Topic: Avantone CK-1

[blindman]

Someone in this thread mentioned something about one of the rubber bands shooting off on their shock mount. Yeah, that happened to me as well today. Popped off and have no idea which direction it went. I wrote it off as a loss. I also didn't have any the extras in my gear bag. Not the end of the world.

That was me... I was in my office and I had no idea where it went... looked around for a minute then sat down and shot a second one on purpose to see where it went... they both landed about a foot apart behind a wastebasket.

I think Glen mentioned something about replacements... search this thread or email Glen and ask about get a replacement.

I will be interested to hear your recording... hope you post a note to this thread when you get it up to LMA.

later,
Michael

[KLowe]

FWIW ....a round of black electrical tape over the bands keeps them on nice and secure and also blends in flawlessly with the shockmount.

Glad the CK-1 I bought and sold is already getting good use.

I'd love for someone to run a head to head vs the AKG 390 series..... (which I own and is the reason I decided to part with my ck-1)
 
Since I am now CK-1 less.....I'd be happy to send someone the 390 series for a few mic comps.....

[tenesejedd]

Here is another ck-1 show for your listening pleasure.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  It was VERY windy that day, and while I have no wind noise (dead rats) there is some phase issues that can be heard. Very nice bass response. I was maybe 35 feet from the stage dead center.

http://www.archive.org/details/um2007-04-22

let me know what you folks think....

ck-1 (cards) > apogee mini-mp > Edirol R-1 16bit/44.1k

[blindman]

Here is another ck-1 show for your listening pleasure.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.  It was VERY windy that day, and while I have no wind noise (dead rats) there is some phase issues that can be heard. Very nice bass response. I was maybe 35 feet from the stage dead center.

http://www.archive.org/details/um2007-04-22

let me know what you folks think....

ck-1 (cards) > apogee mini-mp > Edirol R-1 16bit/44.1k

not bad... thanx for posting!

[livin_grateful]

hey ya'll, i just started TEAM AVANTONE  over here http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,83637.0.html

[busterr]

Just a quick heads up here, I just ordered a pair of these for $99 a piece to play around with from here:

http://www.frontendaudio.com/Avant_Electronics_CK_1_FET_Pencil_Microphone_p/9683.htm

Although I do feel $149 a piece is still a great deal for mics with 3 caps.

they are now $149 at Front End Audio.

Just got my ck-1's in the mail yesterday, Front End did honor their earlier advertised price of $99 while it lasted.
Hoping to run them tonight and tommorow night, both indoors at small venues. I'll give the hypers and the cardioid caps a run and post my findings and possibly a sample.

[blindman]

I did a A-B test on Friday with Peluso CEMC6's & Avantone CK-1's. I had originally intended to bring the Avantone Omni/Hyper caps and do some experimenting, but I ended up leaving the caps and my camera on the floor while I was packing. Oops.

We went to see my old friends, Los Manatees, play at the Sandtrap Bar and sometimes grill in Limerick PA. I set up center of the band directly in front of the soundboard. It was about 15-20 feet back. The ceilings are low, so I just put the mics somewhere between the heads of the crowd and the ceiling.

The Peluso's were about 6" behind and about 3" higher than the Avantone's. I ran both sets DIN. I recorded onto a R4 w/ busman T-Mod and Noisefloor Mod. The Peluso's into 1&2 Stereo and the CK1's into 3&4 Stereo. The first set I ran the mics with NO attenuation and the R4 set to Line In so I was able to control the gain a little. For the second set both mics had their attenuators set to -10db. I was then able to set the R4 to Mic In. It was during this fiddling with the attenuators that the Left Avantone mic had it's bass roll off switch accidently clicked on. I noticed the difference during the show, but thought it was a quality problem with the Avantone's attenuation circuit. I didn't not notice till later that the bass roll off had accidently been turned on. I will be doing another round of tests sometime and will be sure to test the attenuators again to be sure it really was the bass roll off during the show and not after I was breaking down. They are playing outside in a couple weeks so I want to test the Omni's.

