Tell me a famous song where a ribbon was used on vocal

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tjohnston

tjohnston

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Someone give me a few examples of a ribbon mic on vocals. I understand other things affect the sound on the final recording. I just want to know if anyone can tell the difference when they hear it coming through the stereo. For instance, can anyone listen to asong and say, "Thats a ribbon mic."
 
Well, I would guess just about anything from Elvis . . . and the entire Motown era in general.

Not certain, but it's a logical guess I suppose. :D

As far as being able to tell a ribbon, I doubt it's as easy as that. A ribbon mic does have some qualities one would normally describe as "natural," "unhyped," etc. Such qualities could also be attributed, I suppose, to some modern condensers (Blue Baby Bottle, Shure ksm32, others) as well as a number of electrets.

I suppose one could listen and say that a particular vocal sounds "ribbon-like," which would likely be characterized by a more natural sound, with a healthy dose of proximity effect.
 
Didn't Sinatra use ribbons on all his big hits? I thought so for some reason...

Or am I talking out my ass? :D
 
Sixpence None The Richer - "There She Goes". Coles 4038 on vocals w/ a bit of high shelf EQ (and Royer R121's on guitars).
 
esactun said:
Didn't Sinatra use ribbons on all his big hits? I thought so for some reason...
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Sinatra used RCA ribbons very early on, but was fairly well known as refusing to record with anything other than his trusty 'Tele (i.e. Telefunken/Neumann U47).
 
Well, its not a song, but Larry King and David Letterman use one every night.
I think most of Dean Martin's stuff was with a ribbon.
 
Ribbons

Since the '30's and lmost anything done up to World War Two usually was recorded and broadcast with ribbons with some dynamics used as well.
Condensors, the early ones, weren't that good.
It wasn't until the U47 appeared that condensors began to show up everywhere.
Altec made the first viable condensors on this side of the Atlantic, the best known being the coke bottle mic which began to replace the more fragile ribbons along with the German imports.
Ribbons still are preferred for many sources but seem to have fallen from favour for vocals, which is a shame, because they can tame shrieky female vocals and add "balls" to thinner voices because of the very pronounced proximity effect.
For many people, ribbons are a prime example of the so called "warmth" phenomenon when used along with tube mic pres.
 
ribbons again

By the way, the 77dx's on Letterman's and King's desks do work but usually only are used if the main micing system fails.
Networks are famous for having backup systems in place.
That's why most people are miced with two lav's and there's often a boom mic overhead as well.
 
radioprof said:
By the way, the 77dx's on Letterman's and King's desks do work but usually only are used if the main micing system fails.
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Sometimes they're not what they look like either. It might just be the shell of an RCA 77 that you're seeing, with something completely different inside.
 
Re: Ribbons

radioprof said:

Ribbons still are preferred for many sources but seem to have fallen from favour for vocals, which is a shame, because they can tame shrieky female vocals and add "balls" to thinner voices because of the very pronounced proximity effect.
Click to expand...

Proximity effect has to do with the pick-up pattern (cardioid, fig. 8 hyper-cardioid...) not the diaphram type.
 
Michael Jones said:
Proximity effect has to do with the pick-up pattern (cardioid, fig. 8 hyper-cardioid...) not the diaphram type.
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True. The vast majority of ribbon mic's are figure-8 patterns though, which do have the most pronounced proximity effect.
 
Am I the first to mention the Beatles, those reslo mics were ribbons.
 
darrin_h2000 said:
Am I the first to mention the Beatles, those reslo mics were ribbons.
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I don't think they ever recorded with those.
 
Re: ribbons again

radioprof said:
By the way, the 77dx's on Letterman's and King's desks do work but usually only are used if the main micing system fails.
Networks are famous for having backup systems in place.
That's why most people are miced with two lav's and there's often a boom mic overhead as well.
Click to expand...

The AT lookin mic Conan has is fully functional, and on all the time, cause he 'beatboxes' into it all the time. I wonder how many he's broken like that...
 
Well, if you are old enough, all of Bing Crosby's (David's father) recordings were done using ribbon mics. He wouldn't use anything else and always said he owed his career to ribbon mics.

Tom
 
Mmm... I hate to break it to you, but David Crosby is not Bing's son.

His father was a cinematographer by the name of Floyd Crosby. An Academy Award winning cinematographer, by the way.
 
But isnt dave crosby the dude that whote the book about how disfunctional the Crosby family was?
 
Chessrock, I think you're wrong about Motown. Check this out:

http://www.prosoundweb.com/recording/tapeop/olmo/olmo.php

A *very* interesting interview with Bob Ohlsson, one of the engineers. Here's a short quote:

"By the time I got into the recording studio, they’d gone to something radical. They rebuilt the studios, they bought those new Scullys I mentioned, and they bought around 40 Neumann KM86 mikes and donated all of the old mikes to the University of Michigan!"
 
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