Maybe Digging the Hole Deeper? More on Unidyne SM57

My sentiments exactly. Update on the Unidyne SM57.

After the horrible failure of a fix earlier (and I know the reason is because I over-confidently said "profit, here I come!), I set the microphone aside, but it called to me.

"FIX ME"

I knew I was going to wait until an opportunity presented itself, but just then, an opportunity presented itself.

2 SM57 microphones, for $50. Both were sold untested, as-is, from a seller who got it from a storage garage auction. Am I really just digging myself into a hole? Maybe not. Hear me out.

According to this forum post and Shure's website on services, even microphones out of warranty are covered. For $55, they will attempt to repair nonworking microphones, or replace them outright. So, if the bad happens and neither microphone works, I've got the option to get both fixed for $110, and so for $160, I have 2 new microphones, priced at $200 new. Not really anything to profit off of, but I can recoup my money fairly easily.

If either (or both!) microphones work, I'm in luck! I can pull the capsule half of the microphone and solder it into the bottom half of the Unidyne, even going so far as to replace the windscreen and collar with the original Unidyne ones. Now, I fully realize that the microphone is not then a Unidyne, but the capsule has not undergone any significant changes, so it will be literally the same microphone. Maybe worth selling at $150 or so, for a minor profit, or keeping. If both work, I can sell the other working one for $70ish and recoup almost all of my costs, making my Unidyne virtually free. Virtually...meaning I'm willing to net having paid $30 for one of the best microphones around. I might even paint it, just to be coy.

I honestly think the worst case scenario at this point is if they are both fake. That's not terrible, as I'll just send the microphones back for being horribly incorrectly described.

At any rate, it's a lesson to myself not to speak too soon, and a chance to hopefully vindicate myself after speaking too soon. I'll keep you updated!

~C

Maxon OD808 Flip. Quick. Easy. Painless.

After the difficulty in the Unidyne SM57 flip (which, admittedly, I'm still on top of, since I made over $100 profit on the first Unidyne and only spent $50 on the second one...), it's nice to report an easy and positive flip for quick profit. This won't be a long post, but a great message.

Bought: $45
Sold: $100
Profit: $55

The extra benefit is that it was sold fairly locally -- someone in Illinois saw I was selling it on Facebook and asked if I'd be willing to ship it cheaply. I was, and so made an easy and tidy profit.

So here's the lesson -- if you start to feel comfortable with repairs, and can recognize the telltale signs of easy fixes, you can easily make some money. I don't want to say it's on others' misfortunes, as people find themselves with non-responsive pedals, but I often offer to repair pedals, and the cost of labor that most companies would charge is more than the profit I'm making. Folks don't know how to fix pedals and want to make some money by selling it at a relatively deep discount.

I'm happy to oblige!

~C

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