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Location: When?? | Anybody else here ever drop a live mic into your Ovation bowl and run it through an amp? I hadn’t done that since the 80’s when I was trying to “electrify” a 1112 CB without using a pickup.. and that was only with a cheap plastic microphone that came with a cassette recorder. Results were ‘meh, and I don’t recall ever doing that since.
Until.. just a few days ago I dropped my SM-57 into a friend’s Yamaha acoustic just to see how it would sound.. and wow.. a real microphone actually did something, and seemed totally unique to any other sound I could accomplish with direct amp effects or pedals or anything else like that. There were no real drastic sound changes when I positioned the mic around different places inside the guitar.. but something told me that when I got home to try this again on an Ovation there would be. I was right. The round back makes a huge difference in the sound variations per the locations I have placed the mic inside the bowl. With the mic head resting directly on the Lyrachord, there is a depth to the sound like nothing I have ever heard come out of an Ovation, and when resting on a soft surface (I tucked a small washcloth in there) the sound rolls over to something entirely different.. and with the mic just resting against the top wood while hanging inside by the wire draped over the sound hole, still a whole other sound. Upper and lower bout locations are quite different as well. I guess if you tried this on an epaulet-style Ovation or Adamas you would have to have a microphone that would fit through the largest hole, or a model with the round hatch on the back, so I have only done it on traditional sound hole guitars.
So now... is there a world of accomplished guitarists out there who are known for this, or is this just a dummy discovery on my part.. like elementary stuff that everybody else tried when they were kids and I am just now learning it? Whatever.. I’m having fun with it.
Edited by Love O Fair 2017-06-17 8:19 PM
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Posts: 287
Location: Katmandu | In a recording studio it's not the worst idea I guess; in a live environment I'd be worried about feedback. If I remember correctly the old-guard OptiMax dual pickup (manual), though, already paired a Telex condenser mic in front the bridge with the Ovation proprietary piezo pickup -- very similiar to the LR Baggs Anthem system today, decades later, if you will. However, I do prefer micing the guitar up normally, from the outside, for one channel and using the built-in electronics for the other in order to get a more immediate, easily doubled sound.
Edited by leonardmccoy 2017-06-18 4:21 AM
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Posts: 1802
Location: When?? | @loenardmccoy - "... in a live environment I'd be worried about feedback."
Right.. I didn't mention the feedback part which I encountered with some mic positions and had to trim away.. and I agree that it would be very risky in a live performance if the player hadn't already set it up as confirmed tried-and-true in the environment they are performing in.
My experiments with this have just been for kicks in a studio setting, some of which I recorded and have run through various tweaks and readings just to study some comparisons on the waveforms and the ambient speaker sounds they produce when altered. I realize this may be boring and/or tedious to many people, but recording in real time is only half the fun for me. The other half is what you can do with it hours, weeks and years later, especially when stacked against things that didn't exist or hadn't even been considered when said recording was made. I'm just thankful for the large capacity hard storage that has become available in recent years since I have a vast archive of recordings (music, speaking, sound effects, etc.) that I have digitized from analog recordings I've made starting back in the late 60's, along with direct digital I have amassed for the past 20+ years. Mic-in-the-bowl just happens to be the current toy.
My name is Love O Fair (Hi, Love O Fair!), and I am a sound addict.
Edited by Love O Fair 2017-06-18 7:00 PM
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10582
Location: NJ | hmmmmm
my km 84 would drop right in.... |
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October 2005
Posts: 4044
Location: Utah | One big 60's hit was recorded with a cheap plastic cassette mic stuffed inside the guitar. I can't quite remember, but I believe it was a Beatles song. |
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February 2016
Posts: 1802
Location: When?? | @Al - "my km 84 would drop right in...."
Your KM 84 would definitely catch a whole other sound perspective to the experiment than my SMs do. I wi$h I had one!
Then there's this..
http://highlanderpickups.com/catalog/hmic.htm
Edited by Love O Fair 2017-06-20 10:42 PM
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You can take that microphone and stuff it!!...