally, the opening guitar riff in the Rolling Stone's "Jumpin' Jack Flash", was with a cheap acoustic guitar, using a portable cassette recorder and mic (like you'd get at Radio Shack) turned up until it distorted.

So there's all sorts of neat things you can do with cheap gear!

Anyway, the sounds you're talking about is mostly NOT from the microphone, it's from ungodly amounts of compression and re-recording onto tape, and finishing to optical, which is really not good sounding, but certainly unique.

Ribbon mics and tube mics sounds FANTASTIC, so they're not what's degrading the sound.

The R0de mics are pretty nice.

I just got one of the Behringers, andI like it a lot, but having been spoiled by Neuman U87's in the studio, nothing will ever really impress me again (I mean, in these new low-cost condenser mics...).

Matt Pacini