Electro-Voice 654

The ElectroVoice 654 is a dynamic microphone that was originally designed for radio and broadcast purposes. ElectroVoice has a number of microphones, including the famed RE-20 that were made for broadcast and are now used for musical recording purposes as well. The 654 is amongst these microphones, although it's seen a lot less than the RE-20. The mic has a omnidirectional polar pick up pattern and will gather frequencies between 50 Hz and 16 kHz. It comes mounted on a swivel microphone clip.

OVERALL OPINION

My experience with the ElectroVoice 654 has generally been pretty good. I've gotten better results in certain situations over others with the 654, but more times than not I've gotten a good sound with it that I'm in the end happy with. The two main applications that I've used the 654 have been as a drum room microphone over the head of the drummer, and for recording the bottom of a snare drum. I've definitely gotten my best results with the mic when used over the drum kit, as often I'll hit it hard with a compressor and blend the signal with the rest of the drums. I've also tried the mic out on floor tom, but we ended up switching the microphone out as it didn't have a full enough sound for the application. I would definitely bet that there are other applications for the 654 that work well in the studio, as I would imagine that it sounds pretty good for certain types of voices, but I haven't tried it further than what I've discussed so I can't speak this from experience. I don't have any idea what kind price the 654 would cost you, but there definitely doesn't seem to be too many of these out there. I wouldn't say that it's worth trying to seek one of these out, but if you have one on hand in a studio, it's worth trying if you need an extra mic in the mix...

Omni-directional dynamic microphone for years 60-70. Relatively flat frequency response for a dynamic microphone that time and wide enough (50 Hz - 16 kHz). Interesting as a kick drum mic, as overhead mono ... and in cases where one does not seek a directionality in the sound.

OVERALL OPINION

I love this microphone, original look, sound very vintage (in a good way) and the directional microphone rare for a dynamic omnidirectional. It's actually a microphone you can not use every day in any situation but is very interesting for certain things: mono overhead, bass drum microphone, vocal microphone or other instrument if you want a grain a rather special and if we want to feel the room acoustics ...