pucho and a 5 minute mod to an MK-319 that costs nada pics

I didn't come up with this so I take no credit... I read about it on the internet and tried it out as it didn't cost a dime other then 5 minutes of time...
t I have 2 MK-319 mics. I have read the octava mod site and was like the mics are not bad to start off with considering the $$. There is much one can do to upgrade to them but I don't have the parts and what not.
Anyway long story short, I took one mic and removed the plastic discs that are mounted to both sides of the capsule... there was a night and day difference between the mic with the plastic disc's(stock) and the mic without the plastic dics(modded). The modded one offered a more smooth frequence response and less of a bass boost and hi end boost that the stock one had.
Tested the mics side to side on the same instrument with the exact same mic pre's in the exact same position. Oh boy the modded one sounded so good on that martin acoustic guitar. The stock one was mushy mids with big bass and brittle high end.I am quite pleased with the sound and if anyone wanted to host some mono sound files for me i could provide them of the before and after...I will post pics later on tonight when i get home.

Hey Pucho,

How big are those files? I could upload them tonight when i get home from work. Still on dial up, so a bit slow, but I'm sure it'll still work.

I've got quite a bit of free webspace.

not big at all I just don't have websapce for files just a photo bucket account....

here are the photos of the mod.

here is the mic(stock)



we take the top off by removing 4 screws. I actually think that is a cleaver mic design and might do similar if I was doing A mic body from sctrach...



here we have the plastic rings removed... 4 screws hold each ring on each side so 8 screws total.


Lastly the plastic ring that causes the mic to not sound as good as it can as a stock circuit

I'll host the clips for you on Kenetek.com if you want. PM me and we'll work out how to transfer the files.

Thanks!!!

--- joe

oh yes that is the first thing to do on a 219/319.

second on a 219 would be to cut that resonant mess off the grills and then dampen the body with car undercoating.

it sounds pretty nice after that.

That capsule(219/319) is a weird one you might like it better with the baffles on for some things.

The stock circuit is nice even the stock parts ceramic caps, fet, transformer and resistors work for somethings.
Sometimes the Oktavas sound better with an acoustic with stock parts.

I worked on a large optical bed laser scanners/recorders years ago (1600lbs IIRC) built on NR optical tables . One time to save cost the steel weldups for holding the rotating and fixed optics was changed to a Al casting. The early casting had air voids. Air voids make it next to impossable to damp metal.
I believe the bodys of the 219 have a casting with air voids because the ones I have do not damp well they still ring even trying different damping methods. The best I could do was to use a C clamp and squeeze the body front to back almost to cracking the metal. Is the 319 body the same metal?

I sprayed in 1/4" of underbody coating for cars and allowed it to dry then cut away where I didn't want the coating. It made the mic very heavy but the metal doesn't ring anymore. Some folks use RTV but RTV has a habit of staying "bouncy" which allows sound waves to vibrate it, in other words the body stays ringy.

after that my mics sound pretty nice for what they are. Albeit they aren't NICE like other mics but they work very well for acoustic instruments.

Gus
I'l say this about the 319, For the money, it's not such a bad mic. Removing the disc did improve the sound on our test instrument a mic's martin acoustic. The general agrement was that it was improved in sonic compared to the stock one. I am sure one could really trick it out but this "mod"was a quick and cost was just time. Shit maybe this was way more expensive then I thought :? It's been so long since I held a 219 but IIRC it's different metal then the 319.

yes different body, same guts.

I think he was refering to what the body is constructed of VS body shape :?

Gus have you tried swapping out the capsule and do you feel that is wise?

Thanx for the tip!
Discconnected

/Hampus

Hey Pucho, do you still need someone to host those files??

My group diy account froze for a bit there........ but you can send the files to sjamesmusic at gmail dot com and i can host them for ya.

yeah didn't get the convert to MP3 yet... will do it tonight and e-mail it out tomorrow

Lowfreq, hide your email unless you want spam.

Roddy

Cool, cheers for that. Done

I never knew why people didn't just write it out correctly. :roll:

You learn something new everyday

Pucho,

When you did the mod, did you re-install the screws that held the phase discs (or whatever they are called) on? A year or so ago there was an article in Recording magazine describing a mod. I bought a pair and modded them per instructions: changing out the 500M bias resistors for 1G, changing capsule coupling cap, remove phase discs if you wanted to, etc. I did not reinstall the screws because the article did not say to do that. I did a pair for a friend and he then sent them in to the Oktavamod.com guy who said that leaving the screws out was de-tuning the capsule making it sound less than it's best. He said the he put the screws back in to approximately the same 'tightness' and this made the mics sound like they should. I never heard them once they were re-teched so I know nothing of the difference. I never did mess with putting the screws back in mine and I like how they sound. I compared them side by side with a random U87 and I could hardly tell the difference. I think they are pretty decent mics.

I had very little success damping the body. A bit of foam under the capsule seemed to make it a little nicer...

screws are at the bottom of the los angeles river by now along side Jimmy the nose. he had it coming for taking all of Crazy Gidion's merchendise to pay Crazy's gambling debts in Vegas. Shit I said too much... I didn't put them back in I see no real reason to do so but then again I'm not selling a mod by using a lot of hi-fi buzz words. Next you'll see people putting in zoso caps in their tube mics... oh well can't do anything about it now and I like the sound. I havn't even played with recaps and changing resistor value's just removing the disc. I am thinking on putting in a whole new capsule and loading it down with some 1G resistors... but that is far off...

I wonder if epoxy putty from the auto parts store would work to dampen the mic bodies. It is dense but still a little flexible when cured. I'd try the kind that's yellow and blue (green when mixed) if you can find it.

The web is not always good, of couse you need to replace the screws.

I hope one would not use less bolts to hold a car wheel on.