Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by NBarnes21 » Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:21 am

Man, I had never thought about this in that much detail- super cool! Makes me think about how unique a blumlein pair of figure 8 mics are, and the fact that you can get a clearer stereo image due to the nulls on each side of the mics that you might not get with an x/y stereo pair in the same spot for instance. I’ve done some sessions with the AEA stereo R88 as an overhead and always thought that provided such a nice picture of the drum kit.
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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by øøøøøøø » Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:37 am

The R88 is a modern classic IMO.

Such a great microphone

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by DeathJag » Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:42 am

Yes thanks Mista Brad for the images and great info! I received the Monoprice ribbons and observed that crazy null all around them, while in front and behind sounded pretty identical. I was surprised at how dead it was, not even off-axis, it's dang near silent! Like my voice went to a distant room. I always mess around in a quiet space with my voice and helicopter headphones (RN-7506 from Remote Audio) to suss out the mic patterns. I also grabbed a super cheap Mxl V67G cardiod large diaphragm and could really hear the axis differences. That was super crispy compared to the ribbons, which is great! I have a plan for where I wanna try all of these mics.

Thank you again for all the great info.

In other news, my pair of Coles is scheduled to arrive today! I've had them sent to my production office instead of my home, so I may not get them until tomorrow. Sadly I'm working a late night tomorrow and then Sat helping with a friend's student film for 12 hours; I doubt I'll have any time to mess with them until next weekend. Boo!

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by øøøøøøø » Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:49 am

My Coles arrived, but they're in another city... I had them sent directly to the place where I'll be doing an upcoming project, so I won't actually get to see them for about another week.

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by cpeck » Sat Nov 12, 2022 5:41 am

I think I’m jumping on the Coles train this week. Missed the bottom most likely, but still almost half the price as Canadian retail.

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by horseblanket » Mon Nov 14, 2022 1:41 pm

Heard about these on a podcast: https://www.alderaudio.com

boutique ribbon mics for 400 bucks.

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by DeathJag » Mon Nov 14, 2022 2:59 pm

horseblanket wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 1:41 pm
Heard about these on a podcast: https://www.alderaudio.com

boutique ribbon mics for 400 bucks.
I had not! Those are real purdy, but that frequency response chart is wild! Up to 20kHz with a scoop between 1k and 6k?!! That seems very weird.

I barely had a weekend so I was not able to set up and test the Coles. I'm gonna have to find some serious stands for those, they're like 8 pounds each! I'm gonna look for some old grip C stands and about 40 pounds of sandbags to put on them.

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by øøøøøøø » Mon Nov 14, 2022 3:21 pm

-3dB @50Hz and (estimating) 12k…

I don’t make assessments without hearing but that would hint that the ribbon is both too massive and under too high of tension

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Nov 14, 2022 4:09 pm

Or it's just bullshit. I don't know anywhere near as much about ribbons as you guys, but the one that I do own claims to capture frequency up to 20k, which if it does is very negligible.

Frankly I wouldn't want it to anyway, I want it to sound like a ribbon, which it does. But I don't know, I haven't heard that microphone. But it seems to me that people are claiming some kind of exaggerated performance out of some ribbons these days.
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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by øøøøøøø » Mon Nov 14, 2022 8:12 pm

Ribbons can be tricky. The main complication is that they’re very sensitive to load impedance--much more than moving-coils or condensers.

Most self-recording musicians (and even many professional recording engineers) don't understand much about the input impedance of the preamps they use, but this has a pretty serious material impact on the performance of a ribbon microphone.

If presented with a load that’s too heavy (impedance too low), top end will roll off, extreme bottom end will roll off, and you’ll see lumps or dips in response wherever the ribbon's impedance varies (and most of them vary a lot)

A lot of what people think of as “ribbon sound”—dark and a bit bloated or midrangey—goes away if a well-designed mic is terminated with an optimal load. An RCA 44 or Coles 4038, when terminated with 20k or so of load impedance, will extend extremely low and quite far up with a character that's smooth and effortless. It won't have the same kind of brightness of a condenser, but it'll be nice and flat.

But terminate it with 600 ohms (like some very old gear designed for matched impedances) and the ribbon's movement will be quite restricted/damped by the load. It'll be quieter, and it'll have a harder time moving at high frequencies (making it sound dull). Worse yet, it'll be unevenly-loaded across its bandwidth, which makes its response less-flat.

In the midrange, a typical long ribbon will have an impedance that's fairly low (nominally 200 ohms is common). But at its self-resonance point (~20 Hz for an RCA 44BX) its impedance can be 4 or 5 times higher (or more!), which will mean the load impedance has even more of a damping (and attenuating) effect at those frequencies. Impedance also starts to go up as you approach the top end.

