Pre for ribbon mics?

B

BasPer

New member
Hi,
I'm thinking about getting a few Beyer m130 and M160 to do MS and Blumeline recording of coires and instrumental groups. Will I need to get rediculously expensive preamps to get a decent S/N ratio? (If so, I'll give up and just do it the condeser way...:()
 
It depends how you define rediculously expensive. You need a preamp with at least 60db of gain (70db would be better) that doesn't introduce too much noise at that level. The least expensive pre I use with ribbons is an Earthworks LAB102, which lists at $1500 - street prices will be less, and you may be able to find one used (which I did). If that's too rich for your budget, you might want to hold out until FMR's Really Nice Mic Pre is released (some time in the next few months?). The pre-release buzz about the RNMP is very favorable, and I believe the price point will be less than half what you'd pay for the Earthworks.

Scott
 
Yes an Altec would be a good match because ribbons just like other low impedance dynamic mics have output transformers and they sound better with a preamp that has an input impedance closer to 1:1 than most modern preamps offer. Also a micpreamp that has a transformer input seems to load any mic with a transformer output better than a transformerless micpreamp will.
 
showing my ignorance

what are examples of transformerless vs transformer input preamps?

e.g. if i have a presonus mp20, an ampex mx10, and a UA 2610, where do these fall?

i guess i just don't know anything about transformers!

i tried using the beyer m160 with the old ampex mx10 and could hardly get a level out of it.

thanks!
mac
 
All three of those are transformer balanced micpreamps.

With the MX10 what do you mean by hardly get a level? You should be able to get full level (0db in the device it is plugged into) out of a vocal or acoustic guitar (strummed at 12')

Don't be afraid to turn the channel and the master way up with a ribbon or a dynamic mic especially if you are using only one mic per channel. There are also level set adjustments on the top of the chassis near the tubes, get a small screwdriver and make sure these are full up. With the master on 3:00 and the channel on full you should get full level speaking in a normal voice 6 inches from the mic, these same settings with the mic 12 inches away will clip if I strum hard chords on acoustic guitar.
 
I don't know anything about the newer ribbon mics. The old ones were always murder to get quiet. Those RCA mics especially. Transformerless will generally be quieter but may not sound as good as a transformer. Depends on how much you spend.

I gotta tell ya though that as far as I'm concerned a ribbon mic is only good for one thing and that's recording an entire room and everything in it in mono like they used to do in the old, old, old, days. Like back when Bing Crosby recorded. Just one mic to pick up everything including the volcalists. And they old vintage ones are really brittle which explains why there ain't too many around anymore I guess. Still, an RCA through a Neve pre is pretty impressive...not worth the money though IMHO.

Chet Atkins used to record duets with other guitarists etc in his home studio with just an old Ribbon mic between them. They sounded pretty good really but would probably seem noisy by today's standards. I don't know man, I think I'd stick with a condenser and be done with it. For my money an AKG 414 sounds so much like a ribbon mic that it ain't worth the headache of messin with the olduns.
 
windowman said:
I don't know anything about the newer ribbon mics. The old ones were always murder to get quiet. Those RCA mics especially. Transformerless will generally be quieter but may not sound as good as a transformer. Depends on how much you spend.

I gotta tell ya though that as far as I'm concerned a ribbon mic is only good for one thing and that's recording an entire room and everything in it in mono like they used to do in the old, old, old, days. Like back when Bing Crosby recorded. Just one mic to pick up everything including the volcalists. And they old vintage ones are really brittle which explains why there ain't too many around anymore I guess. Still, an RCA through a Neve pre is pretty impressive...not worth the money though IMHO.

Chet Atkins used to record duets with other guitarists etc in his home studio with just an old Ribbon mic between them. They sounded pretty good really but would probably seem noisy by today's standards. I don't know man, I think I'd stick with a condenser and be done with it. For my money an AKG 414 sounds so much like a ribbon mic that it ain't worth the headache of messin with the olduns.
Click to expand...

umm.... no.
 
I have an RCA 77DX (recently re-ribboned) that I use with a vintage Audix 35102 mic pre (racked by Brent Averill). The pre has 80db of gain; I find around 60-70db does nicely. I would think that a newer model ribbon mic may require even less gain.
Buut you do have to really tweek it to keep noise from creeping in. It seems like anything that requires that much gain is going to be ultra sensitive, and that can be a good thing!
 
