ribbon mics don't bounce

[Guest]

So it finally happened to me, the recording went well, every one was happy so I began to clear away leads. The band being nice guys that they are started to help me by moving the bag of books I had left carelessly on the base of the singers mic stand. A lead got pulled and the world went into slow motion as my K2 and my ribbon mic dived under the weight of a reflection filter towards the floor.

Luckily the ribbon mic (which was a cheep one) broke the fall of the K2 so the K2 is still working. The ribbon mic however is now only useful as an effect mic for blizzard scenes, or maybe a piece of high school art.

Lesson learned, even with the nicest most careful people accidents happen. So I'm looking for a new ribbon mic (under a grand) and a good quality heavy duty mic stand.

So my questions are 1. What are people using for there heavy, expensive mics and where do I get one?
2. What suggestions do people have for a new cheap ribbon mic?

Thanks
Tony

[rick]

buy the atlas big mic stand , its been the same design since the 50's
TAG in sydney bring them in , they are about $600
and the only place i put a heavy valuable mic except of course back safely its box .

[Kris]

Tony, check out the Crowley & Tripp "Naked Eye" mic at Awave. I have one and it is very cool.

http://www.soundwaveresearch.com/models.html

I have the Roswelite version but the classic is still a damn fine mic.

[Guest]

Thanks Rick they look like the sort of thing I need. Now I just need another room to store it in.

[tonymite]

For the budget concious who prefer chinese condensers (modified of course) to vintage Neumanns,

try the on-stage line - distributed by pro music australia

i think this'll give the Atlas a run for its money at $289.00 retail.

The On Stage OSSMS7650 Hex-Base Studio Boom, this HEX-BASE® Studio Boom is the new standard by which others will be judged. It is equipped with 2 straight boom shafts that can be attached for studio recording. Or remove the front boom and use the back boom for project studio work. The boom arm slides effortlessly through the 1â€

[lonearranger]

So it finally happened to me, the recording went well, every one was happy so I began to clear away leads. The band being nice guys that they are started to help me by moving the bag of books I had left carelessly on the base of the singers mic stand. A lead got pulled and the world went into slow motion as my K2 and my ribbon mic dived under the weight of a reflection filter towards the floor.

Luckily the ribbon mic (which was a cheep one) broke the fall of the K2 so the K2 is still working. The ribbon mic however is now only useful as an effect mic for blizzard scenes, or maybe a piece of high school art.

Lesson learned, even with the nicest most careful people accidents happen. So I'm looking for a new ribbon mic (under a grand) and a good quality heavy duty mic stand.

So my questions are 1. What are people using for there heavy, expensive mics and where do I get one?
2. What suggestions do people have for a new cheap ribbon mic?

Thanks
Tony

Hi Tony,

My chinese ribbon (shinybox 46) died a similar death - turned out to be the coating on the magnets dislodged after the fall, rather than the ribbon breaking. The ribbon did break as I was attempting to remove the coating. I am still on the case to find a source of 2 micron foil to fully resurect, but have had a few goes with kitchen foil. One tip I picked up was to buy the cheap home brand as it is thinner. Anyway after a few attempts, the mic is now quite useful as a source of warmth on guitar amp duties, esp with a dynamic along side. The Shinybox guy did offer to sell me a replacement element for around $40US - so you should talk to your supplier/distributer to see if a spare is available, if the full DIY approach is not appealing.

Cheers

[graemeh]

Very happy with my Cascade Fatheads.

I bought them direct from Cascade - they cost about $250 aus each landed here.

http://www.cascademicrophones.com/casca ... 0HEAD.html

[Guest]

Thanks Guys,

Any sort of real feed back is positive at this point. I've spent a few days looking around the internet for interesting mics, it would seem that you can put into Google just about any random bunch of letters or a word in front of 'ribbon mic' resulting an almost unending collection of Chinese ribbon mics that I've never heard of.

The naked eye looks very interesting how does it cope with brass? I've never heard of fatheads but the price certainly nice.

On another note I pulled the broken mic apart to find the ribbon doing an interesting impersonation of a slinky (spiral that is, I know there meant to have folds). I tried to pretension the ribbon having no idea what I was doing and managed to get it back in line slightly dinted. It seems to have solved the snow storm problem and I can use it again as long as I have a 20dB cut at 112Hz. I’m guessing this has something to do with the resonate frequency of the ribbon its self? So does that mean if I lower the tension it should lower the frequency?


Tony

[Chris H]

The ribbon in my mic looks like this: ^^^^^^^^^ ie folded, then tensioned, So if there are no kinks in the folds and it is tensioned, i don't think the sound you dskribe is due to resonant frequency. It could be due to lack of tension in the ribbon but I'm no expert on ribbons.

[Guest]

I'm just taking a stab in the dark. I don't want to tension the ribbon more and raise the problem frequency. Eqing out 112Hz is crap but 500 Hz would be worse. Plus I think if I over tension the ribbon it will tear. Then again if I haven't tensioned it enough it would make sense that it would flap around.

Realistically I don't think the will ever be the same again so I will embrace the chance to learn something new, however I don't like my chances of folding a couple of micron thick bit of metal in a useful fashion :-)

[Text_Edifice]

I remember reading that there was a tech in sydney who could re-ribbon mics? Surely someone could repair the mic for you (or at least proclaim it definitively dead). Maybe do a ring around?

Also http://make_a_ribbon_mic.tripod.com/ might have some info and I think prodigy may have a thread about repairing ribbon mics.