Tuesday 31 January 2023

a screw loose (Audix OM5 microphone)

A little bit of knowledge is a wonderful thing. 


The pins on my vocal mic have been literally falling out the bottom of the mic for the last few gigs. Closer inspection (having found my reading glasses) suggested a screw that probably held the socket in place had (I assumed) fallen out.

Trying to find anything on the Internet related to this, for instance, what gauge of screw I needed to replace it with, proved tricky.

Then at Saturday's gig, I had a word with a friend of mine that owns (or owned, actually not sure) an events and PA hire company Panik Events. He explained that the screws were universal, not brand specific, so I could harvest one from any XLR cable I had going spare, or I could buy one online to butcher for a few quid. But to remember that they were reverse threaded.

Which the following morning led me to a post on one of the techie sites where some guy was querying the fact that the screw he was told was the correct one wouldn't fit into the hole. To which somebody replied that you had to slide the fitting out, turn the screw all the way in to the socket, slide the fitting back in, and then accessing the screw head via the said hole, unscrew it until it locked the fitting against the microphone casing.


At which point I had something of an epiphany. If the screw head was too big to fit through the hole, then there was no way it could've fallen out, as I'd first assumed. So I grabbed a small, bright torch, found my reading glasses again, and shone the torch into the hole.

And there was the screw head, which had obviously come loose by tightening up until it no longer secured the fitting against the microphone case. So, with my smallest flathead screwdriver and a couple of easy turns later, the problem that had been bugging me for a few weeks was easily fixed.

I admit, this isn't my most exciting post. But it's both an anecdote illustrating how technically illiterate I am when it comes to cables and fixings, a note to my future self as to how to fix it should it happen again, and a small public service to anybody else that might go looking for "loose microphone screw" on the Internet, having found themselves in a similar pickle.


In other news, Lottie and I enjoyed a very lovely sunset yesterday evening when we were out playing in the park behind our house. The evenings are, slowly, drawing out again, and today's forecast hinted we might even (just) reach double digits. Could be that spring it on its way.

Hoping to get a weekend away with Calstar for the second weekend of March. Was half hoping to do so in February, but I'm not sure it'll be domestically expedient. Nikki has the week preceding said weekend in February off work, whereas I do not. I predict that by the weekend she'll be "bored" and me loping off to go sailing rather than doing something with her will be rather frowned upon. It's far too early in the year for me to convince her to come sailing with us.

Boredom. I have to admit, it's a concept I struggle with.

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