Capsules for the G7

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Category 5

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 24, 2004
Messages
698
Location
Palm Beach, FL
I know there are multiple capsules which work in the G7 project, and it is dawning on me that the Peluso mign not be the only CK12 style capsule with merit. Also, maybe it's a K67 type that will perform the best.

What capsules have some of you guys used and acheived STELLAR results? I know Gus used the B2 Pro capsule in the 800g ctyle mic, but what aqbout the G7?

I would really prefer to use a CK12 style capsule, but other than the Pel. part I don't know of any that fit the bill and come recommended.

Have you built a G7? What did you use and how did it sound (I know its' subjective, but try)

Shane
 
I used a new teflon CK12 from the C414BULS. Sounds nice. I got it from my local AKG dealer, Long and McQuade. They ordered it as a spare part, no questions asked.

I just tried my G7-like mic (I built one before I knew about the G7) with a DIY'ed M7-like capsule (glued diaphragm, 6u mylar, same hole pattern) and it sounds pretty good too. I swap capsules out all the time in it.

The 'Blue' capsules are supposed to be quite good, but they are the Neumann style. One thing about Neumann style capsules (K67, K87, but not the M7 or K47) is they typically want an amplifier with top-end rolloff - look at the U67 or U87 schematics for an example of this.
 
I don't want to come off as a total dick, but...(and since I feel guilty for chasing you off the BMarket capsule buy thread...)

At the level of "stellar" performance alot of gear is finally evaluted subjectively-- it might make sense to build to G7 circuit/body and debut it w/ different capsules, through the same mic pre for consistancy, like the M1 (or the G9 to provide a review of that pre's capabilities as well.) There could be recordings posted for each using acoustic guitar, vox both male and female, guitar amps and etc. You could also experiment with grill combos also. I'm hoping, once I actually get it together , to post some wavs doing just this.

It could also be easier to answer your question, Shane, if we knew what you anticipate using the mic for. Since there's not, nor will there ever be, one mic that records all sounds well, or even likeably well, if the question were posed qualitatively you might get more useful responses.

In any case I'm not sure one capsule over another will be a waste of money. You query seems economically motivated, so it's fair to ask how much are you prepared to spend on one capsule?

Jazzypidday seems to like Peluso's CK12 capsule better than the Blue Cactus capsule: an opinion that will save you $250. JP hasn't mentioned what he's recording or how, if the mic is for guitar, if he uses proximity effect, if the mic is a room mic, a drum overhead, male vox, female vox, etc. To date I don't think anyone has used the Kiwi or Plum capsule. The Kiwi is visually intriguing, plastic clamps.

http://www.groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=5066&start=0

Don't forget, stuffing a G7 into a mass produced mic limits, to a degree, your grill options. The B2 Pro might seem like a bargain until you want to change the head grill or when a client wrinkles her nose up at a B'inger mic on the stand. An MXL would fair better, image wise, than a B'inger; your image is on the line here as well. A mic handmade to look like a Tele would generate some intrigue; a B2 could very well generate disdain. AFAIK Gus just used the capsule and mount, at very little savings over a Peluso capsule and mount, since I'm assuming he chucked the body. Economically it might serve you to purchase some tools to make mic bodies with rather than shoving your mic into someone elses mic, know what I mean? Presumably you would make more if you liked what you ended up with, or you would make several with different capsules to fill different needs. The Blue capsules do seem like a bargain, especially if you got your braggin' rights and told people the mic was fitted with a Blue capsule. Given Blue's prices, i.e., you could buy a very nice used car for the price of two Blues, compared to the price of build a G7 or variant, & that includes a primo tube like a vintage Tele EF86 (estimating total cost w/Blue cap and primo tube plus the project at just under $1K,) your attention to the physical details and appearance of the mic could pay off in spades. A B'dinger mic will never get you that kind of credibility.
 
Hi

i prefer the Peluso CK12 on my voice
but i really love the Cactus and the CK12 Peluso
i can't make a choice between the two.
it's simply like two different very good mics.

the Cactus sounds better to the voice of my friend
who have less bass in the voice and aggressive treeble.

The only thing i can say with my differents capsules tests
is that the G7 (OEP based) seems to not be a good choice for "stellar" mic.
Because the high-end is sweet but not airy, even with the Focusrite ISA220.
I don't know the sound of the G7 with the classic Lundahl.

The Blue Cactus is plastic too.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/jazzy_pi/DSCF0014.jpg
 
Don't feel like a di*k Brad. It was stupid of me to clog your group buy thread and I apologize.

