Unidyne SM57 Update...or How I Spoke Too Soon

I must confess, I've made a mistake. I've jumped to conclusions, and it came back and bit me.

The recent SM57 acquisition is a much tougher nut to crack.

I did all of the soldering I had mentioned before, using shrink tubing to ensure a good connection and no shorting. After doing all of that work, nothing. No signal.

I eventually got to the point where I had to remove the R57 capsule from its housing and discovered the real culprit: a coil wire had broken.

Anyone who has worked on SM57s know it's a death sentence for these microphones if the coil wire breaks, especially right near the diaphragm. The only way to restore the microphone would be to remove the diaphragm, unwind the coil a couple turns, re-secure the coil wire, and find some way to precisely return the diaphragm. Near-impossible, and if you pull it off, you have a slightly underwound coil. Probably not enough to make any difference, but this is the sort of work that needs to be disclosed to any would-be buyers and would undoubtedly sell for less. There's just no longer any profit in it.

So what I've done for now is tabled the SM57. My plan is to eventually buy a replacement R57 capsule and wire it into the body, whose transformer should likely influence the sound and make the closest thing to vintage as possible, and keep it. Better yet, buy a used SM57, just in case there is a transformer issue too. Unfortunatly, I have no way to know for sure since the capsule is beyond repair.

Ugh, this is the first time I've had something that's been deemed "un-fixable" -- heck, even Shure's service work with that type of issue consists of sending you a replacement microphone. I could actually do that, but it'd cost $55 and I'd lose the Unidyne and gain a MIM Shure SM57. Just not what I'm up for.

Besides, I already have a sweet instrument microphone. I'll probably put this microphone aside and wait until the right opportunity presents itself. I was hoping for a tech article, but alas. Such is the way things work.

~C

Flip-in-the-Works: Maxon OD808, the Pre-Tubescreamer

So, Maxon pedals aren't new to me...I've owned a couple through the years and am impressed at the build quality, the ability to put a big circuit in a small package, and somehow...the fact that people sell "non-working" pedals when a few minutes' maintenance would have solved the problem quite quickly.

So I didn't hesitate when someone was selling a "kinda working" OD808 for $45 shipped online. Their description was that the sound sometimes cuts out and the knobs sound scratchy. Seems to me like the potentiometers need a little cleaning out...the same issue with the AD80 I fixed not too long ago! And flipped!

The pedal came in just yesterday and I had a chance to open it on 4/17. Actually ended up being a more complicated fix, but stupidly, I didn't photograph the journey. But here's what I did:

1. Started by lubricating the pots to eliminate scratchiness. I noticed after playing through the pedal that there was definite potentiometer scratching in there. So I went to work lubing the pots.
2. I noticed there was some "play" when I pulled on the potentiometer shaft, more than normal, which led me to believe that the potentiometers were actually PCB-mounted. Makes sense in such a complicated but compact pedal (picture below of the inside of an OD808 and a PCB-mounted potentiometer).
3. Inspected the potentiometers. Sure enough, a couple of them were not fully tightened down. On some potentiometers, the shaft and threads are held on by some bent metal, which had loosened and allowed the whole metal piece to separate slightly from the rest of the potentiometer, resulting in sometimes the pot would spin without changing anything. It took about 15 minutes to solve the problem and have the pots clamped down properly and with the correct rotation movement, but I got there!
4. Reassembled the pedal, spun the potentiometers a few dozen times to loosen any oxidation, and tested it out.

Perfect! The fix worked like a charm. Now, for the low-low cost of $45, I have a pedal that's fully working perfectly, that usually costs $150 new. Woo!

And this will be my next flip. I simply cannot resist selling things that can likely double my investment!

~C

My First Ever Flip: Danelectro Back Talk Reverse Delay

So, back in the day when my only electric guitar looked like this:

And my amp looked like this:

And my pedalboard literally did not exist, I went to Leonard's Pawn Shop in search of inexpensive pedals, knowing absolutely nothing about what I should get. One pedal in particular looked sort of interesting, and its shape, heft, and everything else screamed "YOU SHOULD BUY ME." It was a Danelectro pedal of all things. Now, before you laugh, let me mention here that it is a discontinued and increasingly collectible pedal, the Back Talk Reverse Delay pedal.

I knew nothing about reverse delay, or even forward delay, or anything else, but it was on the shelf for $50, I made an offer for $40, and away I went. Note that this was before smartphones became hugely popular. I had no way to do research beforehand. This was a knee-jerk purchase.

I jumped on ebay and -- surprise! -- found out that the pedal was a big collector's item. One on there had recently sold for $150. Whoa!

Being the kind of person I am (which is the kind of person that would sell my favorite pedal if the price was right), I immediately put it up on ebay. "Who cares," I said to myself, "it's not like I really needed that pedal." Lo and behold, mine sold for $130 within 2 days. Just like that.

