any recent Mic Parts builds? and what's Dachman?

[CoolCat]

I was reading about DIY builds and then a few say its just cheaper to buy a Dachman or Warm....maybe a GoToToolz audio mic comes in at the bottom for pre-builds.

Curious what anyone's DIY experience was like in hindsight. Would you do it again or just buy a MXL to save cash?

Dachman seems to be advertising everywhere on my sites. $399 for a cardiod only U87i with some good parts, born from Mic Parts?

ok...back to surfing

 

[TalismanRich]

I read the DIY microphone threads and the thing that always amazes me is that no matter what the manufacturer makes, someone always has a fix for whatever they think is wrong. It's the wrong value cap, a resistor needs to be changed, the capsule sucks and should be be replaced. It ALWAYS, without fail, makes a massive improvement. 99% of the time, there are no measurements done to confirm the fix. It all just sounds wonderful now.

And it's always better to buy parts (most from China) and put it together yourself that to buy a cheapo mic from China.

Guitar players are much the same. If you use Grover tuners, they need to be Klusons. If it has Lollar pickups, you need Bare Knuckles, but if you have Bare Knuckles it needs Lollar Low Wind Imperials. (anything except those crummy Seymour Duncans, right?) If the bridge is a Pinnacle then a Tone Pros will sound better. If it's a Tone Pros, it really needs a Faber.

If you have the tools to properly build and test things, then by all means you can probably build something usable, maybe even good. I don't try to redesign or build equipment any more than I would try to blueprint an engine without the proper skill and equipment (which I don't have).

 

[CoolCat]

that made me laugh, yeah a lot of this is based on emotions.. not data. But the gear heads want to see Cinemag slapped on a Warm or a Lundhall ..
the tubes too matter. Then the big mystery "the capsules" ...I think I read 3U is a monk living in an unknown cave making the capsules for everyone but no one is supposed to tell.

 

[TalismanRich]

Yeah, capsules are impossible to clone. Only the fairy godmothers in Germany have the knowledge to assemble them perfectly. Just because you have a laser scanning machine that can map a part in 3D and a CNC machine that can mill metal parts to tenths of a micron doesn't mean you can duplicate a German masterpiece.

Rode has some video tours of their plant, and Peter Freedman shows how the machinery he has can measure the tension of the diaphragm, and they can measure the resonance frequency of their capsules to make sure everything is on target. They can machine parts to incredible accuracy and do it again and again. Their resources mean they can make very good consistent mics for very reasonable prices. But because they don't charge you $3000 or $5000 for their products, they must be crappy.

Costing a lot doesn't guarantee that something will work.

 

[CoolCat]

I love that RODE factory tour video and watched it a few times. Amazing.
Neumann had a little tour with Producer like a Pro, a walk through, pretty good too.

 

[RFR]

I read the DIY microphone threads and the thing that always amazes me is that no matter what the manufacturer makes, someone always has a fix for whatever they think is wrong. It's the wrong value cap, a resistor needs to be changed, the capsule sucks and should be be replaced. It ALWAYS, without fail, makes a massive improvement. 99% of the time, there are no measurements done to confirm the fix. It all just sounds wonderful now.

And it's always better to buy parts (most from China) and put it together yourself that to buy a cheapo mic from China.

Guitar players are much the same. If you use Grover tuners, they need to be Klusons. If it has Lollar pickups, you need Bare Knuckles, but if you have Bare Knuckles it needs Lollar Low Wind Imperials. (anything except those crummy Seymour Duncans, right?) If the bridge is a Pinnacle then a Tone Pros will sound better. If it's a Tone Pros, it really needs a Faber.

If you have the tools to properly build and test things, then by all means you can probably build something usable, maybe even good. I don't try to redesign or build equipment any more than I would try to blueprint an engine without the proper skill and equipment (which I don't have).

I definitely got a kick out of your post. I didn’t do an LOL, but it certainly got me to smile.

People have been hot ridding stuff for ages.
It’s fun and sometimes it makes something better sometimes not so much.

Early on I bought a Torres ‘Blaclkface’ kit for a 70s champ. A few resistors, and some cap changes and bam! Silverface to Blackface! ……………except in the real world. I paid a pretty penny for the kit too, almost a hundred bucks. Of course I had to justify my purchase and defend its ‘goodness’

And then one day I got to compare it side by side to a real blackface. Oh well…..

