Busy internally micing my Xtreme, so I did some experimenting. Compared the sound etc for some mics and elements I had laying around. The usual suspects, an element from a 58, an R65, and an old Unidyne 545. The one I was surprised by, was the Behringer XM8500. That one is suposed to be the competition for the Shure 58, but it seems just a little bit less hot. Inside an accordion, you don't have to worry about that. Didn't seem to be any noisier than the other mics, and the best part is they only cost about $20. Makes it a little more bearable putting in more than one mic in a three row.

Steve

Hi Steve: Let us know how the micing turned out. I have one internal mic in my Hohner Corona IIIa and it doesn't get all the reeds. It is also real tough to get it in there and close the bellows all the way although I was able to do it. Are the Behringer elemnts smaller? How do you wire them and where did you place them? Hw many did you use to do the job?They are certainly cheap enough and the online reviews make them sound very attractive.

i ended up with either 3 or 4 mic elements in my 3 rows, to get all the notes evenly

and, there isn;t much space

i bought i think 100 karaoke mics to experiment with

i take the elements completely out of the mic

they are about 3/4 inch deep, and even that is cutting it close inside a cheap 3 row box - space is really tight

i built kind of a coat-hanger-wire holder thingy to hold them in place

it kind of fastens to the back side of the treble reed blocks

i found that having them in series, or parallel, doesn;t make that much difference, though theoretically both are 'wrong'

in the one i have 4 mics in, i think i used series/parallel combination wiring

theoretically if a mic is connected to another mic [instead of a mixer input - but who wants to run 4 wires out of the accordion, then mix and eq each one?], one 'loads' the other

but i found it doesn;t sound any different

wle

I bought 4 mic element discs from Mouser for about $4 each. They are thin and fit well. I used hot glue which also worked well. These went into a panther for that Queen Ida sound . They sound good to me!

oh
do NOT be tempted to use condenser mics

even though they are small and cheap,
they do not work and the battery thing is a nightmare

dynamic, all the way

wle.

The elements are the same size as the 58s, and yes, it's a pain getting everything to fit. I've got three of these mics but going to start by using two and add the third if needed. Seems to be a trade off between positioning the elements and actually having it all fit, so there's still some experimenting to do. The other thing is, I use a 1/4 inch jack for the wireless, so it gets converted to high impedance. I used the transformer out of an AT lo to hi converter plug. Tiniest transformer I've ever seen, and can be soldered right to the positive tab on the jack, in the way of nothing! I've you wanted to keep it lo impedance, you can use a TRS jack instead of drilling that huge hole for an XLR jack. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Steve

you can use 3-conductor, 1/4" [stereo] jack for the balanced connection, then use an adapter [TRS to XLR] outside the accordion somewhere

same size as the 1/4" mono, of course

wle.