Electro-Voice N/D408
A pivoting instrument microphone that quietly became the live-sound workhorse of the late '80s — and the only N/DYM model that top engineers kept name-dropping in the same breath as the vocal mics.
Overview
The N/D408 is the instrument half of Electro-Voice's N/DYM line, and it shows up in the period press for a reason that has nothing to do with marketing: engineers kept putting it on guitars and drums because it worked. The pitch from Electro-Voice was straightforward — the N/D408 and its sibling N/D308 were built for drums, cymbals, brass, and woodwind, with a pivoting head that lets the element be aimed at the source while the body stays at a workable angle. That pivoting design is the whole point of the mic, and it's why the N/D408 turns up clamped to snare drums and hung over guitar cabinets rather than sitting in a vocal booth.
The specs, as listed in a contemporary buyers guide, put the N/D408 in serious instrument-mic territory. It's a dynamic supercardioid with a reported frequency response of 60 Hz to 18 kHz — a wide range for a moving-coil instrument mic of the period — and a nominal impedance of 150 ohms. The output figure is listed as 50, and the mic is described as having "high output," which is the N/DYM party line: Electro-Voice's neodymium magnet structure was pitched as delivering more sensitivity than conventional dynamic designs. The buyers-guide listing also notes a weight of 6.7 (presumably ounces) and a black finish with an XLR connector. The original list price was $249.10, which in 1989 dollars was real money for an instrument mic — this was not a budget piece.
What the N/D408 did best was get used. In the late-'80s Electro-Voice advertising that ran in the Canadian musician press, the N/D408 is named repeatedly by engineers working with major touring acts. Joe Perry and Brad Whitford of Aerosmith were cited as using N/D408s on guitar, and Def Leppard's Phil Collen and Steve Clark likewise. Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen was cited using an N/D408 on cowbell and overheads. That's a specific and unusually detailed endorsement pattern — guitar cabs, cowbell, overheads — and it lines up exactly with the mic's stated design brief. The engineers quoted in those ads were talking about the N/DYM line as a whole, but the N/D408 is the model that keeps appearing in the instrument slots.
The N/D408's reception in the trade press was steady rather than sensational. Mix (September 1987, p.75) ran the N/DYM instrument mics in its new-products coverage, grouping the N/D408 and N/D308 together as mics for drums, cymbals, brass, woodwind, and even voice, with the pivoting element pitched as the way to aim at the source while keeping a usable pickup angle. Recording-Engineer (June 1987, p.43) carried the same product line, and the recurring phrase across those placements — that the N/DYM mics were "hot" with no better option for live sound — is advertising language, but it's advertising that ran in the recording trade rather than consumer magazines, which tells you who Electro-Voice thought the buyer was. The DB-Magazine (September 1989, p.4) buyers guide is the most useful single source for hard numbers, and it's where the $249.10 list price and the 60 Hz–18 kHz range come from.
Collectors and working engineers tend to treat the N/D408 as a utility mic rather than a trophy. It's the kind of thing that lives in a drum case and gets used until the cable fails. The pivoting head is the failure point to check on a used example — a joint that's been clamped and re-angled for thirty years can go floppy, and a floppy head makes the mic useless for its intended job even if the element is fine. The N/DYM element itself is robust, and the supercardioid pattern is tight enough to reject stage bleed without being so narrow that placement becomes fussy. Prices on the used market reflect the mic's working-tool status rather than any collector premium; it's a mic you buy to use, not to display.
The honest summary is that the N/D408 never became a legend the way the N/D757 vocal mic did — the advertising itself treats the 757 as the star — but it was the instrument mic that the same engineers reached for when they needed something on a guitar cab or a cowbell. That's a quieter kind of success, and it's the kind that tends to keep a microphone in service long after the catalog page it appeared on has been forgotten.
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