My intent for this mic is vocals for myself mainly. My most satisfying mic now is my Rode NTK. I also have an NT2 that works well on some breathier type of stuff, but the NTK sounds good on everything. I am just looking for the next step up. My pres are Milennia HV-3, MP-20 modded, API 312s, 1272, and Jensen dual J99.

I will not use a pre made body eithe way. My Dad has a small machine shop and is going to build the body for me depending on what specs I send him. Should others in the group like it I may be able to persuade him to make more. I WOULD like it if i could find a grille similar to the Studo Projects grilles already made. The Grille piece is the part that concerns me the most.

With regards to the capsule, I would like to try to stay true to the G7 recommendations, since my other 2 mics use the Neuman center connected type (I think) but I am open to suggestions.

Money is of course a factor, but not the priority. I want a good mic when this is done. I don't want to buy a Peluso capsule and find out it completely sucks, and then have people start telling me "what did you expect, it's a $175.00 capsule". Then again, I don't want to buy the BLUE or an AKG 414 replacement and hear people tell me "you wasted your money, the Peluso is just as good or better. That's what you get for buying a name!"

I know as well as anybody that sound quality is subjective, but at the same time there are certain classes of quality (regardess of their actual character of sound) into which certain parts are lumped, and I am trying to sort those out before i drop the cash. I don't like wasting money.

For example, I pretty much gather that except for possibly 797 capsules, the chinese made parts are probably not going to get me what I want. I also gather the Oktava capsules are not a good idea to consider. I am wondering whether Peluso and 797 are real options, or is it worth it to just go for the BLUE capsule. I am just trying to categorize my options. I would love to TRY them all, but if I had the flow to do that I would be buying real vintage mics and fixing them up...not building from scratch.

So far I know there is the option of 797, Peluso, BLUE, AKG. What else is there to consider? To me, getting the Behringer was just a short cut to a dual diaphragm 797 with mount, and maybe some 1gigs and an extra body for a future project.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Shane
 
[quote author="Jazzy_Pidjay"]Hi

i prefer the Peluso CK12 on my voice
but i really love the Cactus and the CK12 Peluso
i can't make a choice between the two.
it's simply like two different very good mics.

the Cactus sounds better to the voice of my friend
who have less bass in the voice and aggressive treeble.

The only thing i can say with my differents capsules tests
is that the G7 (OEP based) seems to not be a good choice for "stellar" mic.
Because the high-end is sweet but not airy, even with the Focusrite ISA220.
I don't know the sound of the G7 with the classic Lundahl.[/quote]

What's your mic placement, how far from the mic do you sing?
 
we "rap" at about 10-15cm of the mic.
with the mouth front of the capsule
(foam & anti-pop)
the G7 is really a big vocal microphone :thumb:

if we spoke at about 5-10cm of the mic
we obtain an enormous voice full of bottom.

:thumb: Jakob !
 
[quote author="Category 5"] I don't want to buy a Peluso capsule and find out it completely sucks, and then have people start telling me "what did you expect, it's a $175.00 capsule". [/quote]

By every indication, here and elsewhere, the Peluso capsules most certainly do not suck. You shouldn't be anxious over that buy, most people were elated that it cost *only* $195 w/mount.

$200 more for the Blue name isn't that much, tttt. Given that artists/producers are usually more brand loyal or impressionable than engineers, to me it's not a bad investment to be able to honestly declare you've got a Blue capsule in your mic.

The transformer's a bit important as well. JP's has an OEP in it. I'm sure it would sound different with a Lundahl in it, and it would sound different again with a Cinemag in it. I use Beyer 10:1's to run the Royer LD circuit in the 991/603, they sound far different than the Jensen (especially while saturating....)

I don't think you need to be anxious about these components; even if they don't please you you can swap them out and reuse them in other projects.
 
[quote author="Jazzy_Pidjay"]we "rap" at about 10-15cm of the mic.
with the mouth front of the capsule
(foam & anti-pop)
the G7 is really a big vocal microphone

if we spoke at about 5-10cm of the mic
we obtain an enormous voice full of bottom.

Jakob ![/quote]

Have you tried singing about 18 inches (45-50 cm) away with just a pop filter? Proximity effect increases lf, but what about typical mic placement, as opposed to swallowing the mic and then singing.
 
Actually i use the foam because
the foam is conductive and help me
to remove the noise due to my grill.
i don't observe any high-end rolloff with the foam.

i havn't tried to sing so far, with real tests.
 
Some more opinions - and treat them just as that.... things that worked for me....

My two G7's, which I built using new 'teflon' AKG capsules for 414s (the new 'CK12') have found a role as my first choice for drum overhead mics. For me that's an important role as I usually just use 4 mics for kit (stereo overheads plus kick & snare for reinforcements).

