Organization? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Organization

I have a pair of Electro-Voice RE-18’s in the shop that need, I hope, minor repair. The RE-18 was one of the best handheld vocal microphones ever made by anyone in audio history. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it because I’ve owned about a dozen of these amazing tools and everyone has been terrific. Every vocalist I’ve taught to use the RE-18 has taken to the microphone like it was a revelation. Every FOH engineer I’ve convinced to try the RE-18 has fallen in love with the mics. Obviously, the RE-18 was doomed to failure in an industry where the SM58 is considered “good enough” when it is obviously barely competent as a talkback mic or a taxi company dispatcher’s desk mike.

When I wrote EV’s misnamed “Technical Services” about obtaining repair parts for the RE-18, the response was, “Unfortunately, we no longer have parts or service to support this series." Although this was a very good mic it was discontinued around 1990.” I, of course, knew all of that except for the non-existent parts supply and EV’s arbitrary decision to discontinue their lifetime warranty, “Also, these microphones are guaranteed without time limit against malfunction in the acoustic system due to defects in workmanship and material.” [Words taken right from the RE-18’s Product Manual.] That warranty was one of the reasons EV was able to ask a premium price on all of the RE Series microphones: $350 back when an SM58 had a street price of $75. Bosch, a German company, has no clue how to deal with customer service, manage quality, or produce a competent product: a typical condition for German companies. Nothing new here. If a German company didn’t totally hose up customer service functions, I’d be suspecting someone else actually owned the company.

EV does, however, still make and sell the RE-16. Many of the RE-16;s parts are identical or close enough for practical purposes. After going around via email with the “we no longer have parts or service” Tech Service guy, I called Tech Services today. Same song and dance, except this guy knew he didn’t know much and really, really wanted to transfer me to “Parts.” Usually, I have had to go through Tech Service to get part numbers and/or assembly drawings. At EV/Bosch, Tech Service has none of that. In fact, I have to wonder what technical services Tech Services can provide without actual product information at hand.

Lucky for me, the woman who answered the parts call was, essentially, an actual Tech Services technician. We quickly identified the parts I wanted to buy, she priced them, she told me when I’d receive those parts (about 14 days), and took my order.

All of this hassle could have been easily resolved with a simple parts manual/service data sheet, like the one that is well-distributed and easily found for the RE-20. The fact that this information doesn’t seem to be even in-house at EV/Bosch is disturbing. A lot of companies seem to think manufacturing or service information is “proprietary” information. That philosophy is excessively customer-hostile and leads the company down a path of becoming known for lowered capabilities and lowered expectations from customers turns into lower performance. That results in lower price points because customers assume the company’s products are poor quality, poorly designed, poorly supported, and incompetently represented at all ends of the product chain. That is certainly what has happened to EV over the last 40 years. From a well-known, often used microphone supplier and technical resource in the early days through the 70’s, EV has slowly become a second tier company, mostly known for cheap knock-off microphones and with no real presence in the condenser market at all. In fact, the RE-20 is probably the company’s only well known, well respected microphone. That seems like a pretty serious problem.

REVIEW: Kick Drum Mics

If I were only allowed one microphone, it would be the Electrovoice RE-20. I've been a fan of the RE-20 for so long that I can't remember ever not having one and not reaching for an RE-20 whenever something difficult has to be mic'd. The key to the RE-20 has always been versatility. Anything you need to mic, the RE-20 will produce a respectable result.

This review is not about that kind of microphone. For example, the Electrovoice N/D868 has one purpose; bass. In particular, kick drum, although it will do a respectable job on loud electric bass, floor toms, and other loud, low frequency signals. Not only to record that kind of signal, but the N/D8689, Audix's D6, and Shure's Beta52 dramatically accent the qualities of those signals. 

To get an idea of the purpose of this microphone, look at the frequency chart at right from Shure's information on t he Beta52. At close proximity (3mm) the Beta52 provides almost 20dB of boost at 40Hz. That is a 100X power increase over the far field response. Clearly, this microphone is not intended for use anywhere other than right on top of the sound source if you hope to achieve any low frequency (LF) response from the microphone. Both of these microphones exhibit similar characteristics, exaggerated bass response in close proximity, incredibly high max SPL before distortion, and a very modern (as of 2007) LF sound quality when used on the intended instrument; kick drum.

Unless you are looking for an odd effect, I don't know why you would chose either of the microphones for anything but kick or electric bass. They are both physically large, heavy, and somewhat awkward to position (even in an open-back kick drum). At any distance beyond 2" they begin to loose so much LF response that they sound thin and harsh. Their mid-range (2-4KHz) is so busted in the attempt to flatten the LF-mid-range response at near-field, that they are simply irritating sounding beyond a few inches.

These microphones do not attempt to reproduce a natural kick drum sound. Instead, they are going for a dramatic, larger-than-life sound that is typical of modern pop music. For everything from rap to metal, this is the sound of the day (days between sometime in the 1990's up to now). An incredible number of rock records are looking for this sound from the kick drum; something between the overwhelming roar of a thunderstorm and the sound of 4,000 natives pounding on hollow logs in perfect sync. If that is what you are looking for, pick any of these three microphones, put the mic as close to the beater head as you can get it, and slam the meter to +3 (if you're recording to tape) and stick it there. If you're going to digital, forget about pinning the meter, but everything else applies.

