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Django & Mélodium Mélodynamic 75A/55A mic
DoubleWhisky
Upper FranconiaNew Vit Cach, Dupont MD60, 1940s Castelluccia
Hi,
I know Christophe Lartilleux used a Mélodium 75A microphone for that vintage Django tone, f.e.:
I keep reading that Django recorded on one of those himself (for example in this thread: https://djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/12027/what-kind-of-mic-is-fapy-using-on-those-90s-recordings/p1)
Do you know a source for evidence of this? I have not been able to find a picture or a direct textual source yet and would love to know the source for this information. Thank you!
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I think chances are that Django did record using one of these mics. They were ubiquitous in France early to mid century and can be seen in pictures of De Gaule, Piaf and a thousand others. A bit like Reslo mics in the 60s. I used to own both a Reslo and a Melodium. The reslo was a smooth sounding ribbon mic but the Melodium just sounded horrendous. They also have a strange connector socket and plug.
Thanks for your reply, yes I found it hard to find a plug to use it with modern equipment, but but I scored one in excellent condition that had a XLR mod done to it, waiting for it to arrive. Really looking forward to that horrendous sound haha, I certainly won't use it for hifi recordings.
Mine could just have been defective or, more likely, covered in dust and dirt. It was impossible for me to get the thing apart to check the internal workings. They can't all have sounded bad given the quality of some of the Piaf recordings. Good luck and it'll be interesting to hear how you get on with yours.
The mailman was here, welcome dear Mélodium Mélodynamic 55a! I recorded the initial test drive for a quick first impression.
The first file is my Dupont MD60 close mic'd somehwere inbetween the 14th fret and the soundhole, rhythm and solo recorded individually one after another. In this case this 1950s mic actually sounds way less "lofi" than I expected. Of course there is not much going on at the highest top end, but up until 10k Hz or so it's quite linear and also the transient response is not bad at all to my ears!
The second file is the same procedure but the mic placed about 80cm away and towards the soundhole. My Focusrite Clarett Preamp in both cases was turned up as far as it can go, that's why I put a master limiter on both files. Other than that there is no EQ etc. I would love to use it for a full band one mic recording, but I guess for that I have to invest in something like a fethead for additional gain.
The third file is a short vocal test, this time heavily processed with an opto compressor plugin and tape style slap back delay. I think this chain immediately lets the vintage character really shine. There are pictures of Gene Vincent using a 55a and it really has that lovely gritty overdriven 50s midrange. Looking forward to experiment with the guitar recordings aswell in that direction.
Some pictures:
Sounds fantastic for old tech.
Artistic photos. Glad you are able to use it to inspire you.
Wow, that sounds so much better than the one I had. And nice playing.
Thank you all for the kind feedback!