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For drum OH's I'll take to music stands and put the in a V shape - sort of emulating a persons head facing the drum kit. Then I'll duct tape a PZM on each stand - roughly approximating where the ears on the head would be. Gives great space and detail.

I got the idea for that technique from watching a PBS program years ago about Pierre Sprey at Mapleshade who made these stunning stereo recordings with a plexiglass pyramid with a PZM taped to either side.

I've also used PZM's taped to the wall as an aux return and fed aux sends out into the main studio through speakers for a natural room sound.

PZM's also make cool hai hat mics. Just put one on a stand smooth side down and stick it over the hat.

[PooFlinginMonkey]

Super secret mounting surface hint inside.........clicky

[Kalle Ricken]

works nicely for a theater stage with moving actors... they may even step on the mikes!
Kalle

[lynyrd]

Can anyone tell me how to modify my Radio Shack PZM to run on phantom power with an XLR? I've got one of the cheapies but hey, if all it takes is a little soldering, I would love to try this experiment!

[hargerst]

lynyrd,

Here ya go:

http://www.itrstudio.com/pzmmods.html

[lynyrd]

Thank you very much!

[Jay Ridgeway]

I love the sound of my ratshack pzm as a room mic. It's very forgiving of position... in fact I just have it thrown on the floor at the back of the room. I've also used a single pzm to mic an entire drum kit - placed on the drum riser to the left of the drum stool - for lower volume outdoor gigs.

Best $50 I ever spent.

Jay

[z]

I'm a drumming engineer and PZMs are without doubt my favourite and most used mics of my collection of over 25 microphones ranging from switchable pattern large and small condensers, R-F-T dynamics and ribbons.

I have two tandy/radio shack pzms mounted on just one of the metal back plates, so, one diaphragm on each side like ears. Pull off the pop foam protectors too for a bit more clarity.

I use them for live recording to DAT/Minidisc and also room ambience and recently recorded my group's performance consisting of 4 people, percussion, cello/guitar effects, DJ and horn player playing in a circle in the Volkerschlagtdenkmal (an enormous shrine building in Leipzig, Germany with 14 second reverb!) to Mini Disc with spectacular results...The mics were on a stand in the center of the room and the 3D sound of the recording is remarkably clean and wide...all agreed it's the most 'you are there' sound we've ever heard.

For the ultimate REAL drum sound with great balance of all the kit elements, i place them about 1-3 feet in front of the bass drum in-line with the top of the bass drum hoop which gives a great fat kit sound with a great wide cymbal sound which is not too overly bright. The toms can sound a bit distant depending on the room but fat and rounded at the same time requiring very little work in the mix when a natural drum sound is needed.

Highly recommend this technique for the fat John Bohnam and sgt peppers drum sound. Put some slow attack, fast release compression at a ratio of around 3:1-5:1 for more fatness.

By the way, they can also sound great for spoken/sung voice and instruments like upright bass and even stuck on the sound board of instruments used live like dulcimer and accordian as they are very neutral sounding and have superb clarity and dynamics. They can be a bit noisy so check out the XLR modifications possible as they ARE balanced by their very sesign, you just need to hook them up correctly.
cheers!

p.s. Check out the album "Boomerang" from 'The Creatures' (former Siouxsie and the banshees singer and drummer Budgie)
as almost all the drums were recorded in a church to analog tape with a single PZM over the kit with just an additional bass drum mic for 'thump' emphasis. A truly great sounding percussion/drum album.

[mike chafee]

The original PZM microphones were invented, hand built and sold by Ken Wahrenbach in the late 1970's.  I bought sn 23 and 24 from him and used them with a Revox A77 half track for location recording, placing them on the floor using the same placement consideration as with spaced omnis. Compared to my B&K 4134's, the absence of non linearities caused by floor reflections was obvious, and preferred. My best results were with small jazz bands, and a Billy Cobham clinic.


Most recently, I used a pair of AKG 547 boundary mic ( cardiod pattern pattern) into a Sont Dat to record a talented singer/guitarist, again , mics 6ft apart, 6 ft in front, and compared the results to AKG 414 TL 2, and 535.
Again the absence of floor bounce with the boundary mics gave a result much closer to the live sound.

Mike Chafee

[Soundbox]

z wrote on Sun, 05 June 2005 05:49

,,,,, PZMs are without doubt my favourite and most used mics of my collection,,,,,,

You should check out the Sanken and Schoeps BLM's.  

[djui5]

I use a Beta91 inside the kick combined with another mic a lot. It works very very well.

[drteeth]

quick question.....
probably no quick answer....

i'm a music tech teacher, been a foh engineer for years in uk, purely secular gigs (sorry!)
a student asked a question today that i couldn't answer
if bass frequencies have waveforms that can be measured in feet/inches (ok.....metres etc..) , how do headphones reproduce them with the limited airspace between the "driver" and your eardrum?..
thanks
joel
ps yes, this student is just as precocious as he sounds....should go far......

[Scott Helmke (Scodiddly)]

drteeth wrote on Fri, 17 June 2005 18:56

quick question..... probably no quick answer.... i'm a music tech teacher, been a foh engineer for years in uk, purely secular gigs (sorry!) a student asked a question today that i couldn't answer if bass frequencies have waveforms that can be measured in feet/inches (ok.....metres etc..) , how do headphones reproduce them with the limited airspace between the "driver" and your eardrum?.. thanks joel ps yes, this student is just as precocious as he sounds....should go far......

Probably this ought to be a new thread.

However, you might throw it back at the student - how can you hear low frequencies even in a small room?  The answer is that it's about air pressure changes over time, not about somehow fitting a wavelength between the speaker and your ears.

[drteeth]

thanks scott

[Dale Ulan]

It can work on 5-string banjo (played Scruggs style) in a nice room too. I've used them for choir recordings, where they work pretty well but watch that room - it really captures the natural reverb. It's really too easy to get way too much room reverb though, especially if recording in an empty church.

It does use a small omni electret mic, so although it has a boost in sensitivity by the PZM's nature, a very small diaphragm mic like that one will often have more noise than the larger mics.