Bluebird mic - issue with phantom power

rvs0002

New member
Hi all:

I bought a used Bluebird mic (as is, of course) and lo and behold, it has issues. Hoping someone may have experienced this on a mic before and can lead me to a solution.

The mic is fine for about a minute or 90 seconds when you switch on the phantom power. Then all of a sudden it's like you walked 10 yards away from the mic. It still outputs a bit of signal, but it is like 1/10th of the signal. The only way to bring it back to life is to completely unplug the mic and re-plug the cable back in. Just turning Phantom power off and back on will not work.

I also tested various other cables and pres and it does it every time (but they all work fine with my other two mics), so I've ruled out all the other equipment.

I took the shell off and it doesn't seem as there are any loose wires, but there are two circuit-board looking things on each side of the mic and I didn't have a small enough screwdriver to get those off last night. I'll go get one after work today so I can remove those to have a closer look at the connections.

I also wanted to take off the XLR jack to look for loose connections, but I can't seem to figure out how to get it off. There is a small screw on it, but it only unscrews to a certain point, then stops and I don't want to strip it. I'm still using google to see if I can fine more info on taking it all apart.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas (besides "throw the mic away"!) I'd love to hear them.

Thanks,
John
 
I know this is a radical suggestion, but- after I checked the circuit with another mic, to make sure it wasn't a phantom power or cable problem, I'd get on line and get the # of B.L.U.E. USA technical support. I've found them very helpful and responsive in the past.
 
Can't tell if you are joking or trying to make me look stupid (hard to tell on internet) but of course I did that first and they said it is against their policy to provide information about the workings of their mics. Also said i should not attempt to work on it myself but they would be happy to lookat it for 85.00 an hour plus shipping. Not helpful at all.
 
Can't tell if you are joking or trying to make me look stupid (hard to tell on internet) but of course I did that first and they said it is against their policy to provide information about the workings of their mics. Also said i should not attempt to work on it myself but they would be happy to lookat it for 85.00 an hour plus shipping. Not helpful at all.

Neither one. I'm sorry you got that response. Things must have changed a lot at that firm. I'm sorry that's your experience. Seriously, they treated me rather well, but it's been a while.
 
No problem at all, happy for any suggestions.

Yes, they were not helpful at all, which surprised me as well, especially after dealing in the past with RODE who were wonderfully helpful. I got this response after explaining the problem and asking for possible schematics or at least how to get the thing apart correctly (which I then figured out on my own):

Unfortunately, it is against our company policy to provide schematics for our microphones. It is also against our policy to advise on the disassembly of our microphones by unauthorized technicians. We do not recommend that repairs be made by unauthorized techs as to avoid causing possible further irreversible damage. We would be happy to have your Bluebird in for repairs. We charge $85/hour for labor, $12.50 for shipping and handling, and parts (if needed).

Not sure why they would care if I cause more damage when it isn't under warranty and it doesn't work already, but no big deal. Don't think I'll ever buy another Blue mic at retail again (I own a Spark and it's a pretty cool mic for what it cost) with customer service like that, but I doubt that really matters to them in the grand scheme of things.

Thanks again for the response. Glad you got on well with them on your issue.
 
So I've got the same exact problem with the same mic, also wasn't able to get help from BLUE directly. Wondering if anyone has debugged this problem yet? I normally repair tube amps and I don't really know how to diagnose microphones, so this is proving quite the challenge. Would this be caused by a bad cap?
 
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