the t.bone Ovid System CC 100

I purchased the t.bone Ovid CC 100 mic for my nylon string guitar. I play as part of an acoustic duo and I wanted to use the CC 100 mic to supplement the sound from the under-saddle pick-up fitted to my guitar. I use the CC 100 mic with a tube amp DI box for phantom power and a warmer sound.

Overall I am very pleased with the sound from the mic. I can get a more natural tone from my guitar by blending the sound from the CC 100 mic with sound from the under saddle pick-up.

Pros:
(1) The mic is excellent value and costs 10% of the price of a top-of-the-range, high-end mic for similar purposes.
(2) The 13cm goose-neck fitted to the CC 100 mic makes it relatively easy to adjust the position of the mic, close to my guitar's 'sweet spot' (behind the saddle).
(3) The 2 meter cable is long enough to reach my DI box (on the floor) whilst allowing me plenty of room to play comfortably.
(4) The mini-XLR feels well made.
(5) Surprisingly, the box the item ships with contains a custom cut foam insert, which I found useful. I added the foam insert to a hard-case that I use for transporting my gear which protects the CC 100.

Cons:
(1) The mic is a little 'boom-ey' unless I add extra support to better secure the mic into the holder.
(2) The cable is very thin and doesn't feel strong. it could be better built; if you take care while handling the mic system, it should be okay.

I think the CC 100 is an excellent (affordable) choice for those who want to blend a mic sound with the sound from a pick-up or for those who wish to mic an acoustic instrument that currently has no pick-up. It's not as good as a top-of-the-range mic, but it's excellent quality for the price. In fact, I liked it on my nylon string so much, I bought a second one for my steel string acoustic!

I'd fully recommend the product to anyone on a tight budget.

I've been amazed at the versatility of this mic. I've tried it on guitar, violin, viola, cello, accordion (right hand), concertina, hammer dulcimer, and even as drum overheads. I have seen them being used to great effect on highland pipes with Peatbog Faeries at Sidmouth Folk Festival. I believe it to be a fantastic all round mic for close micing live or in the studio. It has good rear rejection and it doesn't feed back unexpectedly.

On violins and violas, so many other pickups and mics overdo the treble response, leaving the violin sounding harsh and cheap. This one has a much warmer tone and reproduces the violin's natural sound very well if the mic is placed directly above the bridge. I have found the best location for the clip is the lower left corner of the body. The best position for guitar was also as close to the bridge as possible.

The violin clip and guitar clip are able to be attached to practically anything they will fit around and, with a good squeeze, don't fall off even when playing vigorously. The rubber holder that supports the mic means that knocks on the bodywork are not picked up directly. This makes it ideal for micing the underside of a dulcimer.

Overall, I am very pleased with these mics, to the extent that I will be purchasing a third one soon!

I would definitely recommend it and would buy another if I lost it.

The mic sounds really great at low volumes and far better than high quality undersaddle piezos or soundboard transducers (no surprises there, even though I am talking about acoustic guitar pickups that are in their own way great and cost many tens to hundreds of pounds). The mic is just much better sound quality at low volume. This is through a blending preamp and acoustic amp. For low volume jazz gigs or rehearsals with acoustic double bass I use the mic alone as above. The sound is like the acoustic guitar which is of course what we want, only a little louder.

For slightly louder duo jazz gigs (pub with 10-20 people chatting) I blend it with a soundboard transducer using a preamp (50/50 mic to transducer). I get no feed back problems as long as I reduce the highest eq slider and don't point the mic at the speaker. The blend is far better than the sound board transducer on its own.

For louder gigs don't bother with the mic. Just use the pick-up in the guitar. I have not been able to get the volume high enough on the mic to be worth using. No matter. This is to be expected and will happen even with much more expensive mics.

The mic, thin cable and ovid guitar clip are easily robust enough if you take care of them. Don't worry about that. It has survived about 50 pub gigs with me so far with no problems.

So for the price it is a bargain, and it makes my low volume playing much more enjoyable and fun for me.

It has some resonant-ish colour in the (low) mids, but I guess it's due to the rubber holding sleeve. That sleeve has been recently changed by default design, allowing finally noiseless handling, when until a couple of years ago, it was a flimsy plasticky sleeve, which resonated on the highs, vibrated, had bad handling noises and looked quite fragile. This new version seems more reliable, but still don't expect super-high performances. Its preamp is still quite noisy, and the coloured output could not suit every task.
great for live use, specially for loud instruments.