Question About Apex 215 Dual Element Ribbon Use

[soundchaser59]

Anybody have one of these?

Couple of things I'm curious about.

1- How do you treat it when you record a singer? (male and/or female, I'm going to have both) Any EQ bumps? Notches? How do you think it responds as far as bright freqs, too warm freqs, distance from the mic, etc....?

2- Do you know if the dual ribbons are side by side? Or back to back? I know it's a figure 8, but I cant see inside and I'm not about to open the darn thing up.

It seems to be fairly natural sounding to me, but the guy I recorded last night, everybody else (non-musicians) who hears the track says the voice sounds slightly dull or a little too smooth, making it hard to hear exactly what all the words are. He's a better than average singer, getting good sound, just not quite right for clarity. He was about 15-18 inches from the mic, it's a easy going acoustic guitar ballad type song at a decent tempo.

What might you do to help clarify and define vocals using this mic?

 

[dgatwood]

My experience with the Chinese ribbons (and particularly with the stock transformer) is that they don't quite have enough high end, so I do a shelving boost starting somewhere in the upper mids and going up from there (exact frequency varies depending on the mic body, ribbon tension, etc.). Typically a couple of dB will do it. That really brings out a sparkle in the ribbon mics, at least for my voice (high tenor). Not sure what I'd do on female vocals—I haven't had an opportunity to try one yet on that.

 

[MichaelJoly]

Anybody have one of these?

Couple of things I'm curious about.

1- How do you treat it when you record a singer? (male and/or female, I'm going to have both) Any EQ bumps? Notches? How do you think it responds as far as bright freqs, too warm freqs, distance from the mic, etc....?

The Apex 215 has a ribbon motor design that produces a 6dB / octave rolloff above 4kHz, so to get a modern vocal sound you'll have to add at least the inverse of that EQ curve to get a flat response and more to get some presence. Small variances between the resonant frequency tuning of the ribbons gives this mic a very broad proximity effect which is also provides a strong amplitude boost. So you may want to tame the low end response as well.

2- Do you know if the dual ribbons are side by side? Or back to back? I know it's a figure 8, but I cant see inside and I'm not about to open the darn thing up.

The ribbons are side-by-side, this fact, and the wide magnets used plus the wide mechanical design of the motor structure are responsible for the fairly early high frequency roll-off. The dual-ribbon design, while more sensitive, also colors off-axis sound due to arrival time differences between the off-axis source (or reflection) and the two ribbons. Not so much of an issue though for on-axis vocal use.

 

[soundchaser59]

Good info, thanks!

That's a fairly substantial rolloff, I wouldn't have guessed it was that much. I'm almost afraid to invert that with an eq, but I'll test it and see how it sounds.

I did use a 210 in the past, and I ended up boosting that one 2-3db at 10k or 12k to get clarity out of it.

My distance of 15-18 inches seems to give the most natural sound response from this mic, so I dont think I've noticed any prominent proximity effect. It's just the upper end clarity that is lacking. The mids and on down sound fairly warm and full.

 

[dgatwood]

I did use a 210 in the past, and I ended up boosting that one 2-3db at 10k or 12k to get clarity out of it.

Yeah, that's basically the Chinese ribbon mic I'm most familiar with, except with Nady branding. I want to say that I started the shelf at 8kHz or so, but I'm going by memory, so it might have been as high as 10kHz or as low as 5kHz....

 

[MichaelJoly]

I did use a 210 in the past, and I ended up boosting that one 2-3db at 10k or 12k to get clarity out of it.

Right - as Dgatwood intimates, the 210 is a very different mic than the 215. The 210 uses a "long ribbon / narrow magnet" structure that gives it much more extended HF extension before roll-off than the 215. (essentially flat to 12kHz and down less than 3dB @ 16kHz). So any EQ used with the 210 is really for presence effect and not to restore a flat response plus provide a presence effect as would frequently be needed with the 215 used for vocals.

 

[soundchaser59]

So howzabout this.....

I am pretty sure I agree with your assessments of the two mics (210 and the 215), sounds like exactly what I've experienced so far.

Which makes me wonder, then, maybe I should use the 215 on the guitar cab instead of for vocals......and put the 210 back in front of the singers. I put the 210 in front of the guitar cab some time back, but it never did disappoint me with singers. And I absolutely cannot stand having any presence peak on my guitar cab mics.

Since I have past experience with the 210 on vocs, would you think the 215 would be more useful on my guitar cab? We are talking about bluesy, classic rock type stuff, a few ballads, no metal but definitely a lot of loud and hard hitting rockin stuff. The 210 handles it really well, so maybe I should try the 215 on the cab instead, and put the 210 back in the vocal corner.....

Interesting......give me a few more opinions on this one.....and thanks!

 

[ausrock]

I'm curious as to what the benefits are with a dual ribbon mic as opposed to a single ribbon.

 

[MichaelJoly]

So howzabout this.....

maybe I should use the 215 on the guitar cab instead of for vocals......and put the 210 back in front of the singers.

I think you'll like the results in both situations - your vocals will have more top end presence and your guitar cabs will have a nice midrange presence while attenuating the harsh HF stuff that bluesy, classic rock type stuff shouldn't have.

 

[MichaelJoly]

I'm curious as to what the benefits are with a dual ribbon mic as opposed to a single ribbon.

With parallel ribbon placement and in-phase wiring, the dual ribbon Apex 215 has about 3dB higher sensitivity than the single-ribbon Apex 210.

An additional, unintended feature of the dual ribbon design is a broader "Q" of the proximity effect. The two ribbons are never tuned to exactly the same frequency so the low end response of a dual ribbon mic often offers a "chunkier" bottom that has a less narrowly etched resonant frequency. This might make it sound beefier for guitar cab use.

 

[dgatwood]

An additional, unintended feature of the dual ribbon design is a broader "Q" of the proximity effect. The two ribbons are never tuned to exactly the same frequency so the low end response of a dual ribbon mic often offers a "chunkier" bottom that has a less narrowly etched resonant frequency. This might make it sound beefier for guitar cab use.

That's pretty cool. I hadn't thought about it, but that makes sense....

 

[soundchaser59]

....and your guitar cabs will have a nice midrange presence while attenuating the harsh HF stuff that bluesy, classic rock type stuff shouldn't have.

Thank You! Now THAAAT is exactly what I was trying to say, what I was getting at.

Appreciate the input people....I'm gonna try it tonight and tomorrow night!

 

[Marik]

That's pretty cool. I hadn't thought about it, but that makes sense....

Sorry Dgatwood, as beautiful as it sounds, it actually does not make any...

Mr. Joly, do you have any more or less scientific data to support that allegation?

Also, when you write "in-phase wiring" do you imply there possible "out of phase one" for a normal microphone operation?