Sunday afternoon, I played a graduation/leaving for the USMC party at a local athletic club. It was a good gig. The party guests were very receptive. But when I first got there, I saw something lying on the stage floor that immediately caught my eye. Plugged into an XLR wall jack for the clubhouse's overhead PA.....was a silver EV 630.
Well...as it turned out, the clubhouse had been using this as their normal mic for address purposes for a long time. And after consulting with a member of the club board, I was told that there were a lot of complaints about this being the mic they had to use. I heard Mr. Opportunity knocking. I told them I had a few vocal mics that would better suit their purposes, and I would gladly trade them a mic, a cable, and an adapter so they had a more ideal mic. Long story short, I only had to sacrifice one XLR cable, an XLR female-to-female adapter (since their PA's wall jack was XLR male), and my Trans Continental dynamic vocal mic to score this old gem.
It's true what they say. Good things come to those who wait for them. I've waited a long time for a lucky find like this. I can now honestly say that I own a VINTAGE mic.
I can't record any vid or sound just yet. I have to switch the XLR femal plug on its cable with an XLR male plug so I can plug it into an impedance converter and run it through my amp. Soon as I do, I'll post more. :-) ----------
Hawkeye Kane
Last Edited by HawkeyeKane on Jun 04, 2013 4:52 PM
Known as "The Potato." A nice clean tone, sounds like a Shure SM57. Kind of heavy; weighs in at one full pound. Some players really like this mic. I am one of them.
I wonder if Greg Heumann offers any services for it...
The Buck Rogers dildo... That what we all ways called them. They are good mics. I prefer the hi-z models. I've had some good one and some bad ones. How does that one sound to you?
Well....as I said, haven't had a chance to play it through an amp yet, but Sunday I did briefly blow it through the overhead PA. But the PA was scratchy by nature, so that's not really an accurate way to gauge it. But this one appears to be switchable from low to high Z according to its data sheet. ----------
Thats a nice score Hawkeye,retro cool.Played a old eagles club with a patched together band.The bass player traveled the world with big acts as sound man.
He had a vintage elvis mic coiled up perfect center stage(Shure 555)I guess.Tryed to talk him into dialing in my bullet,he just looked at me and said maybe the second set.He had that thing eqed for what we were doing,very little dirty blues real old school mojo,I thanked him later.Those old heavies sound good,and you play fairly cleaner than dirty mostly,don't ya.Doughharp is right on with the chro.
Last Edited by capnj on Jun 04, 2013 7:46 PM
i had one. too heavy and a bit clean. i've seen up close and personal early greg heumann chops of these mics and then they were a lot more functional due to less weight, better connections, and VCs.
very cool looking mics though. ---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
click user name [MP] for info- repair videos on YouTube. you can reach me via Facebook. Mark Prados
Pretty sure I'm gonna keep her as-is, with the exception of switching the XLR female plug out for a male. After just holding it in my hands thus far, I kinda like the heavier weight to it, and the size of the head feels very comfortable to the size of my hands. I've played through a pistol-grip 545 before. I liked the counter-weight from the grip, but wasn't wild about the size of the mic body itself. This gives me the remedy to that little issue I had with the Shure. My reasoning for leaving her on low-Z is so that I can still use the XLR connection if need be, and when I use it with an amp, an inline impedance tranny will get the job done, no sweat. I may consider some kind of volume control on down the road, but for now, I'm just gonna go old school on that detail.
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Hawkeye Kane
Last Edited by HawkeyeKane on Jun 05, 2013 12:34 PM
The sound is like Rick said on the clean side. It is a perfect mic if you want to have a clean and natural sound uncupped and greasy sound cupped.
The 4-pin connection is not the same as it is on Shure 540, 545 and more. It could be hard to find new cable. But the connector is a very good and sturdy type.
I'm halfway through the process of transplanting the XLR male plug on the mic. I'll finish it after dinner and hopefully get some sound for you all. ----------
By the time I'd completed the surgery last night, I was dead tired. It turned out to be a superbitch putting a modern built XLR plug on that old XLR cable. I gave it a test run just to make sure it worked, but that's all I had the energy for. Tonight when I get home, I'll try and make a recording. Sorry for the delay.
EDIT: I read on Wikipedia that EV started using neodymium magnets in their mics in the late '70s. The data sheet on it says the element diaphragm is the "Acoustalloy" variety. Anyone know if that was one of the neos they used?
Also, this appears to be the redress of this mic model. The older ones had a black label tag and a differently shaped pistol-grip. Mine is the one on the left shown here...
The black label ones also appear to have serial numbers stamped on the front of their pistol-grips. I haven't found one on mine. Anyone know where the S/N might be on the later models? ----------
Hawkeye Kane
Last Edited by HawkeyeKane on Jun 06, 2013 8:12 AM
Okay.....I apologize in advance for the video and audio quality. These were shot with my phone. I left my camera off the charger after the Tweed Vibrolux video.....doh!
Don't want to wake the neighbours up? HK they must've thought they dropped the big one after you hit the first note. Nice tone on that between the zoo and the mic. I like it. Good find and I'm glad you left it stock. ---------- "Keep it in your mouth" - XHarp
Yeah. The Alamo was only at about half of what I normally run it at, but then again, I've always used a mic with a volume knob. This chrome potato is hot! ----------
Good score, I have the older version. I never cared for Amphenol connectors so hereis what I did. I removed the guts from the connector and hardwired the mike to a good cord. Then I stress relief with a wire tie or two and screw the empty connecter on to the mic. I don't know if you could do something like that with yours but either way you have a nice mic there.
Yeah...I wanna leave her as original as possible for now. I really like what I'm hearing from it and how it connects and feels. We'll see how my perception of it may change in the future though. ----------
I did my connector like this. The screw on fits on the original connector threads. I solder a cable between plus and the center on the adapter. The minus i just connected to the connectors shell
Well the purpose of the video was to respond from the requests in this thread for a video to demonstrate the sound it makes. But you're right, I should touch on a comparison between it and my other mics.
At this point I believe it's usurped the throne of ballsiness that was occupied by my Akai DM13. The diaphragm appears to be a lot sturdier than the one in the Akai, and it doesn't back-pop after air has been released on a tight cup. Yesterday, I played a gig with my neighbor's roots band through my normal rig. I ran my JT30RH through the #1 input, and the 630 through the #2 input on the Zoo which is lower gain. The 630 still came out across stronger. I do believe this is gonna be my usual main mic henceforth. ----------
"Ballsy", by my definition, entails a strong output with tonal qualities that are full and rich. In my own experience, distortion tends to come more from amp settings, speakers, and cupping technique. That's not to say there aren't microphone elements that DO create a natural distortion. Just that from what I've played upon, distortion has been a result of the factors I mentioned above.
I guess in my own definitions of terms, the opposite of "ballsy" would be "bright", like my JT30RH with the MC-564-1 ceramic in it, or even my Shaker Retro Rocket if it were still working. These have a completely different sound to them. FAR more high-end response and a much more nasal tone, but not nearly as strong of an output.
Here's a clip from this past Saturday when we played a local BBQ festival. We had issues with the sound tech all day. This was our last song, and my amp mic had been turned down for some reason...
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Hawkeye Kane
Last Edited by HawkeyeKane on Jun 10, 2013 3:55 PM
