alternate tunings
- December 13th, 2013
- Posted in diy . recording gear . songs
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Been fiddling with the new pre-amp and ribbon microphone I built. Also with alternate tunings; I’ve found that tuning up a half-step really resonates my zouk; I’ll be doing that on the soundtrack album for Something’s Coming.
Reminder: everything on Bandcamp is still set to pay-what-you-like download. Grab while grabbing is good! Some of you have been and some of you have thrown tip money too, for which I think you muchly. ^_^
I also found that dropping three steps but keeping the high string on E on the zouk results in kind of an E sus 2 opening tuning; it interacts interestingly playing against a mandolin in standard tuning. I made a quick recording of a simple progression – it’s rough, but you get the idea.
That’s recorded on the ribbon microphone and new pre-amp, too if you’re wondering what those sound like. I’ve no idea how to use this mic to best effect yet, but I’m liking the sound so far.
This is awesome.
The classic radio mics had a ribbon made of an alloy called Duralumin. Mostly aluminum with copper, manganese, and magnesium, this was the stuff that was thin yet tough enough to serve as dirigible skins.
There are only two rules I can think of for ribbon microphones.
The first is, their pickup pattern is bidirectional so you want to be very careful of any reflections behind the mic that could cause comb-filtering or other phase distortion.
The second is, distance is your friend. Ribbon mics suffer from what’s known as the proximity effect; once you get within 18 inches or so, the bass response increases heavily. The old RCA 44 series had an attenuator circuit that could be used for announcers, actors, singers, and other talent who worked close to the microphone. Ordinarily this was done by moving a spade lug connector in the bottom of the case, but CBS radio mics had a custom switch installed, marked V (for voice) on the attenuated side and M (for music) on the non-attenuated side. M was standard, as it was presumed that the primary use of the microphone was going to be for orchestras and dance bands, which were always mic’ed from a distance of 3 feet or so.
The third (okay, I lied) is that phantom power will fry the element, or at least it will on the old-school mics. Modern designs, like Beyer, have protective circuits. I haven’t looked at the Austin site, but chances are good that they’ve taken accidental phantom into consideration with their design.
This mic project looks amazing. My mind is blown; I had no idea that this was even possible. Congratulations on a fine new microphone. Here’s to many years of reliable service. 🙂
@hubbit: Yeah, I’m aware of the pickup pattern – a lot of my studio is set up to avoid that first bounce, specifically i play into two layers of multilayer baffle! Take that, comb filtering! ^_^
I like playing with proximity effect so that’s a plus for me. It did seem to be picking up bass really well, which I guess is part of recording at the close range I did! Good to know it’s a mic property, thanks. That’ll be fun to fiddle with.
This mic is specifically not set up to filter phantom power so it’s definitively dangerous to use it. This mic never leaves the studio s a result, but that’s okay, that’s what I bought it for. Same for the preamp, too. The designer said he didn’t like what the affordable circuits did to the high end, so he just decided, NOPE! No phantom. And I have enough aluminium for another 10 or 15 goes at ribbons, so if and when I fuck it up, I can make new.
I love that i can make these ribbons now. Someday maybe I’ll stumble on an old dead RCA 44 and re-ribbon it myself! 😀
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