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How about Ribbon Microphones?


RexRed

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You seem to me to be falling victim to - the best word I can think of is numberitis.

Looking at bare numbers on a spec sheet.

Bare numbers don't tell you the whole story.

The whole 20Hz - 20kHz range of human hearing is purely theoretical. Not only can nobody with any significant number of years behind them can really hear to those extremes, there really isn't much useful information towards the extremes anyway.

You are much better off with a good microphone with a frequency range of "only" 30Hz - 15kHz than a crappy one with the whole 20 - 20K.

Forget spec sheets. What do your ears tell you?

 

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Happy with my R121 and my AEA88. Both are superb on many sources including vocals. @Bapu is your R84 still your go to?

t

i would caution tho, I am the one who recommended RME; so there is that (still smarting a bit at the way RME has failed you…)

Edited by DeeringAmps
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If you're looking for a nice Ribbon mic, don't overlook the Royer R10 ($500).

I actually prefer it to the R121.

R121 has a metric ton of proximity-effect... and the upper mids have a character I'm not overly crazy about.

That said, R121 combined with a SM57 is a classic combination.

 

R10 placed about a foot back off the guitar cab speaker (near center with a very slight angle down) results in a great balanced tone.

You can add a SM57... but (IMO) it's not absolutely necessary.

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On 7/27/2022 at 10:48 AM, Jim Roseberry said:

If you're looking for a nice Ribbon mic, don't overlook the Royer R10 ($500).

I actually prefer it to the R121.

R121 has a metric ton of proximity-effect... and the upper mids have a character I'm not overly crazy about.

That said, R121 combined with a SM57 is a classic combination.

Jim might be using these to guitars, however ribbons are excellent for recording violins too.  I second his advice on Royer even though it's a bit of $$. I tried  a Golden Age Ribbon MK-2 .I was not impressed. It sits in my studio unused in the case.

Edited by Tim Smith
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  • 3 weeks later...

I really enjoying recording with a ribbon mic.  I have a Cascade Fathead.  I use it on guitar amps and woodwinds.

The one thing I found I needed with a ribbon mic was more signal gain.  My Focusrite Scarlett didn't really have enough gain

for this mic.  I ended up buying a Cloudlifter that is powered by phantom power.  This did the trick for me.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 7 months later...
23 hours ago, Bruno de Souza Lino said:

Ribbon mics are no better or worse than regular diaphragm mics. They're just a different way of picking up sounds. Most of them are figure 8 only and they have one glaring disadvantage: air pressure directed towards them could potentially destroy the ribbon element, which is very thin and delicate.

There is also a chance that phantom power can ruin older ribbons mics.  And I don’t know if it has been mentioned but many if not most ribbons t need a lot of gain.  If all you have is a 55 dB gain preamp your vocals may be low in vol.  

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9 minutes ago, Alan Tubbs said:

There is also a chance that phantom power can ruin older ribbons mics.  And I don’t know if it has been mentioned but many if not most ribbons t need a lot of gain.  If all you have is a 55 dB gain preamp your vocals may be low in vol.  

You also have to take care and make sure your mic cables are wired correctly, as phantom power could still get to the mic if it's not wired correctly. While Royer says their mics are not affected much by phantom power, they still recommend it to be off for mics which don't need it, like the R-121

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