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My First Microphone

L

LasVegasRadioJunky

What was the first microphone you used. What year was it and what were the station's call letters?

Mine was a BK-5A with the ball windscreen at WMAJ, State College, PA in 1977
 
Electro-Voice 635. (Not the 635A which is the hand-held mic we came to love a bit later.) Search for an EV630 to see what it looked like.

KBBA.
Benton, AR
June 1956
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Electro-Voice 635. (Not the 635A which is the hand-held mic we came to love a bit later.) Search for an EV630 to see what it looked like.

KBBA.
Benton, AR
June 1956
Click to expand...

Goat Rodeo Cowboy gave me a good idea for this board. When you post, try to post a link to a pic and details on Your First Microphone. Here's his
http://www.gearwire.com/ncollins-issues.html
And here's the RCA BK-5
http://www.vintagephone.com/EWMics3.htm (It's the 18 image from the top of this page)
 
LasVegasRadioJunky said:
Goat Rodeo Cowboy gave me a good idea for this board. When you post, try to post a link to a pic and details on Your First Microphone. Here's his
Click to expand...

Posting links does sound like a good idea. For mine, I like this image better:

http://www.coutant.org/ev630/index.html

This is the EV630. If I am not mistaken, the original 635 looked like this also.
 
do the older 421's sound better than the newer ones? Maybe it's just the way i hear it.olders versions seem to sound warmer to me.My 1st mic was the Western electric Altec 639B (birdcage) . Great ribbon sound.(also dynamic depending on the setting).
 
Oh, boy. Lucky the statute of limitations have long expired. It was an EV 664, a good sounding, low-medium priced for the day 'variable D' PA/recording/stage mic, used in an announce position at a *cough* semi-notorious 1960's AM pirate. Crazy hippies. ;D http://www.coutant.org/ev664/index.html (a pro version was the 665)

The amazing Bob Heil knows his way around a well-designed microphone. A fellow who has a nice 'hands-on' approach to customer emails, Bob once mentioned the 664/665 EV to me as an inspirational early design.
 
oldiesstation said:
do the older 421's sound better than the newer ones? Maybe it's just the way i hear it.olders versions seem to sound warmer to me.My 1st mic was the Western electric Altec 639B (birdcage) . Great ribbon sound.(also dynamic depending on the setting).
Click to expand...

I mixed a Jazz band show before Christmas and had newer 421's on the trumpets. For the life of me, I could not get the brittle "splat" out of those no matter what m-s setting I used or EQ. I don't remember 421's sounding like that at all. Had I more time to prepare, I would have borrowed an old one from a friend just for comparision sake. Perhaps my memory is tainted by analog boards and 8100's in the air chain, but I don't remember the original 421's sounding that edgey. IMO, they sounded like many current-production Sennheiser mics - i.e. high-mids very forward to the point of annoying. I couldn't imagine using one of those 421's on-air nowadays.
-D
 
For me it was an Electro Voice 666.

http://www.coutant.org/666r/index.html

Oh, boy. Lucky the statute of limitations have long expired. It was an EV 664, a good sounding, low-medium priced for the day 'variable D' PA/recording/stage mic, used in an announce position at a *cough* semi-notorious 1960's AM pirate. Crazy hippies. http://www.coutant.org/ev664/index.html (a pro version was the 665)
Click to expand...

I recall that an licensed AM station in Springfield Ohio used a 664 in their announce position over the Gates console in the old downtown studios.

http://www.coutant.org/ev664/index.html

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/GatesDualux.jpg

They also had two of the Spot Tape machines, the ones with the 12" wide tape and a slide selecter lever.

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/101.htm
 
From the "if I can inject a bit of levity into this thread department":

My first microphone was...

Mr. Microphone
A great gift from Ronco

Available at:
Walgreen's
Thrifty
Sav-On
K-Mart
Revco
and other fine stores
;D

Now back to our discussion, already in progress.

BTW, what was Charlie Van Dyke's first mic?
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
From the "if I can inject a bit of levity into this thread department":

My first microphone was...

Mr. Microphone
A great gift from Ronco
Available at:
Walgreen's
Thrifty
Sav-On
K-Mart
Revco
and other fine stores
;D
Click to expand...

Hey good lookin'! We'll be back to pick you up later! ;D
-D
 
Hard to say....
My very first microphone was probably the combo mic/speaker in my Gilbert Electronics Experimenter's Lab. Got it for Christmas, around 1962.
Next was the crystal mike that came with a battery-powered 3" reel-to-reel tape recorder, that came from the Camera Bar at a local pharmacy.

Shortly after that, I got a "real" mike...a small dynamic mike that looked sort of like a 635, from the local Sears. I got it on my Father's birthday. I bought him underwear, he brought me home a real microphone.
 
As a broadcaster, the venerable RCA BK-5, first at the college FM station and the first two commercial AM''s I worked at part time while in school.

The Catholic church I was married in had BK-5's as there Lectern microphones in the mid 1970's and I've always wondered what became of them!

The first microphones I bought for myself, a pair of AKG D-200 dynamics in 1969.
 
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