Old Microphones

spongebob

spongebob

Member
The prevailing wisdom on this forum seems to be: "get the shotgun as close to the mouth as possible without it (the shotgun that is) being in frame". That being the case, how do you explain the good audio from the old I Love Lucy show? From what I've seen it was miked with Western Electric 639 mikes from booms located at least six feet or more from the performers. While the 639 was a great mike in its day, I'm sure it can't compare to the sensitivity or directionality of current shotguns. Yet the audio was very acceptable. Any comments?

Also, back in the 60s and 70s a common mike used in video production was the Electro Voice 642 dynamic shotgun--later replaced by the DL42. These seemed to be great mikes at the time. Wonder why they aren't being used anymore? By the way, I have a DL42 which I use with a preamp and it works just fine.
 
I would argue that the difference in the case of "I Love Lucy" is that the show is being produced on a sound stage where the risk of picking up distracting audio is minimal. The reason for micing close to the source is mostly about eliminating noise you don't want.

In my studio, I can easily mic a source from 8-10 feet away and the audio is perfectly clean. it does not sound the same as a close-mic source but because the environment is well controlled, weird reflections and excess ambient noise are not a problem.

The reason nobody uses a WE 639 is probably because you would die after booming it for about 5 minutes. As far as the shotguns go, it is just as easy to get a modern condenser which will probably provide superior performance in every category except maybe raw reliability.
 
I'm not sure what your point is. The Lucy show had acceptable sound for it's time, so did THE JAZ SINGER. That has nothing to do with shooting a film today, unless your trying to duplicate that sound. Neither sound anything like a film today. Nor would it be considered acceptable.

Now I have quite a few mics of all kinds (something like 20). I love old and especially strange mics, they add flavor and get you sounds you couldn't otherwise. I have a fight announcers mic and you can put anyone on that thing and they sound great - if you want them to sound like a fight announcer. It's pretty useless for everything else. So I love old mics, but I wouldn't use them to record production audio.
 
...not to mention that, if you notice, Lucy and Desi and the gang were constantly projecting in a theatrical way that most film actors today wouldn't be able to match...
 
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