[Harp-L] Wrist mounted mic update

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

A few weeks back I asked for ideas about a mic that could give me an
acoustic sound while moving around with me instead of being on a stand.

I bought a condensor mic on a gooseneck attached to a spring-loaded
clip. Several manufacturers make mics like this, usually for attaching
to drums or to the bells of saxophones. The one I chose, largely
because I could actually determine how long the gooseneck was and
because it could plug directly into an AKG body pack transmitter
without needing a preamp/phantom power supply, was an Audix ADX-20i. I
clipped it to a strip of brass (could have been plastic or even wood,
but I had the strip of brass lying around) that is embedded in a Velcro
wrist strap.

The setup overall works fine, with a couple of glitches.

Plugging the mic into my computer at home, the sound was fairly full if
a little compressed and condensor-y and I even found I could drive the
sound of the mic with the harp. But during sound check and even
performance in a concert hall I had no idea what the mic sounded like.

The first night went without incident, though when I later asked the
sound man what he thought of the sound of the mic he said it sounded
thin -this compared to his familiarity with Charlie Mussewhite's cupped
setup and the acoustic mic on a stand Charlie uses.

The second day, they had a problem during sound check with wind noise
every time I breathed not through the harp. They tried deflecting the
aim of the mic (it's cardioid, not omnidirectional) so it didn't point
directly ant the back of my hands. Later I re-aimed it directly at my
hand opening but from farther away, which turned out to work better.
The sound man later told me that he had also used a high-pass filter to
cut off anything under 250 Hz but that he could still detect the breath
noise. He seemed to think the breath noise was occurring when I exhaled
over the top of the harp. If that's correct, then aiming from below
might help. 

The wireless part is great. I can give cues and make eye contact with
people behind and beside me, crouch, aim my head at the ceiling for
high notes and big cues, roam around. I ended up biting the bullet and
getting a really good unit, an AKG 4000. I was able to find a price
well under $800 from Full Compass in Wisconsin (it retails around
$1200). They were running a special on a related model; they didn't
have my model (body pack with no mic) in stock but were able to drop
ship it quickly from the mfr's warehouse in Tennessee.

Further observations after road testing on our Pacific Northwest tour
during the next couple of weeks.

Info on the tour dates:

http://sfscottishfiddlers.org/gigs.html

Winslow


		
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