About two months ago, my friend WT from AMBO Art and I went to a flea market in Texas. While there, we ended up finding this little gem, a Little Wonder Microphone:

The microphone didn’t work. The wires were from the original kit, and this little beast was assembled circa 1935. The wires almost fell apart in our hands, but we thought, “Let’s open it up and see what we can do with it. It’s already broken anyways”

The first day, we opened up the bottom of the mic, and began to open up the capsule. We didn’t make it too far:

The capsule needed a different tool to crack it open, though we did try this:

I thought, “Oh well. It’ll make a nice paper weight.” Two months later I brought the mic back simply to see if anything could be done, and that’s when it all came together.

The Dremel and a drill press took care of the rivets holding the capsule in place:

What we found inside was a cause for wonder because the transducer was a cylindrical piece of wood with a metal plate:

Since we had the capsule off entirely, and also since we just wanted to make this dead simple, it was decided to add a Piezo pickup in the capsule where the old transducer was, load up a quarter inch jack, and put it all back together again. This would make it usable without any extra equipment.

So, how does it sound? Pretty awesome on a guitar alone:

Then I thought, “What would it sound like in a mix?” Here it is on an electric guitar (left) and a piano (right):

Very happy with this new microphone! Gonna have to get my friend another round of cigars for his help…

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The Little Wonder Microphone