JM;

"Umm"...got anything reasonably intelligent to put with that? Or is it just the usual childish bantering I get such a thrill out of reading around here? We don't have to talk about mic's and pre's (which are fairly boring and meaningless in the big picture anyway.) I'm more than happy to talk about the theology of George MacDonald, the Boomerang Project's report on the newly discovered flatness of our universe and how it might effect Q-bit info waves normally associated with more of a curved enclosure, (by the way, does time meet up with itself again in a closed sphere), whether or not C. S. Lewis "really" authored "The Dark Tower", whether or not Plato's "The Republic" should become required reading for Junior High students, the effects of copper-lined rooms on OBE's (out of body experiences), the effects, if any caused by unstable gravity waves on quantum memory (if it exists), the utter stupidity of belief in a "subconscious", the Many World's Theory, does Narnia exist, Sufi Mysticism, does fillet mignon tastes better from bull, cow, or steer, are king-pins better than ball-joints, was Gone With the Wind the most over-rated film of all time or Fatal Attraction, is Stream of Consciousness worth reading or writing, which is more important to Romanticism: nature or the struggle, why do people worship B. B. King when he still only knows how to play 5 chords after a half century or playing, if there was a big bang who pulled the trigger?

Or is this "umm" thing your on-line mode of meditation? Because Lord knows I wouldn't want to disturb that. :o

Michael,

I can agree with most of that. And a "re-ribboned" RCA, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that phrase. :cool:
 
windowman said:
...Michael,

I can agree with most of that. And a "re-ribboned" RCA, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that phrase. :cool:
Click to expand...
What's wrong with re-ribboned? (I have the work order)
How about "New, Old Stock". Thats one of my fav's!!

Oh yeah, and BB King.... It's not quantity that counts, Its quality. ;)
 
Windowman you must be a serious crackhead if that's the only use you can think of for ribbons. Ribbons sound great on many close miced instruments-specially strings. It would probably sound good for the whole room too.

I've now got a Sank modded m260, it sounds superb on my voice (vs 4033 and v67 andyway). And I get enough juice from my Mackie pres too.

-Jett
 
Hey now! Let's not be knocking crackheads! We, I mean, they, have a lot to offer society.

FWIW, my Sank-moded Beyer M260 sounds great on all kinds of stuff (drums, vox, gtrs, bass, violin, etc.) coming through my cranked Symetrix. Mmmm, crank!
-kent
 
windowman said:
JM;

"Umm"...got anything reasonably intelligent to put with that? Or is it just the usual childish bantering I get such a thrill out of reading around here?
Click to expand...

For someone who seems to think an AKG C414 sounds like a ribbon mic and a Soundblaster card is the same quality as good semi-pro digital converters probably not.

By the way maybe you can enlighten me about which model of 414 sounds like a ribbon as I would like to pick a few of those up.
 
No fighting on my thread, boys! :)

But thanks for your insights! I'm not too empoverished so I think I'll just get an M130 and experiment a little... That is if I don't decide to get those Dynaudio AIR6, cause then I should probably try to keep my GAS under tight control for a while. :D
 
windowman said:
JM;

"Umm"...got anything reasonably intelligent to put with that?
Click to expand...


You forgot the "no" part..meaning, no, you do not know what the hell you are talking about.
 
stfu.jpg
 
"What's wrong with re-ribboned?"

You got me, what is wrong with re-doing the ribbon? I've never heard anybody say that it was a bad idea. In fact you almost have to. When was the last time you saw an old one that still had the ribbon intact?

"Oh yeah, and BB King.... It's not quantity that counts, Its quality"

One more reason not to listen to him IMHO but to each his own. I prefer it when guys actually bother to learn how to master their instruments before making an album. Now maybe if he went and studied with Pat Martino for 10 years I could respect him. I have a low tolerance for deadbeats however who are too lazy to learn to play more than 5 or 6 chords every 50 years (not to mention that he pretty much plays the same damn solo in every song.) There's no excuse for that other than pure laziness and/or stupidity. But if you like that sort of thing then you're welcome to buy his records. I don't care. But you've lost all credibility to me.

"I've now got a Sank modded m260, it sounds superb on my voice (vs 4033 and v67 andyway)."

Let's hear it.

"For someone who seems to think an AKG C414 sounds like a ribbon mic and a Soundblaster card is the same quality as good semi-pro digital converters probably not."

A 414 does sound much like those old mid-rangy Ribbon mics (except for less noise and more high end.) Now, perhaps if you aren't too busy you can point us to the thread where I said a Soundblaster card is the same "quality" as semi-pro (which it is by the way) digital converters. I've said numerous times that on paper 24 bit cards were better, but that no human could hear the difference. Others and myself have demonstrated this time after time in hearing tests. None of you ever can consistently tell the difference between 16 and 24 bit recordings no matter how much money you wasted on those 24 bit converters. I've also sat here and watched people say over and over how MP3's were lousy sounding and that anybody should be able to hear that. Yet when I put them to the test they fail every time. We're going to have a lot more hearing tests coming up in the future around here and I've devised a way to lock those sound files in a Flash file where they can't be extracted and put through a spectral graph where people could cheat, so this ought to be fun. But as usual you'll undoubtedly go slinking away into the sunset like the others when we ask you to take the test rather than face the ridicule when you're shown wrong. Do feel free to participate though. :rolleyes:
 
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