Greetings everyone. Music and recording is a long dormant money pit for me (family took priority). Now that my kids are older, into music, and expressed a desire to do some recording, it's time to dig out my old gear, polish my skills and relearn how to record in 2024 (this DAW thing is way different than the 4-track and rack gear that I used when I was their age). Dusting off my old gear, I realized that I had only 2 mics remaining from my days of playing in bands: an AKG D3900 that I used for vocals, and an AKG C1000S that I used to mic up my guitar cabinet. Gotta have more options than that in a studio. I started gathering different cheap mics and modding them. I had some left over parts, so I figured I would design and build something cool. Gotta' have a tube mic.
My mic design follows the topology of the C12. I used an electret capsule to keep things simple and small.
Tech specs:
https://www.kirbos.net/tubemic/
The beginning of the clip is just the dry mic. The second third is the dry mic with the backing track. The last third is mixed in with a bit of compression and reverb. (yeah I know, I'm pitchy)
In all, I have about $160 into the project, with $40-ish being the cost of the case from Harbor Freight.
Enjoy.
My mic design follows the topology of the C12. I used an electret capsule to keep things simple and small.
Tech specs:
- Body - some flavor of BM-800.
- Capsule - left over 25mm from the capsule swap that I did on a ProAR C414.
- Tube - 6021 (sub-miniature)
- Transformer - Neutrik NTE 10/3
- Power Supply - Heater voltage is supplied by a cheap switching supply, 120VAC -> 12VDC. Triode voltage is supplied by phantom power (really).
https://www.kirbos.net/tubemic/
The beginning of the clip is just the dry mic. The second third is the dry mic with the backing track. The last third is mixed in with a bit of compression and reverb. (yeah I know, I'm pitchy)
In all, I have about $160 into the project, with $40-ish being the cost of the case from Harbor Freight.
Enjoy.
