AT pro70 review

bluetrain

Hi! I thought about sharing my experience about AT pro70 microphone here in this forum. I've doing quite a lot gigs during the last three years and I've seen and tried different ways to amplify an oval-hole django guitar. Lately I've got some really good results using dynamic microphone with a special mic preamp but if the live-situation is somehow stressful and there's no time to make a good soundcheck then I rely on pro70 microphone. The thing about pro70 is that you have to test different ways to position the mic and you need a good preamp to tackle the feedback or you end up cutting all the low frequencies and making your sound very thin. I noticed that with the AT8411 clothing clip (included) I can get the best result by putting the mic inside guitar and pointing it towards the treble moustache. With the clothing clip the microphone is a little bit away from the soundhole so the sound is not as boomy as in the middle of the soundhole. The clothing clip has some nasty metal edges so I've put some tape there to protect the soundhole area.

Since I have skills in electronics design I made my own mic preamp. It has volume, cut/boost, frequency and phase reverse switch. With this preamp I can have a really narrow notch filter (high Q) to cut the natural low frequency boominess (usually around 100Hz) without making the sound too thin. The phase switch is really good. By using it I first check in which position the guitar has less low frequency boominess. Usually the difference between two phase positions is huge!

I made three different recordings to compare the raw sound that you get with this mic. First is the raw sound with low-cut (switch in the pro70) without the preamp, second is with preamp and third is with preamp but without the low-cut.

wim

thanks, and perfect timing as i was just looking at these in the shop today ..