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Re: [microsound] Neubauten & contact mics

From:  "Jeremy Tolsma" <ccws@xxxxxxxx>

I remember hearing about an Einsturzende Neubauten gig where they burnt a
load of black plastic refuse sacks over large drums of water, which were
mic'd up with contact mics and also normal mics. Apparently the molten
plastic hitting the waters surface sounded fantastic..

I think I saw this it was the tabula rasa show and they wouldve used
open-air mikes to catch that fizzle. Contact mics are useless for picking
up something like that though, as they would be for picking up an electric
shaver or a vibrating speaker. I think EN dropped ballbearings or something
on a sheet of metal that had a contact mic attatched at the same show.
Anyway have any of you guys actually tried picking up vibrations with a
contact mic? You have to amplify it so much that its basically acting as an
open air mike with weak signal. Contact mics dont require amplification,
but they have to be physically struck or mashed or scraped or attatched to
something struck or mashed or scraped. The whole deal with them is that
they don't register many of the residual vibrations, mostly the initial
attack.

Before, i disagree, i'd like to ask you of what quality you're contact mics are and if you're only affixing them to thick somewhat motionless (non-vibratory) solid bodies. although it isn't always neccessary, try putting a good quality contact mic on something quite flexible and you can get quite a bit of sound out of it, without having to jack up the amp so much at all. check out WrK, especially one of Toshiya Tsunoda's work, where he recorded the vibrations of a steel fence between a parking lot & a highway, (eerie & wonderful noise).


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