The Shaker Solutions

There are basically three versions of the Shaker mic. All are housed in an indestructible thick molded hard thermal resin case. A voice coil/diaphragm is hidden away inside, and there is an 11-detent rotary attenuator on the housing. Depending on the mic, there is either a 1/4” phone jack, an XLR jack or a 1/4” phone plug on a short cable (Shakey Joe throws in a female/female 1/4” sex changer in such cases).

You gotta look at the pictures. These things look like they’d be perfectly at home in a Sherman tank going through a swamp, or a Hummer ripping across the Sahara in a 140° sandstorm (“Kshh, Base, this is Whiskey Seven Niner - do you copy? Kshhht.”). Ain’t nothin’ gonna interfere with these lil’ mothers!

The Dynamic Shaker mic ($79.95, $89.95 with XLR)) uses a dynamic voice coil. The Crystal Shaker mic ($79.95) uses the same housing as the dynamic, but with a crystal (carbon?) diaphragm, just like your original Ma Bell telephone, I think. The Shaker Madcat ($149.95), named after harp player Peter “Madcat” Ruth, is in a special miniaturized housing that permits the player to hold the mic between his/her fingers and play with far more natural acoustical technique.

When Measurements Are Truly Silly

I measured these mics, and yes, they do have frequency response curves. Spectacular curves! Whoa, Nelly!!

Ignore ‘em!!!

Here’s an instance where the mic is part of a complex music-making system, one that includes the harp, the player’s hands, the mic and the amp. Flat response and linear behavior in these mics are about as important as floormats in a NASCAR Winston Cup car. As Shakey Joe pointed out in his nice letter, “Our mics are tested by ear in the bars, not real high tech but it works.” He’s right, of course.

Nonetheless, let me make some generalizations: The XLR versions, when coupled to a mic transformer or run straight into the board, yielded an extra 20 dB of gain and a slightly less bright response than the 1/4”. The crystal mic had no bottom end and a very peaky response from 1 kHz. to 10 kHz. The Madcat had a big resonant peak around 1500 Hz. and a comparatively smooth rolloff above that.

I didn’t measure noise floors, peak level capability, or directionality. Talk about irrelevant!

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