THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY

OKTAVA MK-319 CONDENSER MICROPHONE

Not a guitar story, but since the last Guitar Center fiasco went over so well, I thought I'd share another one. The Oktava MK-319 condenser microphone is kind of one of those cult following kind of things It's a GREAT recording mic for a very good price and, a few years ago, Guitar Center made some sort of deal to be the exclusive dealer for some period of time. They must have ordered a gazillion of them or something and they had them on sale for $99 most of the time. I had read that they were good, so when I saw an extra special sale where you could get TWO of them for $99, I called up my friend Rob and asked if he wanted to go in on a pair...$50 a piece. He said yes and I headed down there to buy our mics.

I picked them up and dropped one at Rob's house on my way home. He checked his out and it was in excellent working condition. Sounded great. There are websites that do mods to these mics that make them sound even better...some people say that with the mods they rival some of the top mics. I got mine home and...dud. Something wrong with it. So I saved the receipt and a couple of days later head back to Guitar Center to exchange it. Uh oh. Houston we have a problem. They don't have any more in stock. These were the last ones they had. They call around Southern California and can't find one anywhere. The guy that helped me out was actually a big jerk about it and said he'd try to figure something out. Never heard from him. I finally call back after a few days and the guy has an attitude again. I decide it's time to talk to the manager.

Here I am...trying to be nice when the product I bought doesn't work and they are being rude about it.

I talk to the manager and he is very apologetic and gets on the phone himself to try to track one down. He finally finds one somewhere in the USA and does the request to get it sent to my store. Not only does he do that, he decides to give me 50% off for my trouble. So now I'm getting TWO Oktava mics for only $50. For you math geniuses, that's only $25 a piece and that's one heck of a deal. Now, a few years later, they are selling used for anywhere between $100 to $150 and I'm not sure how much they are new.

2024 UPDATE: I ended up getting another one of these a few years ago and have used it on recordings a few times. Still a great sounding microphone!

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 14, 2008