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I have a client who wants a white podium gooseneck type microphone (church setting, everything else is white, the black mic sticks out like a sore thumb).

I can't seem to find much at all. CAD used to make one, but they're long discontinued, and the only other one I find any reference to is some custom AKG/Crown stuff which appears to be vaporware at the moment.

Anybody know of a current model?

Yeah, I thought of that. Too hack. This is in a very very very nice church sanctuary, and besides... I have a reputation to protect, here!

A thought that has crossed my mind also is white flexible shrink tubing and a white windscreen. The body of the mic is down in a shockmount, and shrink wouldn't modify the mic in such a way to void the warranty. I found an online supplier (shrinktubing.net) that seems to have the stuff.

My sales guy at Full Compass also passed this email to me from the Audio-Technica rep..

Audio Technica does not have a white gooseneck mic, they discourage people from trying as the paint begins to chip and look like crap. If the client really wants a white one, they'd have to paint it themselves and thus void the warranty.

If that doesn't say it all...

Were it I, I would get a white windscreen (my local GC has them), get a piece of white wire loom to go over the goose neck (local parts store or electrical supply house), secure it with white zip ties (not clear), and then I would take the mic apart and paint the body with a self-etching primer first, then 2 or 3 coats of white, and of course a nice clear, reassemble and you have a pimping mic.

djtecthreat wrote:Were it I, I would get a white windscreen (my local GC has them), get a piece of white wire loom to go over the goose neck (local parts store or electrical supply house), secure it with white zip ties (not clear), and then I would take the mic apart and paint the body with a self-etching primer first, then 2 or 3 coats of white, and of course a nice clear, reassemble and you have a pimping mic.

The base isn't an issue, it will be buried in the shockmount. Paint isn't an option, as 1) it voids the warranty, and 2) I've painted a gooseneck before, just as you specified, and the gooseneck itself started flecking in very short order. The rigid shaft in the middle would be fine, but the goosenecks take too much movement for paint, and it's also nearly impossible to get paint in all the nooks and crannies.

Churches can be funny. It has to look right and if it sounds right that's entirely a bonus. If it doesn't look right, all the little old ladies will talk about it and that becomes a problem, as the little old ladies have most of the little old dollars. Sometimes.

hmm. Well. Paint is not an option I know, that was kinda a joke.

I honestly cant think of a modification that wont void the warranty, but how about powdercoating? Its way more durable than paint imo. and it can bend nicely.

Peavey PM18S: http://www.peavey.com/products/browse.c ... ophone.cfm

Part of their "Sanctuary Series"

If you see my post I said the goose neck is covered in white loom (that's the flexible part). If its an audio technica mic the warranty sucks anyway, they cover nothing.

I'd be more concerned with the way it sounds than what color it is - a lot of podium mics sound like ass.
Here's one I used with great success in a new sanctury a couple years ago:

http://www.akg.com/site/products/powers ... ge,EN.html
http://www.akg.com/site/products/powers ... d,316.html

Very stealth and just sounds great. The problem with podium mics is eveyone wants to eff with them - adjust it this way, adjust it that way. And a lot of them sound like crap off axis, so if youre trying to grab 2 people at the podium they both suck. And plosives are nasty with most as well. This AKG is awesome, period. Only sticks up about a foot, so nobody messes with it. Can't recommend it enough.

For average lectern applications PZMs work better than dynamic mics. Totally unobtrusive, and nothing for people to screw around with.
http://www.amazon.com/Crown-Grabber-Con ... B0002H0ER0

My experience with PZM's has been low GBF, unnatural sounding and a lot of unwanted noise like paper rustling, fist thumping and the like. I put a lot of mics up against that AKG, Senn and DPA boundary/pzm included, and a bunch of podium mics and it just works nicely. If you can get a rep to let you demo one hearing is believing.(Harry Warman @ Warman Marketing in Denver did have some he was wanting to sell a while back) Also concerning podium mics a dedicated channel strip with parametric eq and compression does wonders - a necessity as far as I'm concerned.

Zack Brock wrote:Peavey PM18S: http://www.peavey.com/products/browse.c ... ophone.cfm

Part of their "Sanctuary Series"

That will do it. I have a PM18S in Black and didn't think to look at it.

Thanks for all the suggestions, but this is one of those deals where all the professional opinions in the world won't change the mind of the pastor. It is simply what he wants, no two ways about it.

Now, to find one of these in stock somewhere... NSL shows it as a special order item, so we'll see what we come up with.

Thanks again!

Greg Plouvier wrote:My experience with PZM's has been low GBF, unnatural sounding and a lot of unwanted noise like paper rustling, fist thumping and the like. I put a lot of mics up against that AKG, Senn and DPA boundary/pzm included, and a bunch of podium mics and it just works nicely. If you can get a rep to let you demo one hearing is believing.(Harry Warman @ Warman Marketing in Denver did have some he was wanting to sell a while back) Also concerning podium mics a dedicated channel strip with parametric eq and compression does wonders - a necessity as far as I'm concerned.

Yup. PZMs on podiums lack shock mounting, and the omni pattern is great for recording, lousy for reinforcement, and the mic requires the speaker to bend down too much to put their lips on the capsule to make it loud and distorted (happens all the time). Plus it looks funny.

Here is a wire loom link http://www.cabletiesandmore.com/colorloom.php. I priced out two feet of white shipped to an hour north of Detroit. Sixty cents for the loom, $7.30 for shipping.

Why not wrap it neatly with white electrical tape?