I opened both the peluso and avantone files in audacity, cut out one song, normalized the song then added fade in/fade out to each... exported as flac and then converted the flac to mp3. NOTHING else has been done to the files in the way of compression, eq, etc.

If I get some time, I will pick a song from the first and second sets also for comparison.

See what you think...
http://fecundswamp.peanutonastring.com/ck1/

The song I chose is called "Running From The Lawman" and was written by Will Hodgson, the singer guitarist in Los Manatees.

If you want more info on the band, http://www.losmanatees.com & http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=los%20manatees%20

[h4nk3f4n]

First off I gotta say WOW I can't believe how good these recordings sound, I think these are gonna be my next purchase right after a digimod ua-5!

My second comment would revolve around Glen, Man dude that avatar pic of you looks just like Bam's dad Phil Margera!  And while I'm at it let me thank you for bringing quality affordable mics to the great people here at TS.com.



h4nk3f4n

[DaveG73]

I came very close to buying a set of these off raoulduke, but I didn't.

Having listened to some of these recordings, I wish I had.

Dave.

[livin_grateful]

dont forget we do have team avantone...over in the team section....

[blindman]

I see the CK-40 is available to ship...

http://www.proaudiosolutions.com/product-p/avant-ck40.htm

[tenesejedd]

Just an FYI but the windtech 1200 series wind screen fits nice and snug on the ck-1s.

[busterr]

From the Team Avantone thread:

I would like to add, seeing others talking preamps for these mics, I recommend avoiding running UA-5's with the ck-1's, as there is something either with differing impedences, or the UA-5's just don't have quite enough juice to properly run them. I can't say for sure whether it is just the Oade modded UA-5's or all of them, but for some reason they just don't match up well.
Just wanted to give others a heads up if they were considering running that particular combo, as they work beautifully with my V3 and many other preamps as you can tell from the samples throughout this thread.

could you be a little more specific as to why you think the UA-5 is no good for these mics? I don't own a ua-5 or plan on getting one, but i'm just curious as to what issues you have. Have you tried multiple ua-5s? or just one. These are a great entry level (price wise at least) mic and the ua-5 is a good entry level (again, price wise) pre so several newcomers may benefit from more elaboration.

This may even be suited for a thread in the pre/ad section as well, but specifically the problem I've had with my Oade W+ mod ua-5 and the ck1's is this: I cannot get even close to decent levels with the ck1's, with the gain knobs fully cranked the levels only reach about -25 to -20db max.

I cannot speak of other ua-5's(stock/digimod/busman mod/ other Oade's...etc) just mine, as I don't have access to another. I can say my W+ ua-5 gives perfect levels(even clips) at ~ half gain with my akg 414's which has lead me(and avant's support team,from what they said) to the conclusion that the ck1's don't match well with it, be it the phantom current draw or just mismatched impedences. I was not able to wrangle any specific specs as far as the actual phantom requirement in terms of milliamps from avant, so to me that question is open. And like I stated in my above qoute my ck1's work beautifully w/ my V3.

I was able to end up with a good recording using this combo(w+ua-5>ck1) but it took a 23db boost, a good bit of noise reduction(which I would rather not use), and then another db boost(all of this in post) to make it happen. To me that's just too much f'ing around with what should be a clean pull.

I do believe this matter deserves some further investigation, but did want people to know the issue I've had with this setup. I'm not opposed to using a seperate phantom supply if that would solve the issue, I just don't have access to one currently, so don't know if that would help or not. I am sure there are others on this board with more experience than me with the ua-5's(modded or not), and would be very interested to see what others think. I will likely pose this question in the pre section, but think some more specific ck1 specs would be quite helpfull in getting usefull responses.


edited to add current draw info:
Thanks to the Avantone support team for finding the draw info. Their response: The phantom requirment for the ck1 is 48v / 5 mA.
According to the ua5's manual it can power mics up to 48v / 10 mA. So not sure where the problem lies, and I don't know enough about differing impedences to claim that as the issue.

edited again to add:
My understanding is that the Busman ua-5s do not have the issue disscused above, and should work just fine with the ck1's.

[blindman]

Avantone CK-1's with hyper caps...

http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,87638.0.html