TwilightOdyssey
Darkness on the edge of Tone
For the past couple of years I've had an ongoing problem with my NTK in that it would emit a high pitched howl after about 10 minutes of use. I tried several things and couldn't find the source of the problem. I didn't want to ship it all the way to Australia without at least trying a new 6922 valve in it, but as I was recording using an iso cab at the time, I put it into a closet and semi forgot about it. Last year I started recording guitar tracks again without using the iso cab (it changes depending on who our downstairs neighbor happens to be at the time) and I turned my attention once again to the NTK. Fired it up and, sure enough, the high pitch howl came back. Now this mic is barely 5 years old and only had a couple of hours' use but I guessed it was possible that there was a problem with the valve, so I ordered a JJ6922. The new valve arrived on Friday and I had a chance to replace it on Saturday -- and it works! I ran the microphone recording just general room sounds for about an hour and it remained noiseless the entire time.
It's been years since I've fired up the NTK and never did any serious recording with it, so a few things stood out straight away - a) the noise floor for this microphone is VERY LOW; I would have expected some thermal noise from the valve but this mic is really quiet!; b) the dynamic range of the mic is really wide; it is quite sensitive but seems to prefer being a bit further away from the source; c) the low frequencies are very tight and authoritative -- I think this mic will blend very well with a ribbon mic; d) overall, the sense of depth and space with this microphone is exemplary.
Looking forward to recording guitar with this mic during the Summer months; I will try pairing it with my Fathead II at first and see how they complement each other.
It's been years since I've fired up the NTK and never did any serious recording with it, so a few things stood out straight away - a) the noise floor for this microphone is VERY LOW; I would have expected some thermal noise from the valve but this mic is really quiet!; b) the dynamic range of the mic is really wide; it is quite sensitive but seems to prefer being a bit further away from the source; c) the low frequencies are very tight and authoritative -- I think this mic will blend very well with a ribbon mic; d) overall, the sense of depth and space with this microphone is exemplary.
Looking forward to recording guitar with this mic during the Summer months; I will try pairing it with my Fathead II at first and see how they complement each other.
I was trying XY with my Beta 57 about an inch from the grille of the amp, both mics at 45 degrees to the speaker. Had the -10 db on as suggested. I did get the mic used years ago (was just trying to record acoustic at that time) so it's certainly possible that it's bad.