My latest Ribbon Mic's

[tskguy]

Hi all,

I have been working for the last year on a cnc machine to help me build LDC capsules it has been a very difficult road. Well my latest project isn’t a kk47 capsule but it’s just as useful!
A new pair of Ribbon mics!
I am making these mics for a very close friend’s brother in law. He is a studio owner and touring guitarist for a very well known Christian rock artist. So I hope they will be used and heard by some folks that matter!
So far they are looking good. I did use my cnc machine to build the body of the ribbon motor and the rest of the smaller parts I handmade. Some details, magnets are 1.5 inches long by .25 by .25 inch the ribbon is 3/16 inch wide and 2.5 micron thick.  Let me know what you guys think.
When both are complete I need to have the frequency response charted to see how they compare to some of the consumer mics out there.
Here are some pics.

 

[Marik]

One word: Absofreakinlutelybeautiful!

Let us know how it sounds!

How you go about corrugation?

Best, M

 

[mata_haze]

YOU ROCK MAN!

 

[zebra50]

That is totally awesome. Good work! Let us know how it sounds.

 

[mac]

Beautiful.....who's the well known artist?

 

[zayance]

Sweet  8) 8) 8)

 

[tskguy]

Thanks for the kind words!!

The well known artist is Toby Mac..I am not in to that genre of music so I really havent listend to him much. But he is very popular.

I corrugate with a pair of gears that I stole from a rc servo and a pinion gear from a rc car! I just mounted them to a L shaped bracket and all is good. The gears are about as wide as the ribbon so I have to go slow!
So far I have done some frequency sweaps and the responce looks pretty close. Im never really sure if Ive tuned the ribbon correctly.

Cheers!

 

[crisotop]

beautiful!! now how about some sound samples 

 

[Kingston]

What a beauty! Excellent job!

Did you also CNC the magnets to that shape, or did you happen to find them shaped optimally like that? What type of magnets are they?

I corrugate with a pair of gears that I stole from a rc servo and a pinion gear from a rc car! I just mounted them to a L shaped bracket and all is good. The gears are about as wide as the ribbon so I have to go slow!

How do you control the pressure of your corrugation rig? Or did you get lucky that they were already quite optimal attached to that RC car?

I've had mixed luck with gears from an old printer, but always looking for new (cheap) tricks.

Mike

 

[tskguy]

Sound samples will be comming soon!!

I want to make sure they sound good first
 The gears are just loosly meshed so the ribbon just rolls through with out it being torn. Its a little hard to get the corrugation to stay straight but with a little effort I can get it right after a few times. I would really like to have a rig built like the old RCA corrugaters that Ive seen. It has supper wide gears and away to adjust the mesh between them. It would be pretty pricey having gears machined like that.
And the magnets are purchased with those dimensions you really cant machine them, way to brittle. The magnets are neodymium Grade N42 magnetized thru thickness. 1.5 inch x .25 x .25.
Eric

 

[ed rees]

Cool! So, It's a U shaped piece of steel, and the magnets are held on by their own power? Going on my to-do list for sure.

 

[tskguy]

It’s actually machined from aluminum and the magnets are glued in place. I used gorilla glue and it holds like a champ. Steel would be better but my cnc machine is pretty small and wouldn’t do well with steel. The magnet polls are facing north and south (pulling together) so the glue needs to be substantial. The black part is g10 fiberglass and isolates the positive and negative ends of the ribbon electrically. The clamps are copper.

Eric

 

[3nity]

Toby Mac?? thats a nice touring deal he might got your friend relative.!
Back in the days i was into DC-talk...they all went solos...toby is not my style.

 

[Bill Wilson]

You have done a beautiful fabricating job on your mikes, congratulations.

 

[tskguy]

Thanks again everyone!

Sorry about not getting a recording yet. The one year old makes it hard to get time to record durring the week

I should have something soon!! Does anyone have a good way to test the frequency response? I would like to have a responce graph done.

Eric

 

[tskguy]

Well here is a quick recording of my wife site reading some music. Its a 6 foot grand and the mic is placed on the side of the piano facing in. I also used my ssl 9k pre and a old frontier tango 24 converter. No effects this is just the raw recording at 44.1 24bit. I think its pretty close on the tuning. Please respond with what you think!!

Sorry about the megaupload but I coudnt find a better solution..

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XFDL6CSN

Eric

 

[tskguy]

Is no responce a bad thing?????  ???

 

[volker]

Not at all, stunned and in awe!

Now, where did you say you got those magnets?


Volker

 

[zayance]

Pretty nice, it sounds like a ribbon  ;D 8), must sound nice on a Guitar cab too, i'd like to hear your other sources also if you further experiment...
Thanks for posting and thumbs up for a nice accomplishment.

 

[tskguy]

Thanks guys,

Im glad it sounds like a ribbon mic!! The magnets I bought are from http://www.kjmagnetics.com/
They have a bunch of sizes, look under the block magnet section.

I will try and get some other sources as well. I know a ribbon isnt the first mic I grab when I want to record piano!

Eric