So I got a new microphone – an Electro Voice 664.

It’s a 60′s heavy, chrome ray-gun mic with some insanely cool features.  Some basics:

Cardioid Polar Pattern

Two Output “Modes” – High and Low Impedance

Screws Directly to Mic Stand, like an SM56 or Beta 52

Output Impedance Switch

Built-in Foam Pop-filter behind metal grill. (I removed mine because it was deteriorating and smelled like cigarettes).

Some of the original marketing reads: “It is practically indestructible with normal use.” That’s what sound guys like to hear about their mics.

Here’s a quick recording of my Silvertone Parlor Acoustic with a mimimum of reverb – no EQ or compression.

Mp3 (Streaming is Faster but there’s definite distortion.)

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You can also Download the Wav if you’d like to hear it sans compression artifacts.

One funny thing about the mic is that it uses a particular kind of output plug – a four-pin plug (not your normal xlr).  This requires a cable with an Amphenol 91MC4M connector on one end and either a TRS (High Impedance) or XLR (Low Impedance) plug on the other.

These Amphenol connectors can get pretty pricey, even if you buy it by itself and make your own cable so I opted for a less elegant solution.  I used an extra 3-pin xlr output plug (a replacment part for a standard SM58) and replaced the four pin output.  It only works in Low-Impedance mode now, but thats the only way I use it.

The rewiring took a little forum-trolling to find some advice/old spec sheets.  There are four leads for the output of the mic – White, Yellow, Red, and Green.  They correspond to the Ground, Unbalanced Hi-Z output, and Balanced Lo-Z output. With a little trial and error I was able to come up with this:

XLR Pins:

Pin 1: White (I also soldered Yellow to this, which seemed to kill a buzz in the mic)

Pin 2: Red

Pin 3:Green

I had Red and Green leads switched originally but the signal was horrendously out of phase with an SM57 I had setup with it’s capsules coincident.  After I resoldered the leads I got the signal flipped back into phase.

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