didjcripey
1 post
Nov 06, 2010
1:51 AM
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I was wondering if anyone had tried medium impedance mics on their amps. I have a collection of quite a few vintage and modern 'harp' mics and could never get a good tone. Of course as my technique improves my mics and amps sound better, but I use a small 5 watt valve amp with a ten inch speaker and I have never been able to really crank it with a high impedance mic without it feeding back badly.
I recently got a hold of an obscure vintage bullet with an impedance of about 500 ohms, and to my surprise it is absolutely the best mic I've heard (on my amp). The tone is fat and rich, I can crank the drive on my amp to about 1 o'clock and the volume on full without feedback. You can actually feel the bass, and the bottom chords on a A or G harp just about rattle the windows. If I force it to feedback, it is a deep hum, not a shrill scream.
The mic itself is pretty clean, but driving the valves and speaker hard gives me a really warm distortion.
I understand that valves are often swapped in harp amps to reduce the gain a bit, maybe its a similar effect with the mic. A lower impedance mic tends to have much less gain, so you can drive the amp harder. Has anyone tried a SM57 (low impedance) on their amp? Sounds pretty good on mine! Maybe the obsession with high impedance readings on vintage mics is misplaced, or only an advantage for certain (maybe bigger?) amps.
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GermanHarpist
1816 posts
Nov 06, 2010
1:56 AM
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Can't help you out there didj, my gear is a sm57 and a small solid state guitar amp... hmmm. I know nothing about gear.
But I can welcome you to the forum... so: WELCOME! :)
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The MBH thread-thread thread!
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Greg Heumann
862 posts
Nov 08, 2010
5:40 PM
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Just saw this - late.
Impedance does not equate to tone. But a medium impedance mic through a standard impedance matching transformer will be extremely hot, which can be a good thing for some amps and death with others. Or, without the transformer, can be a little on the meek side, which can be a good thing for some amps and death with others.
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/Greg
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MakaInOz
25 posts
Nov 08, 2010
7:12 PM
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One of my tube amps is a lot more flexible with low/medium impedence mics - there's a lot more room before feedback than when using a HiZ mic, but I'm not sure the overall volume at the point of feedback is any different.
Another tube amp is dead and flat with a low impedence mic but hot and crunchy with a HiZ (like its supposed to be).
It seems like the player/mic/transformer/amp has to be treated like a system - different combinations give different results.
YMMV
Maka
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Greg Heumann
865 posts
Nov 08, 2010
7:34 PM
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Your amp isn't more flexible with low or medium impedance mics because of their impedance. It is because the mic's output is lower into that amp. I wonder, for your low impedance mic, are you connecting it to the amp with a cable that is XLR at one and and 1/4" at the other? That will cut the mic's output by about 1/2 right there.
Some mics are hotter than other mics. It doesn't matter whether they're low or high, honest. I have some low-Z mics that are hotter than my high-Z ones, and vice versa.
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/Greg
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