Placement is everything with a mic that is this dependent on proximity for bass response. Moving the mic back 2" from the head can produce a signal that could be disappointing if you are expecting thunder. Moving the mic away from the beater and toward the shell will increase the LF incredibly, while mostly hanging on to the impact of the beater hit. Placing these mics near the front head creates a muffled thud that will need some assistance from a quicker, more closely placed mic or well-positioned overheads.

On electric bass, these mics can turn a 10" studio amp into a stack of 15x4 cabinets that simply roar with power. Put a B52 close to the edge of the speaker cone and you may find yo urself rolling off 100-150Hz to make some room for the rest of the bottom end in your recording. Move the mic toward the center of the cone and you'll have plenty of punch from a slap-bass player along with tons of low end. Again, if you want bottom end, you'll have to keep any of these mics close to the speaker. Proximity is everything, if you want low end from these large-element dynamics.

You might be able to tell that I'm less than overwhelmed by the overwhelming kick sound these microphones produce. I'm in the minority, but I still like the sound of a real kick drum or the punch from a well-played electric bass. The hyped bottom this kind of mic produces is a sound that I believe will become dated soon. Like the super-isolated, close-mic'd sound of the late 70's and early-80's (i.e. Eagles and their imitators), the giant bottom, sub-woofing kick of the last decade will come to be a "sign of the times" and a sound that future engineers will avoid to keep from sounding "old."

That will leave these microphones to become the useful  tools they are, on the occasion that an engineer wants to take advantage of their special characteristics and tonal qualities. Putting a D6 under congas or a tabala, for example, to exaggerate the LF output of those instruments. Since all of these mics have a Max_SPL spec that exceeds any practical sound source, they would be ideal for recording extreme sounds, like guns, engines, and large machines near field. Their proximity bass enhancement would reinforce the power of those sounds. The D6 and the 868 make killer floor tom mics. Microphones are tools, you don't use the same tool for every job and some tools aren't ideal even for specific jobs. In the case of mic'ing the kick drum, I recommend using a smaller hammer, occasionally. You might learn to love the sound of the real instrument.

Technorati Tags: microphone,electro-voice,re-20,n/d868,shure,sm52,audix,d6

REVIEW: Electro-Voice RE18

Electro-Voice was once one of the great American audio companies who pioneered much of the technology that we use everyday. Like RCA, Shure, JBL, Altec-Lansing, AT&T and Bell Telephone, EV was once an industry leader who created products with reputations that would out-live the company's ability to sustain that kind of brilliance.

A few years ago, one of my classes took on the task of identifying the best hand-held vocal mic available. We had an opportunity to look at Neuman's KMS 104/105s, Sennheiser's e 965, Shure's KSM9, EV's RE-410, and the usual suspects of dynamics (SM58, SM57, etc.). The end result of that test was that we recommended the school buy several of the Sennheiser microphone.

After the test was completed, we continued to play with the Neuman and Sennheiser in a variety of live applications. One result of that activity was the paranoid-seeming warning in my shootout write-up: "WARNING! There is one big downside to using condensers in a live environment that should be discussed before you ever consider this adventure: cables and phantom power. The live environment is not conducive to cable integrity and 48VDC can deliver a driver-shattering blast when it is toggled off and on through a defective mic cable. Before using a hand-held condenser on stage, you should be very careful in selecting the mic cable for this application and consider the talent and cable-abuse-tendencies of the performer. If there was ever a good time to consider quad-star mic cables, this is probably it." As much as I love condenser microphones in all of their musically accurate glory, cheap cables and live sound and condensers do not mix well.

The school's live stage equipment is pretty abused and marginally maintained, so my recommendation to buy the e965s was probably less enthusiastic than it might have been after a few near-catestrophic phantom-popping events. One result from those moments was that I included a pair of my personal RE-18's in a later comparison. While I have always loved these microphones, it was eye-opening to hear my ancient (1980's vintage) microphones stood up to the best modern technology. At first, all of us had difficulty telling the Sennheiser from the EV. The clarity of both microphones was head-and-shoulders above the usual SM58 muddle, but the RE-18's lack of proximity and sibilance control was noticably better than the Sennheiser. Handling noise was also better in the EV. In the hands of one of the school's best vocal instructor/performers, the EV performed like a studio microphone; providing incredible isolation from the stage instrumentation and near-transparent reproduction of her voice.

If you look at the RE-18's spec sheet, you'll find that the manufacturer provided a collection of specifications that are uncommon in today's market. My favorite nearly-non-existent specification is "off-axis reponse." This is never a pretty chart, as much as we'd like to imagine cardioid microphones are really cardioid. As ugly as it is, this chart (left) is about as good as it gets in vocal microphones.  With as little as 15dB of off-axis rejection in the upper-range and 50-150Hz and as much as 20-30dB in the upper mid-range to 10kHz, the RE-18 is a very directional microphone. There is no specification for shock-isolation, but the RE-18 is multiply rubber-mounted from case: everything from the step-up transformer to the element are shock-mounted and handling noise is all but non-existent.

If you would like a general description of the RE-18, S.O. Coutant does a fine job on his excellent microphones website: http://www.coutant.org/evre18/index.html. However, the best sonic description I can provide is "clarity." Voices through the RE-18 cut through the mix without equalization or a particularly high level. Like the condenser hand-helds, the RE-18 does not provide the low-mid honk of the SM-58 and that is what many live engineers have come to describe as "presence" on their way to hearing impairment.