Ribbon mic recommendations for recording flute

Spinney Lainey

Spinney Lainey

New member
I was wondering if anyone can recommend a ribbon mic for recording flute that's no more than £300?

I'm really into the idea of getting a ribbon mic because I heard some recordings and compared to condenser and dynamic mics, it makes the low notes sound fuller and the high notes less harsh.

Do you think for my budget, I can get a reasonable ribbon mic, though?
 
I own two of them, which I built from kits.

At one time Artur received a batch of bodies for the RM-5 which had a machining fault. He did not feel comfortable selling these on a finished commercial product. Instead, he decided to sell the flawed bodies in kit form with motors (which he also makes and sells) at reduced price, for a limited time. The response from the DIY community was very strong, so he quickly ran out of bodies, but he kindly supplied me with a perfect pair of bodies at the reduced price. I have built up the mics with Cinemag ribbon transformers.

The RM-5 is quite versatile. To my ears, it has a smooth and relaxed sound - kind of what you expect from ribbons. The top end is certainly not hyped. The RM-5 is quite at home with many sound sources.

If you google around, you'll find sound samples to listen to.

There are Chinese ribbons available at (I think) lower prices, but the RM-5 is good kit. Stepping up from there you are starting to look at more serious money - Royer, etc.

I assume you plan to closely mic your flute? Ribbons do normally need quite a lot of amplification to get good levels for tracking.

Good luck!

Paul
 
Tbf, nowadays there are a handful of half decent ribbon mic's under £300 but they do vary in quality and sound and, as paul said, out of the £300 there is a quite big leap to the Royer price range (and quality).

At the lower rungs price wise there's the Alctron HRM-8b which is about £70 (the websites down for it atm so no link i'm afraid but they've got an ebay store) which is rebranded as the Apex 205 (and other rebrands) which sounds pretty cool as is but even with the simple body mods the sound improves.

The MXL R144 gets solid reviews for £130

The new sE X1R is the ribbon mic currently at the top of my "to buy" list, especially now the price has dropped from the initial £299 to just £89! It's also got some of sE's high end technology in it to make it slightly brighter than normal ribbons (like in their Voodoo series)

the Cascade Fathead gets sterling reviews all round and the one i've linked is with the upgraded Lundhal transfromer. That's £282 but i'm pretty sure it's cheaper with the stock transformer.

The Golden Age Projects R1 Mk2 i think was the GAP ribbon mic that soundonsound said was the standout one in the Golden Age Project series of ribbons for £142

Between them there's a wide range of choices and sounds so have take your pick. If it's your first foray into ribbon mic's then, as paul said, bare in mind that you'll need a decent preamp with plenty of clean gain to get a decent signal from a ribbon mic and, although it's said a lot, it's worth remembering quite how delicate ribbon mic's are. Treat them like you would a hemophiliac new born baby and you'll be fine :)
 
Thanks for that. Eeek. How to decide??!! So hard to choose a mic when you don't know what it sounds like!! Wish they had flute recordings for all of them!
 
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Out of all of them, I guess the SE X1R sounds like a good choice because it has the benefits of a ribbon mic but with some of the technology from modern mics....
 
Any idea why the SE X1R has come down in price so much?! Is the quality of this mic as good as the others that are more expensive?
 
Spinney Lainey said:
Eeek. How to decide??!! So hard to choose a mic when you don't know what it sounds like!!
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And that, i'm afraid, it's the hardest part of it all :( Maybe it's just my neck of the woods but trying to find a music store within 50 miles of my home that stocks any of the mics i want to try is nigh on impossible. Alot of the time i have to resort to hunting around the internet for audio and video clips, reviews and general hearsay and, even then, you have to take all that with a huge pinch of salt. However, if you're very lucky, you could always take you and your flute to your nearest music store and try out what mics they've got. I was very lucky when i bought my monitors as my parents live a mile away from absolutemusic and, as i was down to visit them, it made sense to pop in a try out the monitors. I'm glad i did, but then again, i already had a fair idea of what i wanted and hearing them just solidified my opinion.

sE electronics do have a free 7 day loan service in the UK so you could easily try the sE mic and then return it and, if you like it, buy one, and if you don't at least you can rule it out. It may be worth phoning some stores/checking their webpages and seeing what their return policy is as you could always buy a mic and, again, if you don't like it, return it and get your money back. Worse comes to worst, buy one, try it, if you don't like it, bung it on ebay and make a slight loss, and then try another one.
 
Spinney Lainey said:
Any idea why the SE X1R has come down in price so much?! Is the quality of this mic as good as the others that are more expensive?
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No idea why the price dropped, but my guess is that it just wasn't selling at £299 (which, tbf, is quite pricey when you consider the condenser version is only £119 and that went up from £99). I asked the same question to my mates when i first saw the price drop (we're a bunch of sE fans) and we guessed at that and the lack of advertising. We didn't see any press for it when it came out and only stumbled upon it when i was trawling through thomann for work one day.