:lol:

 

[Papanate]

I was reading about DIY builds and then a few say its just cheaper to buy a Dachman or Warm....maybe a GoToToolz audio mic comes in at the bottom for pre-builds.

Curious what anyone's DIY experience was like in hindsight. Would you do it again or just buy a MXL to save cash?

Dachman seems to be advertising everywhere on my sites. $399 for a cardiod only U87i with some good parts, born from Mic Parts?

The markets is saturated - so the Mic guys in order to still sell - create there PartsMics - some of them mod some of them revise - but like @TalismanRich says they always tout their creation as the end all to be all - it annoying to me - I buys decent mics to begin with and don’t have any of the ‘Problems’ people seem to have - I have an old Studio Project C1 for example - and sometimes with EQ and sometime with slight compression The mic sounds fantastic.

 

[CoolCat]

yeah I turned into a youtube binging gearhead and those same podcasters gloating about every mic is super awesome!!!!
gets to feeling like a long predictable amateur sales pitch. U87 especially...the clone era. I guess its like every fad it comes and goes, some are short some are long fads. I get it they compare mics for a living and make streamshows but after a few hundred hours of it, it starts feeling like a advertising.

I was pulling out the mics and preamps to see they all still worked and was really surprised the MXL V67G sounded so good the next days listening.
The SM7b is like a windshield on a car, when you apply some eq and comp its like a tube ldc at times, a clean windshield.
But that MXL V67G was clear and clean with some sparkle highs and thicker (transformer?) any way it could hang with any of the mics I have.
I couldnt make one for $50, and they sell for $100 with case and shockmounts and candy..

SP C1 was, as I recall one of those that started sounding like the expensive mics and were well built.
Ive never even swapped out a capsule before so the whole 67,47 capsule thing and the voltage applied etc.. just rambling, but all those extra patterns I never used either in my small cardioid place. Thats some of the worn path, copying a 87, 67,47.... Neumanns TLM got flamed but sold more and more, and the 102/103 entry was like INTEL selling Celeron series below the Pentiums, or Fender selling Squier series under MIM MIJ US..

 

[TalismanRich]

Back in the early days, Harvey Gerst was big on the V67G. I've had one for many years, and still pull it out on occasion. I think I paid $69.

I remember when the SP C1 was the talk of the town. Everybody was singing it's praises, then suddenly it became yesterday's news. I think PMI/SP pretty much abandoned the import mic market because it was getting saturated with new companys doing the same. I've still got the pair of SP B3s that I bought when I first got my AW16G (~2004). They were $150 each. They are the old 797Audio version and they still sound fine to me. I've used them more than the Warm 47jr that I bought. I remember that people were really hot on the B3s in the early 2000s.

 

[CoolCat]

I don't know which year I bought my MXL V67G but it was the Heritage Series, extra cost, because I liked the candy and silver. still cheap imo.
When I bought the SP B3 I didn't know what cardiod or sensitivity meant or really anything about room acoustics....so until then I cant comment
on anything..lol

But good point about the flood of mics coming from China and the Telefunken stories of selling China mics for a lot of cash etc.. the capsules and mods became
pretty complicated or busy, but I just never got inside a mic with soldering gun. Lately reading Peluso which is considered High End but by some, and others seem to say they are kind of a "modded" mic with Chinese parts and well done DIY (interesting debate on that line?)

The WarmJr is supposed to be the same capsule as the WA47 tube, and I had the Tube version awhile and loved its sound, but the WA47 Jr didn't have that same sound imo.
I sold them both because my hobby these days is buying gear and selling it for a loss.

 

[TalismanRich]

The WarmJr is supposed to be the same capsule as the WA47 tube, and I had the Tube version awhile and loved its sound, but the WA47 Jr didn't have that same sound imo.
I sold them both because my hobby these days is buying gear and selling it for a loss.

My hobby is buying stuff that my kids will have to sell off when I'm laying in a nursing home watching Game Show Network!

The Peluso stuff is interesting. It's a few people in central Virginia who build mics. I understand that he builds the capsules using machined parts he purchases from overseas. They then assemble the mics using thru hole boards, not SMT parts. There's no automation, it's all hand work. His business was derived from his repair/restoration business. It's a small operation compared to somebody like Warm Audio. His mics aren't cheap, but are well below what companies like Telefunken and Neumann charge.

