Show us your ribbons

[rick]

image.jpg

I have never had any real love of ribbons
The exact reason people love them drive me nuts

Unless they are in great order
They are warm ( err dull sometimes really dull)
and the proximity is weird

That said the good ones when they are great .
Well they should be .. Great

they always sound like
They have issues to me

I have been trying ( learning) to re ribbon my odds and sods
And paired it right back to this lot

I can do it the reribboning .. is all I say ..
It's not something I would do for somebody else at this point in time .

Any way it rained ribbons here last week
2 consecutive number RCA 44 ( about to go to Wes Dooley to get redone and matched)
And 3 new consecutive number coles 4038
These will be my reference ribbons .. The 44 and the 4038
Nobody is ever using them except here .

Lets see how long they sound perfect !!

I think I will leave it at that for collecting ribbons

Show us your lot ..

[Drumstruck]

Can't compete with that lot.....

I have a pair of these sE R1s that'll do everything I need:

sE R1.jpg

[Paul Maybury]

bey-m160_1.jpg

I have three of these. Beyerdynamic M160.
I also

bey-m160_1.jpg

have a Reslo, an Oktava and a B&O.
I really only ever use the Beyers .
Cheers,

bey-m160_1.jpg

Paul

[rick]

i should change the thread title to show us your ribbons .. what you got .. what do you use ..?

[Paul Maybury]

Did I answer the question, "show is your ribbons"?

[casey_rice]

Beyer M160

[rick]

the beyer is a curious mic , i must have never used a good one .
before royer woke up the world it was kinda the only ribbon left that you could easily buy new .. those coles where available i guess ? but a mystery mic in our part of the world for certain
everything else ribbon i can think of was antique / obsolete dull or gettingduller or just broken and looking cool .

[rick]

one of my mates has the two ex emi RCA skunks .. I hope he chimes in

[Junction]

This baby sounds so sweet

[jasound]

That's all you need Rick,
A good 44 is the business. Followed by the 4038.
RCA77 could be on the list as well.
I'm currently using a couple of AEA84, out of the new stuff the AEA seems to have a bit more colour and mojo than the Royer, Beyer, Audio Technica, Shure stuff I've tried lately.

"Nobody is ever using them except here" Sounds like you may have a tracking room going..close to going...
Rick's house of Rock? Rickn'Roll recorders, Rickntrackers..... sorry I don't know what came over me.

[Ben M]

A few of the ones I use.

Ribbons.jpg

When I put them down together they all wanted to magnetically gravitate towards the 4038.
Must be a killer set of magnets in the Coles.
The Film Industries mic is an interesting one. Sounds pretty cool out in front of a kit...but the Coles usually pips it.
The AEA R84 on guitar amps is supreme.

oh, and my Beyer M160 sounds remarkably bright.

[seancook]

pair of 4038s
an altec 639b
a pair of m160s
a reslo and a royer

the coles are the nicest, but also the most boring
the altec is probably my favourite, great room mic or a very dirty oh
the m160s really only get used on guitar amps, particularly fenders and marshalls

the reslo is finicky and breaks a lot, but has a sound not entirely dissimilar to the shure 55 with the aluminium diaphragm.

i like ribbons on oh, but you need really high ceilings, otherwise the losses outweigh the gains.

although none of the above sound as good as a nice 77 on vocals, into a big 1

[Doc Benway]

The Film Industries mic is an interesting one.

oh, and my Beyer M160 sounds remarkably bright.

Agreed on the Film Industries. I have a pair which I really like. A little noisy but are usable on drums and for gtrs especially. And I've never really thought of my M160 as dull either.

[Senad]

i like ribbons on oh, but you need really high ceilings, otherwise the losses outweigh the gains.

Hi Sean,
I'm interested to hear what you consider the losses to be...and also the gains.
I've been using a pair of 4038s on drums for a few sessions, and found that I liked them better closer to the kit in a dry setting than further away in a more live environment.
Thanks in advance.

[Drumstruck]

Ditto for my R1s Senad - I have them AB about 2 feet above the cymbals and am happy with the sound of just that pair (and no spot mics) as a wholistic kit sound.

[audioio]

Speiden (now Royer) SF12: beautiful as overheads and for a room sound back from a main stereo pair in, say, classical or choral concert recording.
Apex something-or-others with Lundahl trannys: OK for brass and guitar amps.
STC4033 ribbon + moving coil: haven't used it a lot yet but it seems promising on some vocals.

[seancook]

gains and losses fro ribbons on OH?

mostly to do with fig 8, if your ceiling is low (3m or under) the top end gets lets focused and washy if your ceiling is diffused, or harsh if not treated. A pair of coles in nice and tight on a kit is a beautiful thing in a drum booth with a lowish absorptive ceiling you just get dead, dry, fat drums , with clear tight cymbals, everything that is good in the world.

so, i love the bottom end of a pair of coles on a kit, i will always bring up the top say 15k? 2 or 4 dB etc.
and that works in a booth, but with a open room they often end up being too live sounding for me, not clear enough for the cymbals, not big enough to go without room mics.

For a rock thing with with a lively kit sound i much prefer a c12 or c37 type in cardioid with the coles in blumlein catching the size of the room. But my room is fairly bright, and diffused so really, its just about matching the mics to the drums and the room.

[Djembe]

I tend to reach for my 4038 a lot but have these others.

I must admit I didn't use this for a while, but have recently re-discovered it. Beyer MD260DX, with the Steve Sank mod with 77DX ribbon.
It's fantastic on trombone and being a hyper-cardiod ribbon, very handy.

Beyer M260DX.jpg

Shure's remake of the Crowley and Tripp 'El Diablo', KSM353
Designed to be a ribbon version of a cross between an MD421 and a U47fet.
Pretty good description.

Shure KSM353.jpg

I must admit I haven't used this one a lot. They call it a printed ribbon. Fostex M88RP. Sounds a bit like the Shure.

Fostex M88RP.jpg

[Djembe]

Speaking of RCA 44's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhTjLy_LTcA&feature=share

[walding]

I have only one ribbon mic, it is a 160, does everything I'll ever need in a ribbon mic.

[rick]

love the sonny and cher clip ..

i kept thinking all I do lately is look at old heavy mic stands

thats going to be next thread

"the show us your mic stands thread" .

but i have some bead blasting chroming and powder coating before I get around to starting that one ..

come on
you have an iPhone

just point it at your ribbons
I am dyslexic and so is cher actually
pictures I want pictures .. forget the numbers only game

thats ribbons .. not pictures of cher ..

[gregwalker]

Jeez - you guys and your fancy ribbon collections!
I had a crap Octava ML-53 that I hated for years....so dull and shit sounding. Then one day I did some close miking of violins and cellos with it and fell in love. Two CW Stoneking albums and two 20's TV soundtracks later it still does something quite magical for me that nothing else can. Its all about context I guess.
Best sounding ribbon mic I've ever used was Mick Wordley's AEA active 44 model that he got hand tuned by Wes Dooley - quiet as a mouse and an absolutely freaking amazing sounding mic on everything! The AEAs definitely have the vibe over most of the other modern stuff.

[casey_rice]

M260 on hi hat also.