And I became a flipper for life. I think having such a favorable first flip is what really set it off for me. It's amazing what you can get at a good price and sell for an even better one with just a little bit of information. I also like the fact that this type of business dealing is a win-win-win -- the pawn shop sells their item, presumably for a profit of some sort (some pawn owners have told me that they will never sell an item for less than they paid, so I'm always buying things for some profit, to keep them open and doing their thing), I make some money with not too much effort, and the eventual buyer owns the pedal they want at a price they were willing to pay. See? Win-win-win. I like winning.

~C

Another Unidyne SM57...the "Fixer-Upper"...

So, from my last flip, wherein I tripled my money in 24 hours by buying and selling an old Unidyne III SM57, I went on the hunt for instrument microphones.

(For myself, I got a slightly less-expensive but responsive instrument microphone from Audio-Technica, the Midnight Blue MB2k. This is going to be my "keeper" microphone, so other purchases are really just for profit.)

Anyways, on ebay, I found an auction for a non-working Unidyne SM57: eBay link and quickly followed the auction, planning to bid the minimum ($60) at the end of the auction.

In a crazy twist of fate, my mobile eBay app wasn't working properly and I missed the end of the auction, where I was going to swoop in. Luckily, I was able to message the seller and ask if he'd be interested in selling the item at a reduced cost, as he hadn't described the issue.

Side note: If you look at the description, you see it "has been worked on" but was non-working, which worried me, as I figured he took it to a tech who couldn't make it work. This turned out to not be the case, as he said he just opened it up and couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

Lo and behold, I made an offer for $50 and got the microphone. It arrived in the mail yesterday. I finally got to open it up today. Brace yourself...

 So here's the bottom of it. Literally every wire was detached between the body and the capsule. Every. Wire. How is that even remotely "worked on"? No wonder it doesn't work!

This picture is actually quite alarming, as the black wire (read: the ground) is attached to the (+) of the element, rather than the middle, using the eyelet on the table to the right of the image. Sigh. Also, look at the terribly poor soldering job. The frayed wire edges on the right eyelet there are worrisome, as they could easily be in contact with the body, effectively grounding what should remain an isolated loop.

So I basically just need to attach the black wire back to the middle where it belongs and attach it back to the copper bar down inside the body, then connect the yellow wire (which is too short to reach the capsule, just by a little) and the green wire to their respective poles on the capsule, and I guarantee this will work again.

Profit, here I come! :)

New Flip, Less than 24 Hours: Unidyne III SM57

I feel like all of my posts lately have started with me apologizing for taking so long between updates. To be honest, home life keeps me very busy. I don't normally have time to post. However, I still take some lunch breaks to troll the pawn shops, looking for the next deal.

On my latest visit to Pawn King, I had my eye set upon a couple of guitars, including a really nice Les Paul copy, a bit overpriced, but I considered making an offer. Unfortunately, there'd be no way to make any money unless I could buy it for like $60.

At any rate, I looked at a shelf and saw an SM57 microphone. To me, standard, run-of-the-mill SM57, but on closer inspection, I saw that it was an older piece:

Instead of the standard "Shure" logo, it had a "Unidyne" logo, but retained the SM57 designation. This didn't look like a copy, and the brand sounded familiar. A quick google search revealed that Unidyne was the name of the microphone type/element, as a product of the Shure Brothers company (you can see it on the left of the 2nd picture). Also of note is that the microphone was manufactured in the U.S.A., rather than in Mexico, like modern SM57 microphones. The "Unidyne" designation was later removed.

Looking at forums, there was quite a fan club for the Unidyne version of the SM57 microphone, some because of the USA manufacture, and some because of an audible difference, such as smoothness and clarity, from the Unidyne. (see here here and here). Further, I saw some of these SM57 microphones going for sale for $300 (for new-old-stock), with a price floor for working microphones around $125.

Price tag on the microphone was $49.99, and I made an offer of $40, which was accepted. Jackpot! Probably an easy way to triple my money. I made sure the microphone worked and threw it up on ebay.

In the meantime, I tested the microphone. The hype is real. These microphones are fantastic. I've played through many instrument microphones and haven't been really impressed with them. Shure SM57 and Beta57a microphones do just a splendid job, don't get me wrong, but this one has just a bit extra, somehow.

In truth, the old Unidyne microphones have a unique transformer in them that can likely be traced as the cause for difference. Although some places sell transformers you can use to transition your new SM57 (which has the same cartridge as before) to the vintage sound. Regardless, I'd never spend $100 for a new mic only to put an $80 part in it. Give me my $40 instrument microphones that do just as well!

I threw the microphone up on ebay and Reverb, with a $150 Buy-it-Now price with free shipping. I knew I was onto something when I saw a $120 and $130 offer come through, but I waited on it.

