Icantthinkofaname
Well-known member
Would there be any downsides to rewiring my MK-012s' connectors? As in making pin 2 hot and pin 3 cold so the mic is wired "correctly"?
Any downsides to rewiring MK-012 connector?
- Thread starter Icantthinkofaname
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Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:
alexandronozeolu
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Just replace 2 and 3 pin wire
Icantthinkofaname
Well-known member
I saw in a thread elsewhere that the pin 3 hot helps with some wireless plugs like the Lectrosonics HMa.
Icantthinkofaname
Well-known member
Maybe a stupid question, but if MK-012s are wired pin 3 hot, are they recording in negative phase?
Icantthinkofaname
Well-known member
Could I just record it with another mic like the MKH 8050 to see if the waveforms are similar or if ones inverted?
I find that making a popping noise with my mouth is a great way to match the waveforms. You want a sound with a hard plosive at the beginning. Snapping your fingers works, too. Just ensure the diaphragms are equidistant from the sound source.
The schematic in post #12 shows that pin 2 is already the driven pin.
What did you think is driving pin 3?
I had of course spotted its impedence balanced not real balanced drive ,
lets say we used it as a vocal mic , the fact that the phase is reversed might cause things to sound a little funny in the performers headphones or if used as part of a multimic setup other weird anomylies in the frequency response .
I guess you could just leave the mic as is and use the phase reverse on the mic amp , but phase flip isnt always available on smaller mixers .
Lets take the case of a class A tube preamp , a positive plosive sound or transient at the capsule is likely to distort differently depending on the phase of the signal in the preamp , if the peak is positive going at the grid it will tend to turn on the tube more if its a negative one it tends to turn the tube off , when clipping is asymetric it makes a difference .
lets say we used it as a vocal mic , the fact that the phase is reversed might cause things to sound a little funny in the performers headphones or if used as part of a multimic setup other weird anomylies in the frequency response .
I guess you could just leave the mic as is and use the phase reverse on the mic amp , but phase flip isnt always available on smaller mixers .
Lets take the case of a class A tube preamp , a positive plosive sound or transient at the capsule is likely to distort differently depending on the phase of the signal in the preamp , if the peak is positive going at the grid it will tend to turn on the tube more if its a negative one it tends to turn the tube off , when clipping is asymetric it makes a difference .
Icantthinkofaname
Well-known member
Many users say pin 3 is hot on them.
I don't see that phase reversed (compared to AES standard) has been established yet.
The specs at Oktava do not mention, and nothing in this discussion has established one way or the other, just the assertion that pin 3 is hot and pin 2 is cold, with no information on how that was established.
This would be easy to check with the omni capsule and a few household items. Isolate the mic somehow, e.g. put some stuffing around the body of the mic stuffed into the central cardboard roll from paper towels, or a spare bit of pipe, and gently push in a piston, e.g. a wadded up piece of cloth. Standard is that for increasing pressure the signal at pin 2 should be positive with respect to pin 3. O'scope would allow to verify for sure, but if you are reasonably confident your preamp and audio interface doesn't invert polarity you could also just look at the signal on a DAW.
k brown
Well-known member
Hook an MK-012 capsule up to a known non-inverting circuit and you'll see that the capsule itself is inverting.
Have replaced the electronics in mine with an adapatation the Nelson Pass B1 Buffer (a simple FET source follower with current-source load [non-inverting]), and the output is inverted.
Same is true of all Primo capsules I have used.
Have replaced the electronics in mine with an adapatation the Nelson Pass B1 Buffer (a simple FET source follower with current-source load [non-inverting]), and the output is inverted.
Same is true of all Primo capsules I have used.
k brown
Well-known member
Huh?
Many of the replies are lost in the weeds. Pin 3 hot means pin 3 represents positive orientation. Doesn’t matter what happens before it gets there or what is driven, or not.
Among the half dozen MK-012’s I have, it’s about 50/50 which pin is hot. I made them all the same.
Do you happen to know if all the capsule variations in a particular generation are the same polarity? In other words, if you make sure pin 2 is hot with an omni capsule, will that still be the case if you switch to the cardioid capsule or hypercardioid capsule?
