Jan 10

Written by:
1/10/2011 8:58 AM 

Paul McLane is editor in chief of Radio World U.S.

Nothing upsets an audio pro like seeing people use a microphone the wrong way.

Retired radio production engineer Charles Pitts sent this image around to make his point. I e-mailed him to ask about it.

(click thumbnail)

“It was my concoction, triggered by that cover drawing from The Week magazine, which I scanned in and Photoshopped to accentuate the bad attitude of the microphone,” he wrote back.

“It was only the most recent disorientation of the Shure Model 55 Unidyne. I remember a few years back, the sides of New York City busses carried a poster promoting a Broadway show with a huge image of the star singing into the top of a 55S. Try to imagine what it was like innocently waiting to cross the street and having a bus turn the corner in front of you, plastering such a gross thing right in your face.”

He cobbled the rest of the image from Google images; the other views and the version history table came from the site Elektroakustika.

Charles adds that he sent this to every radio-related person on his email list after creating it last November. “I did this instead of voting.”