Strangely, the microphone sold within 24 hours to someone who accepted my counter of $148, someone who lived in Russia. Weird!

At any rate, the microphone was sent off and I have officially done another flip!

Buy Price: $40
Sell Price: $148
Less Shipping: $10
TOTAL PROFIT: $98

Now that's what I call profit! Now, why did I sell it, when I was impressed by the sound? Because I can't resist the type of profit that comes from a quick flip.

Consequently, someone sold me a non-working Unidyne SM7 for $50 that should make it into my inbox in the next day or two. I'm interested in spending some time checking out the internals as I try to fix it! If I do, this one will probably be a keeper. We'll see.

Stay tuned!

~C

Deal Alert: Bassists REJOICE!

Ok, so on my latest round of pawn shop visits, I found a couple good deal for anyone interested in buying a bass:

Note the 2 basses in the front. Starting with the (very) white one:

- Squier Affinity series Precision PJ bass: These basses are seriously so freaking cool. PJ basses just have a ton of tonal variety from the mix of split and jazz pickups. These sell for $180 new everywhere and the asking price on this one is $130. However, I'm positive you can probably offer $100 and take it home. I played it. It's quite nice. Apart from a couple small finish swirls on the back, this thing looks brand new.
- (this one's the wow bass) USA-made Peavey Fury Bass: I haven't ever read a bad review about these basses, except for comments that they're relatively cheap, in the $100-200 range. This one is $69. Yes, there are chips and a fairly large (~1.5" gouge) dent in the upper horn, along with the stupid stickers. But you can remove stickers and have a great sounding, American-made bass for stupid cheap.

Both of these basses are at Pawn King in Urbana, IL (see my review of shops below). The Peavey just went on clearance as it hasn't sold since the shop opened. Pretty sweet deal there.

Posted with permission from Pawn King. The 2 basses behind it are a Rogue 4-string PJ and an Ibanez Gio 5-string. Yuck to both, but just my opinion.

~C

So bored...and Local Pawn Shop Reviews!

Seriously. I am. I've been looking for the next flipping investment and it still hasn't panned out. Even though there are 4 pawn shops in the local area, none of them have anything flip-worthy. A few good guitars to be had, but the price isn't perfect on them.

I'll probably be doing another gear review here in a bit, but I'm also thinking about a new feature. Since I do find some decent deals at pawn shops that are good pieces of gear to own, but not necessarily to flip, I'm going to ask the pawn brokers if they'll let me photograph some items and share them with you, the readers. Obviously, at this point there aren't many of you, but if doing this adds value to the website, I think you might keep visiting.

In the meantime, here's a quick rundown of the pawn shops in the local (Champaign/Urbana, Illinois) area, in case you were curious:

1.) Pawn King: This is the newest shop, so new that it isn't on Google Maps yet. It replaced one of the worst excuses for a pawn shop I've seen...just my opinion. I didn't like the old place, as they had horribly priced guitars and were not willing to negotiate...along the lines of asking over $200 for Squier Standard and Affinity guitars, often over even the new retail price.

At any rate, the new store (here labeled "Gold & Diamond Exchange) is probably the most professional-looking pawn shops I've seen before. Well laid-out, clean, with a helpful staff.

In terms of musical selection, there's not much to be had, but the Ukulele Flip I did not too long ago happened there. They occasionally get good gear, and it's reasonably priced. After talking to the person there who deals the most with musical instruments, there was a prior employee who made some bad purchasing decisions, like buying a Japanese-made generic brand hollowbody for $200, which will never sell for its asking price of $400. There's a few pedals there, and a couple instruments worth looking at -- a Fender MIM HH Stratocaster in light-blue color, which you might be able to get for under $300 if you negotiate, and a Peavey Bass that's quite solid and just needs a good setup, which they're asking for $125. Good deal. I recommend you visit!

2.) Leonard's Pawn Shop: If you were to look up "pawn shop" in a dictionary, this is what I would picture. A room with glass cases, items strewn on the walls, and fairly gruff-looking employees. But don't let those looks fool you. This place is my go-to when it comes to finding pawn shop deals.

I'm not perfectly familiar with the names of the 2 employees there, but one of them is Leonard, the owner, and I believe the other guy, the one most commonly working there day-in, day-out, is the one I deal with the most.

They have a pretty wide selection of guitars, to be honest. They're the ones with the Gibson '97 double cutaway Les Paul that looks gorgeous and is ridiculously overpriced. One thing to note -- they're always running a 20% off Musical Instruments sale, so remember the prices are always lower than the tag. Smart advertising. You can get Squiers here for under $100, and the occasional good deal. I'll go into details about this deal, but I once got a MIJ 80s Telecaster here for about $125 that I ended up, through flipping, netting about $350 for. That helped me fund my first telecaster build, and I still had over $125 remaining, so it was a zero-sum effort.