The rule of thumb is that you want the preamp's input impedance to be at least 10x a ribbon mic's worst-case scenario (some say 5x as much is enough). Many popular preamps have input impedances in the range of 1k5, which may just about get the job done at 1kHz but not at 40Hz (or 15kHz).

When ribbons were the dominant technology, recording engineers (much more than today) tended to have electronics engineering chops. It was part of the gig. Most studios had their own custom installations of gear, and it was a job requirement to be able to know how to navigate it and troubleshoot it.

Now that 95% of us "plug and play and hope," we are subject to jumping to conclusions a bit too quickly sometimes. :) If you’re not interested in being Tom Dowd, a Cloudlifter or FEThead etc is an easy, relatively-foolproof way to make sure your ribbons are performing as-designed with respect to load impedance (which impacts bandwidth and linearity)

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by mcatano » Sun Dec 11, 2022 6:19 am

Just a quick note to say that those monoprice ribbons are lovely sounding mics. I got home from tour this week, and finally had some time in my practice space to try them out on my drums.

I set the pair up 3ft in front of the kick, 3ft off the floor, in a blumlein pattern. That 3'x3' spot is usually my go-to "single mic for the whole kit" starting point, I can usually stick whatever mic is handy there and it'll sound like a reasonably-balanced drum kit without sounding too roomy or anything. That held true with the ribbons, but the stereo spread of the blumlein is very pleasant without that kind of teeth-grating "THESE DRUMS ARE STEREREREREREREOOOO" feeling I get from a lot of wide-panned kits in the studio (I like mono drums a lot).

The folks who have compared them to coles I think are largely correct, at least in terms of the general ballpark. They have a familiar kind of thuddy sound on the drums without a lot of harsh high end that I associate with coles OHs (caveat: I don't own 4038s but I've had them pointed at my head a lot over the years). I banged around a bit with the stereo pair and added in a kick (M380) and snare top (PR20), and I don't think I've been as happy with an un-EQ'd/processed 4-mic setup before in my space.

One-to-one, I imagine the coles are a more accurate/detailed mic with less weird glitches in the freq. response matrix, but will you notice when they're mixed in with a couple other mics in a kit? Whomst is to say. Would I rather have a pair of 4038s than a pair of these? Unhesitatingly yes. Would I rather have (checks math) $3000 than a pair of 4038s and still be able to record a drum kit in stereo? Also yes.

The $47 sale price from a few weeks back was silly, but honestly at the full $99ea they'd still feel like a great purchase IMO.

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by marqueemoon » Sun Dec 11, 2022 9:59 am

mcatano wrote:
Sun Dec 11, 2022 6:19 am
I banged around a bit with the stereo pair and added in a kick (M380) and snare top (PR20), and I don't think I've been as happy with an un-EQ'd/processed 4-mic setup before in my space.
Were you using the ribbons in blumlein in front of the kit?

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by DeathJag » Sun Dec 11, 2022 2:00 pm

I have not tested it with drums, but on guitar those Monoprice mics initially sound a little muddier than the Coles, but after some EQ they are remarkably similar! This is for guitar, I'm not sure what drums would sound like.

I also used the Coles about 2 feet from the guitar cabs for some guitar recording and they sounded awesome as well, but did need some EQ, which brought them into a similar territory as the insanely cheap Monoprice mics!

I put the Coles overhead on the drums, kind of close together to avoid massive cymbal crashes and get the top
heads. Then I got a super cheap (< $150) cardioid condenser large diaphragm MXL mic, and I have dangled that at head level looking over the drums and sort of hitting the symbols with the side axis. Adding the MXL really brings out those crispy highs that the ribbon mics don't really provide, and tastefully mixed in the drums sound fantastic!

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by øøøøøøø » Sun Dec 11, 2022 5:50 pm

I haven’t heard the monoprice mics, but the tricky thing with inexpensive ribbons has historically been the consistency.

When everyone was using those Nady and Cascade mics, the thing I noticed was that ribbon tensioning was highly variable which led to some highly variable-sounding mics

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Re: Ribbon mics, what are the favorites that are under $2k?

Post by mcatano » Sun Dec 11, 2022 8:58 pm

marqueemoon wrote:
Sun Dec 11, 2022 9:59 am
mcatano wrote:
Sun Dec 11, 2022 6:19 am
I banged around a bit with the stereo pair and added in a kick (M380) and snare top (PR20), and I don't think I've been as happy with an un-EQ'd/processed 4-mic setup before in my space.
Were you using the ribbons in blumlein in front of the kit?
yep

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