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Microphones? Why would you ever use a microphone?

More seventies nonsense

Shit, man, just record all that shit direct!  You don’t need to mic it!   Naturally, a surface-transducer manufacturer would make such a suggestion.  But could you imagine?  Awful.  The sound of a great player with a great instrument can be wonderful.  But put that combination in a great sounding space and (well recorded) you can elevate it immensely. Or just run it direct.  Either way.

2 replies on “Microphones? Why would you ever use a microphone?”

The Barcus Berry was a godsend for folkies and such that played nylon string guitars in church and busking. It gave them an electric sound that wouldn’t have given Segovia a diamond cutter, true, but through a guitar amp or PA at reasonable volume it worked fine. Frank Zappa used to put them on his electric guitars in addition to the regular pickups and mix the sounds. He would put two of them on, one at the bridge and one at the peghead. Sometimes this worked great, and when it didn’t you just unplugged or turned those pickups off.

If you have an electric with a good bridge setup-that disqualifies most all of them-it can be a very seductive thing indeed. Fender used to sell some cheapie Strat and Tele shaped thin bodied acoustics with bolt on necks and if you knew what you were doing those could be used for that same thing, except they didn’t have regular pickups.

Danny Ferrington was a total dick, but he had this idea before anyone else. Don’t know what happened to him.

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