Possible dodgy ribbon mic

Up until now, I had been using an MXL V67g for my vocals. It wasn't the greatest, but it was adequate. Recently, however, it's magically turned itself into a fantastic white noise source, and I found myself needing to re-record all my vocals with the modded ribbon mic. No worries, I said. That's why I bought and modded the thing, anyway.

Except I'm not too sure about how well it's doing the job.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7330808/03%20And%20So%20I%20Face%20the%20Stars.mp3

I'm not asking for critiques of my singing ability. I know I'm not that great. I'm just wondering if this mic, which is an Apex 210 with an EDCOR ribbon transformer swapped in, is anywhere close to up to snuff. I have to crank the highs (8-12kHz) upwards of 7-8dB just to get it to this, and it still sounds kinda dull.

I have some foil to replace the ribbon, but damn, that's gonna be a tricky fix.

Thank you very much for your help!

Ribbon mics are typically going to be darker than condensors, but you are right, your recording does sound dull. It also sounds like there is some mud in there as well. Cutting some lows might help bring out some more clarity on the recordings. Are you boosting highs with a shelf? 8db boost is pretty huge.

What did the mic sound like before the mod? Did you do any other mods to the mic? I think it would be a good idea to check the ribbon to see if it is sagging. A sagging ribbon could be the cause of your high frequency loss. I'd check the recordings on a spectrum analyzer to see where the highs are being rolled off. The Apex 210 supposedly has a freq response of 30hz-18khz at +/- 3db, so it should sound much brighter than what you are currently getting. I will say that the vocal sounded warm and smooth, so the ribbon mic is doing what it is supposed to be doing.

I can't speak to the edcor transformer, but it shouldn't be the cause of this issue. You could be getting some loss from the wiring or something like that, so you might want to try cleaning all the contacts in the mic. Double check your wiring as well. Hope some of this helps.

I also thought your singing was pretty good!

It could be several things. What kind of pre? This is a case where a bright, non-tube pre could help.
  Did they check the ribbon tension when they modded it, as I-clown mentioned? Did they remove all the inner protection screens?
  When you sang into it, were you right on top of it? These mics have lot of proximity effect. I use one for guitar cabs and love it, but you can't put it too close or the low end is overpowering. If there is a low cut on your pre, you might try that.
  Mine still has the original ribbon and transformer, but after I re-tensioned the ribbon and removed the inner screens, it sounds great. I still add highs during mixing, but not as far as you're going. Didn't like it for vox, but I have lots of other choices there.
  Actually ordering a Cinemag for it right now, and have 1.8 micron ribbon material, but I kinda like it, and wonder if I shouldn't mess with it.
  Maybe just look inside your V67 and see if something isn't obviously wrong with it. Tug on wires gently and look at it closely with a magnifier. Not too much to go bad in those unless you bang 'em up. Have you replaced the capsule to gate cap, or done any other work on it recently? Check that.

Thanks, guys! I'll try to answer the pertinent questions.

I modded the mic myself, but I did it with my old iron, which couldn't really handle ROHS solder. My initial feeling is that the soldering job on the new trafo is dodgy, and I should re-do it with my new iron. I did remove the internal wind screens.

The ribbon looks okay for now. I've already fixed a sag in it once. I'll think about re-ribboning it after the album is out. I have some material suitable for the job.

As for the sound quality, I re-discovered an old Motown trick where I copy the vocal track, filter out everything below a cutoff of about 5kHz or so (this turns out to be a touchy setting that has to be played with - 5kHz seems to work for my voice), compress the crap out of it, then bring it up below the main vocal to taste. It sounds a LOT better than trying to boost the highs.

Okay, this is with the Motown Exciter trick on my vocals, plus a bit of bus compression thrown on. Well, not thrown on. I kinda agonized over it. I think it sounds a lot better.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7330808/03%20And%20So%20I%20Face%20the%20Stars%20-%20Rev2.mp3