Well, after a long year with my lovely second child, I've managed to find a sweet spot where day to day work slowed down enough to finally tackle some mic builds I ambitiously targetted when Lani was about to be born...
Thought I'd write this up... might be of use to someone, might encourage someone to give it a go... dunno.
So:
* Vamisound LDC 84
- Excellent quality pcb
- very simple / quality build guide
- Amazing support, very quick - attentive and helpful for a few mistakes I made
* Capsulke: 3U 47 (standard)
- Simply put: great experience with Guongsheng... A little slow in emails, but gets there and totally recommend.
* Xfmr: (3U) GZT-84
- more 3U, same as above
* Body - TG-51 (from aliExpress)
- This body is solid, very good build... very impressed. I've bought other bodies from this shop, and some are absolute crap, others fine... this one is VERY nice though.
- I had to shave some of the PCB off to fit this body... I sand papered the bottom a mm or two... annoying... but end result is great. There's a similar body "TG-33" that "should" fit the pcb easily... Haven't tried one, but I'd aim for that next time (although I do love the smaller size / style)
The end product?... (sorry, can't work out how to change the size of this pic?)
I was SO instantly impressed. this combo is a very full sounding but forgiving setup - very low noise. detailed and dynamic... Lots of mids, and very deep and detailed. "Rich" comes to mind. Actually gave me a "sounds better than live" experience.. not sure what that means means for all scenarios, but I've never done a one-take and said "needs nothing" like this... I'd add compression in a mix, sure, but it sounds great and literally sh#ts on my current go to mics at home (e.g. SE 4001A, which are very noisy and high focussed) and instantally felt like the "the best mics i've used", which from earlier day's in studios includes some fancier mics in the thousands of dollars range... very chuffed. I'd hoped to make it make a sound... didn't expect it to sound this good.
Here's a quick averagely mic'd stereo recording of a thin body acoustic guitar... traditionally sounds very thin in past recordings... sounds very nice in comparison here:
https://app.box.com/s/rdduql9q4imestj7xgukm7xyt8idbnpk
Lessons?
- Well.. I stupidly wired the Xfmr wrong... that's on me of course
...
- I pulled the capsule wires through "gently", but on one mic I actually managed to scrape the sheath of the wire and it grounded to the chasis... was a missive head fck to work out that was the problem, but a little bit of tape on the wire solved that eventually.
- I DID wear golves the whole time... just worried about finger prints and adding conductive junk to the board... I'm VERY impressed wirth noise levels... Maybe that helped.
What I would say is: it was a simple build, my hurdles were internal worries about doing somethign wrong, and the end result is fantastic (subjectively, to me).
Highly recommend Vamisound in general from my experience, and the LDC84 is a big win for me
Thought I'd write this up... might be of use to someone, might encourage someone to give it a go... dunno.
So:
* Vamisound LDC 84
- Excellent quality pcb
- very simple / quality build guide
- Amazing support, very quick - attentive and helpful for a few mistakes I made
* Capsulke: 3U 47 (standard)
- Simply put: great experience with Guongsheng... A little slow in emails, but gets there and totally recommend.
* Xfmr: (3U) GZT-84
- more 3U, same as above
* Body - TG-51 (from aliExpress)
- This body is solid, very good build... very impressed. I've bought other bodies from this shop, and some are absolute crap, others fine... this one is VERY nice though.
- I had to shave some of the PCB off to fit this body... I sand papered the bottom a mm or two... annoying... but end result is great. There's a similar body "TG-33" that "should" fit the pcb easily... Haven't tried one, but I'd aim for that next time (although I do love the smaller size / style)
The end product?... (sorry, can't work out how to change the size of this pic?)
I was SO instantly impressed. this combo is a very full sounding but forgiving setup - very low noise. detailed and dynamic... Lots of mids, and very deep and detailed. "Rich" comes to mind. Actually gave me a "sounds better than live" experience.. not sure what that means means for all scenarios, but I've never done a one-take and said "needs nothing" like this... I'd add compression in a mix, sure, but it sounds great and literally sh#ts on my current go to mics at home (e.g. SE 4001A, which are very noisy and high focussed) and instantally felt like the "the best mics i've used", which from earlier day's in studios includes some fancier mics in the thousands of dollars range... very chuffed. I'd hoped to make it make a sound... didn't expect it to sound this good.
Here's a quick averagely mic'd stereo recording of a thin body acoustic guitar... traditionally sounds very thin in past recordings... sounds very nice in comparison here:
https://app.box.com/s/rdduql9q4imestj7xgukm7xyt8idbnpk
Lessons?
- Well.. I stupidly wired the Xfmr wrong... that's on me of course
...- I pulled the capsule wires through "gently", but on one mic I actually managed to scrape the sheath of the wire and it grounded to the chasis... was a missive head fck to work out that was the problem, but a little bit of tape on the wire solved that eventually.
- I DID wear golves the whole time... just worried about finger prints and adding conductive junk to the board... I'm VERY impressed wirth noise levels... Maybe that helped.
What I would say is: it was a simple build, my hurdles were internal worries about doing somethign wrong, and the end result is fantastic (subjectively, to me).
Highly recommend Vamisound in general from my experience, and the LDC84 is a big win for me
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