I didn't like the G7s much on the male, welsh, very loud vocalist that I normally record with. He has a good set of lungs and the kind of voice that usually sounds better through a SM59beta than through a Neumann. Maybe if the circuit has some kind of pad.....

We did use the G7s for recording female pop vocals one - it suited the singer and style.

But very often I have prefered the 'Royer Mod' mics (or variations on that circuit) with the cheap 'soundking' type capsule for vocals and for acoustic git.

Also, I have some 747 types that I may try in the mics sometime, but as they get used a lot, I'll probably just make a new mic sometime instead.

Hope that helps a little. Just opinions & my ears, though, which should not be trusted.
Stewart
 
I'm still a luddite so I need to take film pictures and develop them... but sound files I can do.

http://www.10000cows.com/AudioFiles.htm

You'll have to pardon the voice - I rarely attempt singing. I was about 4" from the mic, Stedman metal pop screen between me and it. Signal chain starts with a U89 mic amp, a DIY 1073-clone, no EQ, Sowter transformers, Alesis HD24 recorder, all digital, no EQ after that.
 
thanks for the audio sample, dale.
what the heck is that song? hahah.

strangely, i think it might have convinced me to go with the Blue capsule for mine.
i'm looking for a more open and prominent "airy" top end. your sample seemed to have the same overall tonality of a lot of the Chinese mics, though smoother of course. lots of 6Khz but not much exciting going on above that.
 
Pearls before swine ( no slight intended to anyone).

I wonder how many people listening to your soundclip, Dale, realize that they're listening to the end result of someone who liked microphones so much that he built a vacuum evaporation system and taught himself to evaporate gold onto Mylar. Studied pictures of capsule backplates in order to figure out exactly what all that mess does. And spent so much of they're free time trying to perfect building one that sounds as decent as yours does.

My hat's off to you. That's the second best sounding clip I've ever heard. The first being the sound clip of my first capsule

tk12b.jpg


I posted this on the "Down with Clones" thread but in case you didn't see it. A new type I'm working on. Very promising but giving me hell.

It sure seems of a lot easier to go out and buy a decent sounding capsule.
But sanity has never been one of my strong points.
 
my bad.

for some reason i thought that sound clip was of the AKG Teflon CK-12 capsule in a G7. congratulations on getting such a natural sound out of your own capsule. i can only imagine the amount of work it took, and i've followed the capsule-building threads around here.

doesn't change the fact that it doesn't jive with my tastes though. it's natural, but it wouldn't work in the kind of mixes that i do. just not enough air. i'm looking for a slightly scooped sound.
how do you think the sound of your capsule, dale, compares to the sound of others you've tried?
 
I guess we're a bit off-topic here, but your capsue looks very interesting. Is that a three-chamber (CK12-like) or something more adventurous? I was thinking about getting into the chambered capsules too, but I wanted to understand and at least be able to make a single backplate work first. I have some ideas on tweaking the capsule's response so I may try making another with a few modifications.

Today I started working on a chambered capsule (modelled after the CK12 description in their patent). I have the backplates and chamber 'plates' machined but not drilled. I made the chamber plates so I could vary the the chamber volume by just swapping out the plates. It is very easy for me to make even 20 chamber plates on the lathe and mill, I can make and drill about 1 per hour with the tooling and machines I have here, so I thought I'd do that.

The capsule you're hearing is a mylar version of an M7 - the dimensions and tuning are from various patents, and from Marik. I think the M7 capsule really wants a certain tube amplifier, and that was also my feeling when listening to a FET 47 as well.
 
You guys making capsules from scratch are in a whole other realm! My hats off to you! That's about as impressive as it gets!

I have decided to make a removable capsules system like the Lawsons so I can easily mix and match capsules and ciruit designs. It will probbaly be a bit more work, but I think in the long run it will be worth it.

Does anyone know if the body MUST be brass? I was thinking about using aluminum or stainless for cost reasons.

Also, I am using the Peluso first but would also like to try some others. Is the capsule in the 414BULS the same as all other CK12s? I can get one of those pretty inexpensively and take out the capsule.


Has anyone thought about using the capsule from the ADK Vienna? I think it is rumored to be a good copy of a CK12, and the screen looks like it could be re-used too. I know the ADK mics use 797 capsules usually, but the one in the Vienna doesn't look like a regular 797 offering.

The BLUE capsules are all center connected neuman styles, and it dawns on me that the G7 circuit might not be the best choice for these types.

Thanks!
Shane
 
Back
Top