What mics were used during the 40's and 50's?

G

Gorilla King

Well-known member
I'm just curious about what kinds of mics were used for film production during the 40's and 50's. Does anybody know? I tried to google it, but couldn't find the information I was looking for.

The reason I'm asking is because it seems to my ears at least that the older movies didn't quite sound as good as more modern ones and yet what they had was still more than adequate for telling a great story and drawing me in. I'm well aware of the sort of gear which is out there today, but being an amateur in most respects, I want to spend little but still have gear that's adequate for the job.

I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of using vintage mics if they were available, but thats not my intent. I just want to know more about that particular era of sound recording.
 
Pro quality vintage mics won't save you much money if they're in decent condition. In fact, some of them used will cost more - sometimes a lot more - than the equivalent current generation mic costs new.

The biggest difference is that up until the 90's sound recording was all analog. The arrival first of DAT and then most recently file-based recording brought it all into the digital world and even supplies such as blank tape for analog recording are getting hard to find.
 
Last edited:
Know also that what you hear from "classic" films nowadays is all over the map. I have heard older films from that era that sound surprisingly rich, and others that sound sub-par even by yesterday's standards. That all boils down to storage. Things deteriorate, and that can impact the quality of the sound playback. So if the masters weren't stored properly, or restored/archived in time, the audio can suffer. This means that what you're judging for your "bare minimum" requirement based on older films isn't really a reliable resource.
 
Ah, I didn't think of that. The classic movies I watch today may not sound as good as they did when they were first recorded.
 
Gorilla King said:
Ah, I didn't think of that. The classic movies I watch today may not sound as good as they did when they were first recorded.
Click to expand...

There's also the issue of monaural sound. Back when the projectionist had to do hand puppets, the sound being blasted out into the audience was monaural. I think Woody Allen makes his movies with monaural sound... I've als read that often the audio was limited to 12 or 13 KHz as well...

Also, in the olden days, there was much more sound stage work, although ADR was still used often. Or, heck, completely new speakers, such as Orson Welles is alleged to have done on some of his films, for actors, when he wanted better sound, or change the dialog...

I think many classics have much better 'sound' for dialog, and perhaps less 'good' foley and sound effects...
 
Ribbon mics, around since the 30s. The newer ones are quieter--better magnets--I use both the older ones and the newer ones as spot mics.
 
My grand father did location audio on the second "Creature from the Black Lagoon" movie. I never knew him but I find it interesting that I fell into the same area - audio engineering, and Video production, and being a musician. I digress... My point is that I checked out that movie and it sounded / looked awesome! It was black and white, but it was very richly shot, and the sound was very very clear. I have heard horrible 50's movies, and not just due to erosion, but bad mic placement etc. I Anyway I can't speak for part 1, but "Return of the Creature of the Black Lagoon" is technically a well made film.

Chadfish
 
There are a few things to consider. First you can't judge by what you see now. Some DVD's are simply transfers from whatever degraded print was handy, others are remasters from the original master and others have been "restored". Sometimes restored is just that but sometimes it's more like the "colorizing" the Turner did to a bunch of films.

Criterion does a good job of actual restoration so that is probably a good guide post.

Very few films sot any sync location shots in that era so it's all pretty much sound stage work. So you tend to get really clean tracks and a bit of a close up sound. Film as a rule never does a lot of ADR, despite rumors to the contrary. Some films do a lot some films do none and most do a little. In the 40's and 50's there would have been very little ADR. Remember that magnetic recording didn't hit the US till after WWII, so everything before that is on optical recorders. That requires film to be processed before you get playback. So in the 40's ADR is extremely difficult. 50's less so but the film industry moves slow.
What you probably had a lot of were true condensers, and they of course were tube condensers since solid state components didn't come in till the 60's. Ribbon mics were the radio standard and were probably used a lot for VO and narration but are not sensitive enough for sync work.

Monoral sound is a glorious thing and yes Mr. Allen doesn't like stereo much. Sound was on an optical track with no noise reduction (this is true pretty much till the 70's) With a few great exceptions. Fantasia originally toured with a multi channel sound system (6 speakers I think) in the 30's! But mono optical was the rule and the Academy curve was the spectrum. So yes pretty much nothing over 12k and not a lot of bass. But they weren't making big blow them up films much anyway and very few of the population can hear much above 12K anyway so not as big an impact as one might think. As for Foley (not foley), Mr. Foley was still working in the 40's and maybe the 50's. SFX were hampered by technology (optical recording) but Foley was prolific. And there were a lot of folks who came out of rado who were used to performing live on cue so Im not sure about the perceived lack of quality. I think it's tastes more than quality that has changed.

Cheers
SK

Scott Koue
www.scottkouesound.com
http://imdb.com/name/nm0468138/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top