so who is the big cheese in ribbon mics this week?

[tubedude]

You need a good, quiet, high gain pre with any ribbon mic. Get the AEA TRP, and many ribbons sound great.

I have the Beyer M500, Shiny 46 mxl, R121 and R84. The Shiny is Ok, but the others are so much better I rarely use the 46. The M500 is very underrated.

The AEA TRP made a big difference in the sound of all of the mics.

Hey, I've got a Shinybox stock that we shot out with a Royer 121, 122, 122v and Beyer 500 at Wageners place the other day. It was a perfectly usable sound, but wasnt quite up there with the Royers. We thought it smoked the Beyer though. Do you think your Lundahl is making much, if any, difference? How far off is it compared to the others you have... Just a little or a lot?
I'm really wanting to either do a transformer change or get a Royer. Royers are too much cash for me right now though. DId you listen to the Shinybox sample I posted? How was it?

 

[dgatwood]

Do you think your Lundahl is making much, if any, difference? How far off is it compared to the others you have... Just a little or a lot?

I have two Nady RSM-2 mics, both modded with a Lundahl transformer. When I modded them, I added a switch so I could choose which transformer to use on the fly. On one, the difference is pretty significant. On the other, the difference is almost inaudible.

Basically, transformers should be acoustically transparent. Most are pretty darn close. If the coils aren't wound correctly, though, they will sound bad. With cheap Chinese transformers, there's a lot less quality control, so you might see no difference at all when you mod one or you might see the difference between night and day.

Judging from most low cost manufacturing plants, my guess is that it all depends on whether it was one of the ones they hand wound at the end of the day when they were trying to meet their quota so they could go home....

 

[tubedude]

Allright then, go listen to the sample, and tell me if you think you hear anything funky in there that might denote needing a better transformer.

 

[pohaku]

Hey, I've got a Shinybox stock that we shot out with a Royer 121, 122, 122v and Beyer 500 at Wageners place the other day. It was a perfectly usable sound, but wasnt quite up there with the Royers. We thought it smoked the Beyer though. Do you think your Lundahl is making much, if any, difference? How far off is it compared to the others you have... Just a little or a lot?
I'm really wanting to either do a transformer change or get a Royer. Royers are too much cash for me right now though. DId you listen to the Shinybox sample I posted? How was it?

I'm curious, what did you try them out on? I usually think of the Royers as predominantly instrument mics and the Beyer M500 as a vocal mic.

 

[riffy]

was curious about the K6's.
The chart on the Karma site shows a pretty radical drop of the highs for this mic.

Yeah I second this question. Would this equate to a dark & dull sound on say a non-sibilant female singer, kidvybes? Could this mic work well with high toned female singers?

 

[tubedude]

I'm curious, what did you try them out on? I usually think of the Royers as predominantly instrument mics and the Beyer M500 as a vocal mic.

All on dirty guitar cabinets. The M500 was fizzy city.

 

[pohaku]

All on dirty guitar cabinets. The M500 was fizzy city.

Yeah, I wouldn't use the M500 on cabs. It has a bit of a presence peak. Was originally designed to be a performance vocal mic (think Sinatra). I'd use the M160 on cabs. Sounds great in that application. The M260 (older one) also works pretty well, but not as good as the M160 which is a double ribbon mic. The M130 is also usable on cabs although it is a figure of 8 mic so you have to be concious of your room and the nulls.

 

[kidvybes]

Yeah I second this question. Would this equate to a dark & dull sound on say a non-sibilant female singer, kidvybes? Could this mic work well with high toned female singers?

...I have to admit that I've only tracked male vocals on the K6 so far, but I would imagine, based on the female vocals we recorded on the Nady ribbon in the past, that the K6 would do equally well (the Nady helped to smooth out a "reedy" sounding female singer and give her voice more fullness)...
...the big difference I noticed with the Karma K6 is that it requires much less gain to get a strong signal...it sounds somewhat like a dynamic when pushed (similar to the SM7 on male vocals)...
...and although I've seen the chart that is posted on the Karma site, I wouldn't classify the K6 as being "dull" by any means...I believe the audio sample track that was posted on the Karma site for the K6 was a female vocal track recorded by Jim Maxxon, a frequent contributor to this site...as I recall, the vocals did not seem at all dull, but actually nicely detailed on the upper frequencies...
...The K6 has a more "open" sound than the Nady, Apex and Stellar ribbon mics I previously used...at least that's been my experience with it...well worth looking into...especially with the "Free Trail" offer...