Take note of what's on the walls and keep it in your mind. If you see an item has sat on the wall for a long time, you can likely pounce on it for barely more than they paid for it. Don't be afraid to ask them what they paid for it. They might not tell you, but if it's been there awhile, they may share with you so you can make a reasonable offer so they can make a small profit and get it off their shelf. The guy who I deal with there is a really nice guy, and often asks me questions about gear he gets in. There's an array of instruments and amps here, for all price points. Not all of them are incredible deals, but there are lots of keeper instruments to be had if you're willing to pay what they're honestly worth.

3.) Gold Rush II: Not entirely sure where the "II" comes from, as I never saw another Gold Rush, but this is another good shop worth visiting.
Good selection of guitars. I've seen high-end American-made instruments here and some of the cheapest of the cheap. They know their stuff, too. You can tell their prices are well-researched, as there aren't great flipping deals here, but very good deals for instruments to keep. My Ibanez ART100 flip started here at Gold Rush, and this is one of the points worth making about the shop: your best deals if you're looking to flip from here are going to come from brands that aren't Gibson or Fender. They know how to price those instruments, but will occasionally under-price Peavey, Ibanez, and other instruments due to lack of information online about the instruments. When I saw the Ibanez for $85 at their shop, I knew I was onto something, and when I haggled it slightly lower due to some finish/hardware issues, I knew I had a flip coming. I didn't expect I'd love that guitar, which I ended up doing, but it still turned out to be a great flip, albeit the one I miss the most. So there's plenty of deals here, and this would be the first place I go if I'm looking for a specific guitar or a specific brand. Just recently, they got an influx of amps and effects pedals, so they're worth visiting. They tend to over-price their pedals, so be warned. Do your research.

4.) Pawn Stop: This one is a ways away from the other 3, but is a reasonable pawn shop to stop by. I wouldn't call this one "sketchy," because they do have quality stuff, but if you're one who's uncomfortable going in a shop that has bars on the windows and doors, you may not like what you see.
So the real saving grace of this place is that they have a lot of instruments. Not a lot in terms of amps or effects, but they have more than nothing in those regards. The instrument wall in the back has a decent range of low- to mid-priced guitars, probably maxing around the $400 range. Not that they don't have higher-end instruments there from time-to-time, but it's not the norm like it is for Leonard's and Gold Rush II.

Very good deals to be had here. I've bought quite a few items for flipping from here...though the specific flips elude me right now. Their tagged prices are reasonable for ownership, and you can usually haggle prices that are flip-worthy. For example, there's a MIM J-Bass there right now with a tag of $250 that I'm positive someone could buy for about $175-180 if they haggled the right way. Easy $300 sale for a tidy profit, and a decent bass to own, for sure. Plenty of cool guitars including the old 80s shredder guitars that have no headstock. Would be fun to own to channel my inner "Bill & Ted" but those guitars are more pricey than I'm willing to shell out.

Also check out their movie selection and tools. They have plenty of both, and the prices on those are awesome.


"Honorable" Mention

5.) The Pawn Shop in Rantoul: Even though it's 20-25 minutes away from the Champaign-Urbana area, I will add this to the list as it's a relatively local shop I've visited. Worthwhile to visit, but I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon.
"Why?" you may ask, and here's my response: their prices are ridiculous, and hard to negotiate. The one saving grace of this shop is that it has the most impressive collection of modern and vintage instruments and amps I've seen in a pawn shop. They have an entire room dedicated to the audio arts, and a couple small rooms for trying out instruments.

But their prices are ridiculous. I get it, they have a bottom line and overhead to pay, so they need meat on the bones. But I didn't find one single item in their inventory that was priced at anything below about retail+10%. If they were a music shop, I might understand, but they have old tube amps with brands that no one recognizes that they're trying to sell for $300-700, and I doubt they'll move anytime soon. I'll gladly buy-to-own a vintage tube amp for maybe $200 but more likely $100-150, but it's ridiculous to expect people to shell out a ton of money on amps that simply aren't worth it. The sticker shock alone makes me cautious.

I did buy one item from them, at what I would consider a reasonable cost but nothing near what I'd expect from a pawn shop. I won't name it, since my negative review and the item could "out" me, but suffice it to say I was able to sell the item for the same price I bought it for, so it still wasn't an incredible deal. If I lived in Rantoul, yes, I'd probably visit daily and enjoy myself. But for the cost of gas and the effort of trying to haggle with someone who believes that the overpriced junk should stay overpriced is just not worth it to me. So I'll pass, unless business finds me in Rantoul for some other reason.


So there you have it. I was expecting a shorter writing, but opted to provide as much detail as possible. Enjoy!

~C