Topic: Anyone using PZM mics for onstage recordings?

[hammerhorror]

Seems to me that using PZM microphones would be ideal for onstage recordings. No mic stands to worry about and they are very low profile (and not terribly expensive). I was thinking about picking up a pair to experiment with. After doing some searches on this it seems like not very many people use them in the tapers circuit. Why is that?

Does anyone have any input on this? I would like to hear some of your opinions.

Thanks!

[Weekendshooter]

I like PZM's and use them alot but they need phantom power which may(not) be why we don't hear about them amongst tapers?   Dunno...

Handy rascals...

[Tim]

just about every mic we use utilizes phantom power so I don't think that's the reason tapers don't use them....

[hammerhorror]

Doesn't anyone have any experience using these for onstage taping?

[heath]

i've used em for sound reinforcement, but never for taping....sorry. 

[Tim]

I have two FOB Panic tape from 96 that Steve Brothers made with some custom hot-rodded Realistic PZM's line into a D7... they are really nice tapes but are the only PZM tapes I have seen

[krebsy]

I've seen some tapes that are pzm on stage mixed with aud mics on the stacks. There's one guy in particular who runs that setup. I forget his name, but I think he's on the west coast. I'm pretty sure one was a Tea Leaf Green show. Might be worth a search over at archive.org. At least you could hear the end result...

edit: I just searched "pzm" at archive. Bog Cogswell is who I was thinking of. There's a bunch of pzm recordings over there.

[Brian]

i posted this in a thread earlier and copying it here since it's relevant as well.

at the club i tape at regularly they used to use a pair of Crown PZM microphones on a baffle above the stage for a matrix feed to their CD recorder.

One time, i plugged into the soundboard but only the over-the-stage micrphones were being fed to my recorder. i was actually quite surprised how decent it sounded. Drums were slightly heavy in the mix(especialy the cymbols) but the vocals could be discerned and the overall mix wasn't bad.

good luck!

[eric.B]

I dont know his name and have never met him, but I have seen a guy tape Yonder a few times with pzm on stage..  I have never heard the recordings fwiw..

[macdaddy]

gary davis has been using a 3 pzm > mixer > dat setup for a while now. and the results sound quite good. i am biased, so i cant objectively tell whether i prefer the 3 pzm mix or my hrtf omni > sbm1 setup, but his recordings sound very good...

he is active on datheads - post a question with "pzm mics" in the subject and i am sure he will respond...

_____

I've seen some tapes that are pzm on stage mixed with aud mics on the stacks. There's one guy in particular who runs that setup. I forget his name, but I think he's on the west coast. I'm pretty sure one was a Tea Leaf Green show. Might be worth a search over at archive.org. At least you could hear the end result...

edit: I just searched "pzm" at archive. Bog Cogswell is who I was thinking of. There's a bunch of pzm recordings over there.

i think that high sierra late night tlg source is up on bt.etree now. do a search for "high sierra" and it will pop up...

[Craig T]

I have a single Realistic PZM mic I would sell if anyone's interested.  Battery powered, terminates in a single 1/4".  I think you can mod them to take phantom.

[blastroknow]

The other thing to consider with PZMs is that they do pick up everything including footsteps off the stage bass cabinet vibrations and every other sound as equally as it is picking up the music - this is something to consider and putting the PZMs on a slightly elevated isolating surface will impact the boundary pickup pattern.  I've heard a couple of recordings {on stage even, I think} with the Crown SASSP-MK2 - I think they are @ archive.org - just search SASS.  That is a cool mic set for sure.

I think PZMs are great mics and those original RS PZMs were made by Crown - I had a RS pair that work well for 15 years including falling into the ocean during a video shoot - I dried it out for 3 days and it worked another 7 years.

[Tim]

i posted this in a thread earlier and copying it here since it's relevant as well.

at the club i tape at regularly they used to use a pair of Crown PZM microphones on a baffle above the stage for a matrix feed to their CD recorder.

One time, i plugged into the soundboard but only the over-the-stage micrphones were being fed to my recorder. i was actually quite surprised how decent it sounded. Drums were slightly heavy in the mix(especialy the cymbols) but the vocals could be discerned and the overall mix wasn't bad.

good luck!

I think I know that club

[BC]

yeah, Bob Cogswell tapes a lot of west coast stuff on PZM mics. Maybe you could try searching for him on archive and see if he has any shows up there.

Met him at a Hertz and friends show in Humboldt 2002, seems like a nice guy who knows what he is doing.

Peace,
BC

[Chuck]

With PZM's the boundry size affects the bass response. The larger the boundry, the more bass. I used to record some local bands in a few clubs by taping them to the walls, floor or ceiling near the stage. I probably have a few of those recordings still... I'll have to look. I modified two of the Radio Shack ones with balanced XLR outputs so I could use the home-made pre-amp i had at the time. The way I remember it, they had a very flat natural sound.