Audio Technica Guitar Mics!

La Gitane

Hi all.

Made my own "violin mount" this afternoon based on the images of the official violin mount posted earlier on this thread. See attached.

The sound was considerably better with the violin mount than when using the clip supplied with the ATPro70 to mount the mic either inside or outside the sound hole. The sound was less "boomy" and more distinct; pretty much as the guitar sounds to my ears when played without amplification.
Also I was able to manage higher volume levels and could even stand facing the amp without feedback compared to using the sound hole clip mount.

Great!!
Thanks for the tip Gary!

Treble and bass controls on channel 2 of the Compact 60 were both set to 12 o'clock with just a touch of reverb; XLR Line/Mic input selector button set to "Mic" (pushed in). I used the ATPro70 power unit in phantom power mode with no battery, and with the low freq filter switched on.

Construction details to follow.

NB. I employed more velcro to anchor the mic cable to the tailpiece, as I found that if the mic cable swings around and taps against the body of the guitar, the cable itself can sometimes act like a microphone and pick up a faint tapping noise. It wasn't a serious problem, and I'm not sure if there is any way of preventing cables acting microphonically in this way - ? maybe less gain on the amp. Would be grateful for suggestions.

La Gitane

Re: Violin mount construction:

The AT violin mounts that Mike sells on the Djangobooks site are probably a lot better than my home made efforts, so please check out the shop!
On the other hand, this one only cost me 50 pence and 30 mins work to make...

You'll need:
Black sew-on velcro strips 16mm wide x 70mm long
Black general purpose braided polyester elastic (used for sportswear and under garments) 12mm wide x 30mm long
Black polyester sewing thread - button thread is ideal as it is stronger, but a double thickness of regular thread works fine.

All the above readily obtainable from a sewing or craft shop, or even a large supermarket.

1) Cut a piece of black elastic around 30mm long. Wrap it around the mic. Keeping it snugly wrapped around the mic, and taking care not to scratch the mic capsule with the needle, hand stitch the two free ends together round the mic using a running stitch as shown in Fig a).
Make three or four rows of stitches, back and forth across the width of the elastic for strength. Remove the mic.

2) Cut a 70mm length of velcro, and separate it into its "fluffy" and "hooked" component strips. Position the elastic loop that you've made in the centre of the back of the fluffy velcro strip, so the fluffy side of the velcro is pointing away from the elastic loop. Make two more rows of stitches from each side of and through the first row of stitches made in step 1) going through both elastic and velcro, as shown in cross section in Fig b). Again, make a couple of rows of stitches each side for strength

3) Trim the elastic close to your stitching. Insert the mic into the elastic loop. Lay the velcro across the strings between bridge and tailpiece, fluffy side down, and fix it in place by sandwiching the strings between this and the "hooked" strip of velcro, hooked side up, Fig c).

Voila!

klaatu

My band played the Halifax Jazz Festival yesterday for the first time - woo-hoo! Great reception from an appreciative audience.

But the point is, about an hour later an incredible local flamenco group called Los Flamencos put on a killer performance, complete with singing and dancing. One of the guitarists had what looked like an AT831b clipped onto his guitar, so out of curiosity I went backstage to talk to him about his setup.

He runs a short XLR-TRS cable from the at831b into the input jack on a Baggs Para DI (you could do the same thing with an XLR cable and an impedance matching transformer). Then the soundman can run a line from the XLR out on the Baggs into the PA. This way he is able to preset the Baggs with the correct EQ for his guitar, and the soundman can pretty much run the channel flat. It sounded fantastic, very clear and powerful.

klaatu

Question on the violin mount - would you not pick up a lot of the weird harmonics off the strings below the bridge, or does the Velcro damp those? I tried it with a jury-rigged mount which admittedly was not very secure, and those harmonics were pretty prominent.

Duozona

Awesome thread.....La Gitane (sorry I didnt catch your name), thanks for the very descript images and directions. My wife went to our local Joanne's Fabrics, go plenty of material for about $7 US, made two for me, and is making two for my fellow guitarist bandmate. There will be plenty left over, so probably about $1 a piece of material, incredible!

Seems to work quite well. The harmonics on my guitar behnd the bridge seemed somewhat dampened. I used to make some neat effects back there when we play Caravan or Night in Tunisia, and they are noth there for me with this mounted on, a small price to pay.

Question for others: Anyone found a trick to keeping it in place. It does seem to slip back form the bridge a bit after a while. Im sure there is an easy solution, I'm just not very creative with these type of things.

One other idea. My bandmate actually unscrewed the Audio Tech mount that comes with it, took just the part the mic clips to, used some of the schertler green putty, and fastened on his soundboard like he would the schertler dyn-g. We used it that way last gig, and many said it was our best 'sound' yet. FYI

-Chuck

klaatu

Duozona wrote:

One other idea. My bandmate actually unscrewed the Audio Tech mount that comes with it, took just the part the mic clips to, used some of the schertler green putty, and fastened on his soundboard like he would the schertler dyn-g. We used it that way last gig, and many said it was our best 'sound' yet. FYI

-Chuck

What a cool idea. My Schertler Basik arrived yesterday, and I was thinking it would be nice to mix it with the AT mike, but haven't been happy with the way it sounds clipped to the sound hole. The green putty might be just the answer.