Huge DIY bass frequencies microphone

[frank_p]

Did you guys saw that.  Anybody built one ? Any opinions ?  Looks like a cool project !



http://www.instructables.com/id/SPKR-MiK--How-to-make-a-microphone-from-a-speaker/

As the author mentioned the project was based on this product:
http://www.yamaha.com/drums/drumproductdetail.html?CNTID=544671&CTID=5040593

[earthtonesaudio]

rockin'

[syndromet]

Looks like a cool project. Would it be possible to do somehing like this with a smaller speaker to make a guitar mic?

[frank_p]

Looks like a cool project. Would it be possible to do somehing like this with a smaller speaker to make a guitar mic?

Surely, but this one is mounted in a drum shell.  If you read all the material on the project site, I think there is some hints for a single voice-coil speaker simplified version...  Could be cool because this thing looks HUGE !

[Bensnap]

My buddy made one for his studio. Used with another mic it sounds pretty good. Just need to make sure they are in phase with each other.

[composition4]

I made one years ago, and as someone else said they are great for mixing in their bassy sound with other mics.

Mine is simply an 8" speaker, with one side of the voice coil connected to XLR Pin 1  + 3 (ground + cold) and the other side of the coil to XLR pin 2 (hot).  Gives you an unbalanced signal of course.

Best application IMO is recording kick drums. Has been done countless times in the past with people connecting studio monitors up in this configuration. I'm quite sure Yamaha released something specifically for this, called it the "kick sub" or something

Jonathan

[Mark Hammer]

Flip through the pages of any electronic projects collection or magazine from the 70's or 60's and you'll find a project in there for converting a speaker into a mic.  Indeed, household intercoms that were briefly the rage in homes everywhere, are based on the use of a single element as either speaker OR mic.

I suppose that one of the good things about attempting to use a speaker to mic up an amp is that the sort of cone movement the speaker is designed to tolerate is WAY in excess of what might be produced by a mere sound wave in air.  I.E., they would be quite hardy under high SPL.

At the same time, the speaker cone needs to be such that "mere" air actually CAN move the cone.  The sort of mass one regularly encounters in a speaker cone is not the sort of thing that would wiggle very much in response to mere sound.  The problem that creates is lousy S/N ratio given how much gain you'd have to apply to that signal to get it up to where you need it.

[frank_p]

Thanks for the info Mark.
In my magazines days, I was in radio controlled stuff, so...
I think you are refering to papers that existed when I wasn't even there.

So you have to find a speaker that have those attributes:

- Flexible surround
- Light cone
- not too strong magnet as to have less power dissipation, and have a small preamp.

So to have it as sensible as possible. Right ?

[MusicAudio]

I did something similar to this a couple years ago when playing engineer on a recording session, with limited results. I used an 8" polypropylene woofer, and found that like other suggested it sounds best when used with another mic. Like Mark said, I also found the s/n to be pretty poor; low passing helped reduce the annoying noise after boosting the signal. By itself I found the sound to be pretty lifeless, but when used subtly in support of another conventional mic (like an sm57) it added a nice girth.

Considering how inexpensive a project like this is I'd definitely recommend giving it a try!

[intricatecode]

I use one of those on my studio often to record drums and bass, all you need to do is to plug a speaker into a DI box and voilá.

Works great, you can see it in action here


i just used an old beat up 40watt guitar amp with a 12' speaker in front of the bass drum 

[rnfr]

this was born out of studio engineers using yamaha ns-10 monitor speakers to mic kick drums.  yamaha decided to capitalize on the trend and make a mic of their own.

[frank_p]

this was born out of studio engineers using yamaha ns-10 monitor speakers to mic kick drums.  yamaha decided to capitalize on the trend and make a mic of their own.

Thanks cool info, Eren Effer !