JRF C-Series Pro Contact Microphone Review

[@soundhobo]

JRF is a bit of a field recording and sound national treasure here in the Uk 🇬🇧 His contact mics are great as are his hydrophones. A lot of recording fun is to be had with both and I’ve enjoyed using both. The Hosa MIT-129 impedance transformer is a must but is handy to have as it also does it’s magic with the dirt cheap but useful and fun to use Korg contact microphone. Great channel fella, enjoying your content very much 👍

[@TheRecordist]

Hey thanks again! Yes indeed! I love JRF! Both the man and his creations! That’s great to know about the Hosa MIT-129. Thanks for watching!

[@PeetSneekes]

Love to see your sound design method 😀

[@TheRecordist]

Hahaha. Thanks, Peet! But I think I’ll do a more in-depth video about sound design, because I did a very quick version in this video since there was a lot to cover and I was running out of time. So I slapped on a few plugins and played around. I hope to do more soon! Thanks for watching!

[@JustRallax]

The value of that measuring tape after each video 📈

[@TheRecordist]

Hahahaha! I know, eh? I wonder if I'll ever run out of tall tales about that tape. Hahahaha

[@rolandberendonck3900]

@@TheRecordist You don't have to make up al kind of stories. If you repeat the same story again and again it would still be very entertaining; as long as you tell the story just like it is your first time and nobody never heard it. But be sure to leave quite a moment of silence after it with your priceless gaze of amazement, otherwise the effect will be deminished.

[@TheRecordist]

@@rolandberendonck3900 haha. Well thank you but I’ve got hundreds of stories at the ready! You never know where and when I’ve time traveled to! Haha

[@robnecronomicon1570]

This was a great vid. Thanks!

[@TheRecordist]

You’re very welcome! Cheers!

[@abominablemusic]

Nice one. I like messing around with contact mics, but I haven't got anything this fancy. Loved the field recording, you need to find some huge metal doors somewhere to record. Cheers!

[@TheRecordist]

Oh yes. I went to a metal bridge to test out the LOM Geofón mic. That was super cool. Contact mics are a lot of fun!

[@zfm1097]

Hi. I've listened to Jez Riley French's raw contact mic' recordings on his website and they still lack low frequency fidelity as is typical with piezo discs. Have you checked out the Marshmallow contact microphones (and DIY preamp kits) that address this problem? Incidentally, I suspect French's contact mic's are just shielded piezo discs and really easy to make for a few £/$. Cheers.

[@TheRecordist]

Yes. While the JRF mics get lower with the adapters, it’s still not very low. For this I usually use a LOM Geofon in concert with the JRF contact mics. I have not checked out the Marshmallow contact mics. Actually, I’ve not even heard of them until you just told me. But you’re right about what’s inside the JRF mics. They’re piezo discs. I’m going to try to grab son Marshmallow kits! Thanks for the suggestion!

[@jrf465]

@@TheRecordist It's not clear how you (zfm & the recordist) are using them of course, as using contact mics involves a lot of experimenting, but what zkm says is incorrect. Unlike other contact mics my c-series use hand built elements & have the widest freq. range on the market. They get down to around 13hz if you use the impedance matching adaptors into a decent recorder. By adding a magnet you can also get the same results as with the Geofon, down to 13hz at least (all digital recorders have a built in limiter at 10hz so you can't record lower than that anyway). There are samples & comparisons on my soundcloud & website & of course listening to them using decent headphones is how the full range can be heard - though its also important to remember that all platforms do compress recordings with their own algorythms).

[@jrf465]

(see my other reply below) Here's the thing; you're listening to recordings from a website & you don't say how you are listening, with which h/phones or speakers etc, or indeed which recordings. You (incorrectly) say that I'm using cheap piezo's, so you haven't read anything about the mics, & for some reason you also praise the MM mics, which definitely do use 'off the shelf' mass produced cheap piezo's, have a narrower freq. response & cost more than twice as much. Something doesn't add up but I hope folks reading your comment see the issues with it.

[@zfm1097]

​@@jrf465 Hi. I've not tried the JRF mics, personally, but they looked like the 41mm discs I used... so apologies if that's not the case. People are free to charge what they like for their time, so it wasn't intended as an insult. The MM uses a preamp, and it's not the piezos themselves that are the selling point exactly. It'd be interesting to know what the JRF mics sound like with that MM preamp, if compatible. Actually, the MM preamp kits aren't that expensive, but he could probably do with a UK seller to buy them in bulk to keep the postage down for UK buyers like myself. According to Michael Krzyzaniak, the (cheap) piezos frequency response changes depending on what it's attached to, but they do have a resonance frequency that changes with size. There's lots of info on his KZbin channel and website explaining it better than me. He did show how piezos have a capacitance that causes high pass filtering when not isolated from the interface and that the MM preamp addresses this as well as other issues to give better fidelity and low noise. I wouldn't buy the MM mic because I'd prefer to attach multiple discs to get better coverage of an instruments resonance, and apparently, it doesn't appear to significantly alter the overall output. So, I wouldn't use up inputs & tracks on multiple MM mics unnecessarily. Thanks.

[@TheRecordist]

@@jrf465 good to know. Thanks for the clarification. I use a MixPre 6 II for my own recordings. When I did this review a while back, I think I emailed you about particulars and I don’t think I heard back. Thanks for the clarification!

[@seanpeterson6362]

Curious what you use to attach the mics to various surfaces?

[@TheRecordist]

Hey. Well, I put vinyl tape on the bottoms of the mics and then use sticky tack or blue tack. Sometimes clamps. Sometimes just tape. Sometimes heavy objects. But I always have a fat piece of vinyl tape protecting the bottom. Hope that helps!

[@ecks8214]

I grabbed a pair of these withbthe impedance adapters.... and those adapters seem to be floor noise factories.... that this way for anyone else?

[@TheRecordist]

Hmm. Floor noise? No. I don’t have any issues with floor noise more than normal. Any RF interference?

[@jasonpillingmusic]

My experience with contact mics to date, is that they all (even the $1 ones) sound shockingly good, but they are not equally durable.

[@TheRecordist]

Yes. You might be right. So far these guys have lasted a couple of years. So that’s good. It’s also worth mentioning that the adapters I show in this video are important to retain low end on any of the piezo type mics.

[@jasonpillingmusic]

@@TheRecordist I'm aware that impedance impacts tone....but I never really think about it. I'm a musician, and I have a generalized acoustic pre-amp, that I'm guessing does the same thing as this converter. The pre-amp makes it sound "more full"....i.e. bass.

[@shaahilali8655]

Hey, How can we buy this

[@TheRecordist]

Here you go! jezrileyfrench.co.uk/contact-microphones.php

[@knorke3642]

Hello John Henry...or may I call you Doc? Unless you change you name to something different next time around...in which case I´ll call you...oh whatever. Yes phu-lease do a video on sound design. This genre needs someone doing something in an entertaining way. By the way..you must be one of the very few people alive to have ever visited Aldereaan before its destruction by the Galactic Empire. I envy you...truly I do.

[@TheRecordist]

Hahahaha. I am everyone and no one! I will for sure do a sound design video. Thanks for letting me know! Yes yes. Alderaan. It was quite the planet in its day. Hahaha. Cheers!

[@christian15213]

I'd like our help. do you have an email or website

[@TheRecordist]

Hi there. Yes. [e-mail] Cheers!