Advanced Audio in Canada is another family run company that assembles microphones at somewhat reasonable prices. They don't try to mimic the appearance of the mics each is based on. Several of them look similar to the a R2 Warm87 case.

Obviously the problem is you can go broke trying out all these different products. You could spend several grand getting a bunch of mics to compare.

 

[CoolCat]

Yeah I don't have the time to try them all either or even watch all the YouTube's of others trying them all.
Then it seems to be just trying a few and that's where I guess I got the "sales bug" of the Dachman ads with
supposedly really good pre-built DIYish for a few hundred.

Ill be honest my small comparison of tube mics the WA47 was cool but the MXL Revelation had a little that I liked, but it didn't feel built as well.
Dachman got a 67 tube, but Warm is a lot cheaper for their 67 tube....GotoToolz is a little cheaper yet...MXL seems more familiar if you aren't trying to
impress the neighbors with brand name. The price climbs into Peluso level and all the others heading into the $1000's and Neumanns own Re-Issue was skeptically accepted, while the OG is for investment or a large amount of cash...while the TLM has the capsules but no transformers and no tube (how does that fall into 67 land with no tube and no transformers?)

I downloaded the schematic today of the U47, its not a lot of parts. The capsules are still made to spec, as in the cheaper TLM49...well cheaper than a original 47.
Another reason Neumann Used mics are anxiety filled as the capsules might be swapped out, another concern in addition to being fake.

its all good stuff, gear and recording those sounds!

 

[polarity]

I've been looking in to building some of the DIY mics for fun (and to get some different mics) and that lead me to this video.



It's an artist in Nashville doing some fun tests on various mics (store bought and home made) to try and find out what about a mic changes the tone and how. There are plenty of people taking way too much information from this trying to say that it means buying expensive mics doesn't matter which I don't agree with, but the video was actually filled with interesting information about which specific parts of a microphone contribute to which parts of the sound. I wouldn't exactly say it's solid science but still very interesting and may answer some questions about if it's worth it to DIY some of this stuff.

 

[CoolCat]

great video imo.
someone said a lot of a mic sound is maybe an "EQ effect" of the parts, the resistors and capacitors and of course the Capsule(that's supposedly based off a Neumann 47 or 67 usually made in the magical dust magic kingdom located near Santa Claus's area).

but the video shows the thickness of the mylar and gold is a noticeable effect, so its deep diving.
but is it so major ? that some "EQ effect" cant get you where you want to be?

I totally get it for being fun, and learning, when I retire I might do a couple builds. ...or one.
Capsules and I think Klaus said a person could reduce the volts to the capsule on a U87AI and get it sounding more like a old U87i . Less sensitive, less whatever it does with DC.

Electronics- Changing Resistor values seems installing a potentiometer would be faster to add in instead of swapping resistor values.

The Headbasket has some kind of effect but Im not sure if its as important as the electronics?

Body- metal thickness and dampening....

Whats hardest to duplicate is the magic dust.

 

[polarity]

Yeah I totally agree. Circuit seems to matter a small degree but it's mostly capsule and then if there are any type of EQing effects built in. Once you get in to what part of the capsule makes the difference to my ears from the youtube video I felt like the thickness and the amount of gold seemed to make the largest difference, but none of what was different equaled "better" to me. Just different flavors. From the little bit of reading and research/testing I've done it really seems like as long as you build/buy something of decent enough quality that it's not producing noise you've hit the cap on overall better/worse. You could say better or worse for a particular source (like maybe you want something with more highs for your voice, or more mids for a guitar or whatever).

I'm looking at doing some of the mics from microphone-parts and then I also want to do some of the analog gear from diyrecording. They have some preamps and compressor kits that look fun. Obviously I'm hoping the finished product is good but I'm more doing it for the fun of putting it together, so it if the 1073 doesn't sound like a 1073 I won't be surprised or disappointed. Planning on picking up my first kit here in a couple weeks so I'll come back a and let you know how it ends up. I'll probably start with something small like the km84 kit (https://microphone-parts.com/products/sdc-84-microphone-kit-neumann-km84-style).