As Kip said, and i agree, that any of the mic's listed on this whole thread should do nicely. The Alctron and possibly the MXL do seem to be much nicer if you're handy with a screwdriver and have balls of steel (it's not actually that scary but it seemed like it the first time i did it!) and are willing to open them up and remove the blast filter and one of the mesh screens, but even then they work perfectly well without any mods and if it's your first ribbon mic you'll be able to appreciate the sound of any of them in comparison to condensers and dynamic mics
 
Justsomeguy said:
And that, i'm afraid, it's the hardest part of it all :( Maybe it's just my neck of the woods but trying to find a music store within 50 miles of my home that stocks any of the mics i want to try is nigh on impossible. Alot of the time i have to resort to hunting around the internet for audio and video clips, reviews and general hearsay and, even then, you have to take all that with a huge pinch of salt. However, if you're very lucky, you could always take you and your flute to your nearest music store and try out what mics they've got. I was very lucky when i bought my monitors as my parents live a mile away from absolutemusic and, as i was down to visit them, it made sense to pop in a try out the monitors. I'm glad i did, but then again, i already had a fair idea of what i wanted and hearing them just solidified my opinion.

sE electronics do have a free 7 day loan service in the UK so you could easily try the sE mic and then return it and, if you like it, buy one, and if you don't at least you can rule it out. It may be worth phoning some stores/checking their webpages and seeing what their return policy is as you could always buy a mic and, again, if you don't like it, return it and get your money back. Worse comes to worst, buy one, try it, if you don't like it, bung it on ebay and make a slight loss, and then try another one.
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Yep, I can't find any stores nearby that stock the mics I'm after and I live in London! Maybe there are some but I just haven't found them.....

Think I'll have to go with that plan of trying one and then returning it, if I don't like it.
 
beware normal stuff for ribbons.
Take care not to blast it with too much wind and you will need a preamp with lots of clean gain.
If its your first unlike most mics you may find (i did) that it takes some getting used to the new and best positioning of the mic.
Its awesome in a mid side context.
But then i'm probabaly teaching my granny to suck eggs so i'll shut up now.
I hope you find a good one for your use.
I have the Apex 205 unmodded (im saving to get it modded)
 
kip4 said:
beware normal stuff for ribbons.
Take care not to blast it with too much wind and you will need a preamp with lots of clean gain.
If its your first unlike most mics you may find (i did) that it takes some getting used to the new and best positioning of the mic.
Its awesome in a mid side context.
But then i'm probabaly teaching my granny to suck eggs so i'll shut up now.
I hope you find a good one for your use.
I have the Apex 205 unmodded (im saving to get it modded)
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm up for any tips, because I'm completely new to this. By the way what do you mean by mid side context?
 
Mid-side is a two microphone technique to produce a stereo recording. One mic is cardiod or omnidirectional, the other has a figure-8 pattern. Ribbon mics happen to have a figure-8 pattern - they respond more strongly to sound from in front and behind, and tend to reject sound from the sides.

The sound recorded in this way has to be "decoded" to yield a stereo presentation.

Paul
 
Spinney Lainey said:
By the way what do you mean by mid side context?
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This is what kip means by M/S (mid/side). In short it's a method of stereo micing where you use one mic with a cardioid pattern as the "mid" (pointed directly at the centre of the sound), and then a mic with a fig.8 polar pattern (like the vast majority of ribbon mics) at a 90 degree angle to the first to pick up the sounds at the "side" of the image. When you mix it, there are various ways of doing it, but essentially there's some trickery done with the side mic so to create a left and right image. Some do this by copying the track to a new track, panning one hard left and one hard right, and then phase inverting one side. Others just use a plugin to do it :)

I'm a big fan of M/S micing for acoustic guitar as it gives a very focused stereo sound. If you're playing flute in a nice sounding room in a mix with very few instruments, M/S may work really well to capture the space as well as the main sound, although in a denser mix just one mic should be enough.

As kip said, it also took me some time and experimenting to really grasp the best positioning of a ribbon mic as well as what it can and can't do. Bare in mind that ribbons often need a healthy dose of EQ to make them shine and but, unlike some condenser mics, ribbon mics love EQ and can take huge boosts without distorting or sounding too horrible. Also, if you've not got one already, it's worth investing in a half decent pop filter to help stop any blasts of air hitting the ribbon, especially if you're using it quite close to the flute.
 
Spinney Lainey said:
Eek, so I need to buy two mics now.....! Damn!

Do you think I'd get away with one to start with?
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Lol, you don't need two mics at all, one mic would be more than absolutely fine, we're just explaining what M/S is and why it can be cool and with a ribbon mic in collection you're already half way there if the mood should take you
 
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