Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I remember reading somewhere that a woofer was used as a microphone on "Rain". The woofer was placed right in front of Paul's amp speaker. Has anyone on this forum ever tried this for recording bass? If so, how did it work out?

No, but a speaker is a crude microphone, the design is the same,they just use different componants, it could be done but don´t think it would sound very good, it would be very resonant at the woofers resonant frequency.

Thanks Bob. I thought he did something like that for "Rain", but it was "Paperback Writer". Here's the little blurb from Geoff:

'Paperback Writer' was the first time the bass sound had been heard in all its excitement. For a start, Paul played a different bass, a Rickenbacker. Then we boosted it further by using a loudspeaker as a microphone. We positioned it directly in front of the bass speaker and the moving diaphragm of the second speaker made the electric current.--Geoff Emerick6

Here's the link:

http://www.alstrand.com/evolution/1966.htm

I'd like to try that for the hell of it.

Very strange, I always thought that the low notes in Paperback writer were more overtone than fundamental (that hollow sound badly adjusted Rics sometimes get), that may explain why, I think the bass sound in "all it's excitement" was the Ric not the woofer for a Mic.
I like the sound in "Rain" better. These two songs were the first songs McCartney used his Rics on according To Richard Smith's excellent book. Although I have read here that he used it on Rubber Soul.

Having done some recording, I've experimented with using an old woofer as a kind of "bass-booster" mic for kick drum. It works, but it isn't meant to be the ONLY means of picking up the target sound source (kick, bass amp, et al). It's only meant to be utilized as a sort of "enhancement" to the low end of the sound spectrum.

When the client asks, "Where's the beef?", that's the "mic" that'll usually answer that question!