Cortado Experiments by solarbird

[solarbird]

I made a floating bridge pickup out of a Cortado. It’s mostly standard, but with the obvious changes. Sound samples, eq curves, commentary on that here.

[solarbird]

I wrote up a build report for a Cortado – it’s over here, on my band blog. I was planning on modding it into a PZM/boundary microphone, but ended up needing this particular kit for a more standard purpose for a show coming up. The PZM project is still on the queue, though.

[zdlAdmin]

Nice build, solarbird! Nice instrument, cool band! Brach responded to the issues you raise in your build review personally, and on the forum here. Thanks for the beautiful photo!

[Glen v A]

Wow, this is great. Thanks for sharing your experience.

[solarbird]

This is not the Cortado Tin Can microphone, though it has similarities, but it is Cortado driven. It’s a crystal mic, more of the sort you’d’ve seen in the late 1930s and through the 1940s, with a large front-facing diaphragm. (That white disc is a solid piece, and that silver “can” is actually metal-tape-lined cardboard.)

Build writeup is in a couple of parts due to reasons, but the big one is here.

[Glen v A]

Amazingly cool.

[solarbird]

Version 3 (substantially improved) of the Cortado floating bridge pickup, an upgrade from the previous version above. Writeup and comparison sound samples here, but basically, the resonance plate now has a pressure chamber which you use with inserts to put pressure on the piezo’s crystal, and that changes the response profile a lot. Much less EQ needed in live use, which is a big usability win.

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