Frankenstein's stereo AT2020's.

[DFischer]

A couple months ago I bought a few AT2020's on sale for $79 each to use as a platform for a stereo ribbon mic that I'm still working on. In the meanwhile I had a couple of the AT boards and capsules sitting around collecting dust, so I decided to see what I had lying around in my supplies where I could slap together a microphone out of leftovers. Ingredients: one aluminum tube, some copper water pipe, some brass rods, stainless filter cloth and scrap acrylic. But since I was about to spend a decent amount of time machining stuff, I figured I'd kick in a few dollars for the larger electret capsules that Kingkorg suggested. I'm glad I did, they sound much better than the stock 2020 capsules. So I guess the only part of the mic that is still an AT2020 is the circuit.

 

[k brown]

Very impressive work.


Some degree of shock mounting of the capsules would be worth doing, though.

I would encourage you try the 'version 2' of that capsule, that doesn't have the mesh; it's much less bright.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/394139143543 (even less on AliExpress).

 

[kingkorg]

A couple months ago I bought a few AT2020's on sale for $79 each to use as a platform for a stereo ribbon mic that I'm still working on. In the meanwhile I had a couple of the AT boards and capsules sitting around collecting dust, so I decided to see what I had lying around in my supplies where I could slap together a microphone out of leftovers. Ingredients: one aluminum tube, some copper water pipe, some brass rods, stainless filter cloth and scrap acrylic. But since I was about to spend a decent amount of time machining stuff, I figured I'd kick in a few dollars for the larger electret capsules that Kingkorg suggested. I'm glad I did, they sound much better than the stock 2020 capsules. So I guess the only part of the mic that is still an AT2020 is the circuit.

 

[rock soderstrom]

so I decided to see what I had lying around in my supplies where I could slap together a microphone out of leftovers. Ingredients: one aluminum tube, some copper water pipe, some brass rods, stainless filter cloth and scrap acrylic.

Very impressive, real DIY

 

[DFischer]

Very impressive work.


Some degree of shock mounting of the capsules would be worth doing, though.

I would encourage you try the 'version 2' of that capsule, that doesn't have the mesh; it's much less bright.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/394139143543 (even less on AliExpress).

I really like the brightness in this version. I did a quick test on drum overheads using a pair of Line Audio CM4's in X/Y as a nice flat reference. The DIY mic had some nice added space and detail, but without any harshness. There were a couple cymbal hits where I thought the CM4's actually sounded harsher, despite being duller overall.

I agree about the shock mount. I just wanted to finish the project and not loose momentum. I got stuck on the other half of the project when I was comparing acrylic frames to mild steel frames for the ribbon motors. I designed the steel frame in such a way that it's hard to get a good tension on the ribbon. It's been a few months. Perhaps I'll pick back up.