How does one "Tune" a capsule?

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Phrazemaster

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I'm genuinely curious about this. I can't imagine that the membrane is removed/reinstalled. On an M7 it's glued, so you're pretty much SOL in trying to do ANYTHING to "tune" that sucker. I suppose the center ring can be loosened but omg what would that do to the capsule as a whole...

With other designs like K49's, are the tension screws messed with?

Or what can possibly be done to "tune" a capsule once it's made?

Genuine curiosity.
 
You cannot "tune" a capsule once it is made. The membrane on AKG's , M7 and most Chinese capsules are glued. Other Neumann capsule's membranes are held to tension by friction. Once the screws are released the membrane relaxes and all the tension is lost.
 
Tim Campbell said:
You cannot "tune" a capsule once it is made. The membrane on AKG's , M7 and most Chinese capsules are glued. Other Neumann capsule's membranes are held to tension by friction. Once the screws are released the membrane relaxes and all the tension is lost.

Indeed  :)
DAn,
 
Think people
Heat to the glass transitional temp in a temp controlled oven.
I have done this with a capsule as an experiment however it was a clamped edge not glued like a M7 .
You can split the dual backplate and change the spacer between
you can rotate the backplate
 
Some capsules were engineered and specifically meant to be tuned, notably Sony 37 and brass ring CK12. In the Sony you can change the diaphragm tension and chamber size. In the brass ring CK12 because of machined in fine threading you can change the chamber size for desired tone, or both halves matching. In the later CK12 production they changed the design for a press fit, so without pretty involved modification you cannot tune those.

Best, M
 
Marik said:
Some capsules were engineered and specifically meant to be tuned, notably Sony 37 and brass ring CK12. In the Sony you can change the diaphragm tension and chamber size. In the brass ring CK12 because of machined in fine threading you can change the chamber size for desired tone, or both halves matching. In the later CK12 production they changed the design for a press fit, so without pretty involved modification you cannot tune those.

Best, M
To add to Marik's comments on the CK12 ..frequency response can also be adjusted by changing the size of the spacers between the back plate halves this also works with K67 types, You can also change the spacer between the diaphragm and back-plate for different results, but you can only do this with Ck12 or know glued diaphragms as the K67 are generally not glued.
 
Many chinese capsules had diaphragms glued to the outside ring.
I had to add additional shim (removed from the back :D ) to the single sided k47 copy. It works fine in simple voice test but i need to do electrical testing to have sure.
 
Warbler mics seem to have interesting hole pattern, and their FR curves look pretty smooth. It would be a fairly easy job to get rid of some of existing holes.
 

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I remember that I once combined one half of a Neumann K87 capsule and one half of a K67 capsule into a 'new' capsule.  ;D
This was only possible because the diaphragms were glued.
No idea how this capsule measured, but it certainly didn't sound bad...
 
kingkorg said:
This is way too cool :)
Do you remember what capacitor you were using to get that mylar. Would be perfect for this SDC (mxl603) im modding these days.
it was just some old wima(I dont remember model), I believe you can use most film caps that are physically large enough(iirc this wima was 10uf 630v).
 

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