Condenser mic with sudden slap-back sound

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cafehonda

New member
I have a dual diaphragm condenser with a C-12 style capsule that has a distinct slap-back sound in the signal. It is a Feilo F-3000 factory prototype which I believe is the starting point for a Charter Oak e-700 (with C-12) and the SE Gemini (non tube). I did just recently try to gently clean the capsule because I thought some dust contaminants were causing some mid range distortion. There is a portion of the front diaphragm that looks like the gold sputtering has flaked away. I have cleaned the switch for the pattern selection with deoxit but no change. I am thinking of getting a new C-12 style capsule but I thought I would reach out and see if anyone here has any insight as to what might be causing the slapback sound in the signal. Any thoughts out there, gurus?
 
Post a clip...not sure I'd be able to answer, but hearing it would help others get an idea of what it might be.
 
To me the description is like the effect you get when you have direct and software monitoring happening together.
 
It's not latency as I checked another mic on the same chain in Cubase. It is a delay of about 15-25ms, just enough to say hey, something sounds weird. It is so close it almost sounds a bit phasey but it is definitely a slap back. My guess is that while attempting to "clean" some dust off the capsule I somehow bridged one of the diaphragms to the plate. My electronics background is marginal so forgive me if I am way off base here. I am going to bypass the pattern selector switch and see if the switch is the culprit, although I doubt it. One thing to note is that it occurs on all patterns equally; I would think if it was a shorted diaphragm that cardioid would eliminate the problem. I will probably get a new capsule anyway since the one in the mic looks like it has plenty of spit and other nonsense on it. I believe it was a sample mic from Feilo so It probably had a lot of non standard use before i got it. Picked it up from PMI Audio when they were cleaning out a bunch of stuff after an acquisition. Anyway, I was hoping to get an answer like" It's the classic failed capacitor on the blah, blah, blah..."

I would post a clip but I am lazy. I'll spend that time troubleshooting the capsule to see if I can glean any useful data.
 
cafehonda said:
It's not latency as I checked another mic on the same chain in Cubase. It is a delay of about 15-25ms, just enough to say hey, something sounds weird. It is so close it almost sounds a bit phasey but it is definitely a slap back. My guess is that while attempting to "clean" some dust off the capsule I somehow bridged one of the diaphragms to the plate. My electronics background is marginal so forgive me if I am way off base here. I am going to bypass the pattern selector switch and see if the switch is the culprit, although I doubt it. One thing to note is that it occurs on all patterns equally; I would think if it was a shorted diaphragm that cardioid would eliminate the problem. I will probably get a new capsule anyway since the one in the mic looks like it has plenty of spit and other nonsense on it. I believe it was a sample mic from Feilo so It probably had a lot of non standard use before i got it. Picked it up from PMI Audio when they were cleaning out a bunch of stuff after an acquisition. Anyway, I was hoping to get an answer like" It's the classic failed capacitor on the blah, blah, blah..."

I would post a clip but I am lazy. I'll spend that time troubleshooting the capsule to see if I can glean any useful data.
Click to expand...

I'm no electronics expert either, by any stretch, but I can't think of anything that could be wrong with your mic and cause a 15-25ms delay in the signal.

Is the problem audible on a recording? If so, please post one. :)
 
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