Quick DIY dual output LDC

[kingkorg]

You can get two Takstar CM60 (crazy cheap) and gut them for the pcbs. I would get slightly larger mic than the Sterling so you don't have to bend the boards.

You can mod the boards to get the u87 circuit response out of them.

 

[mateus]

Cool! And what about this mic you built for this? Could you give me some more tips? The capsule you used is the same as the Manley Reference Cardioid? I have one of these and I love it, faithful companion of over 2 decades, but last time I checked a single capsule from Manley was over 300 bucks, that would be 600 bucks in capsules only.

Cheers!!

 

[RuudNL]

I did this years ago and the result is amazing!
In my case I used two 'Schoeps' circuits.
You can even use a single backplate capsule, if you apply the polarisation voltage on the backplate and take the audio from the two membranes.
The stereo image is great if you place the microphone near the sound source.
And by playing with the way the two outputs are processed, you can get all kinds of directional patterns.
If you are a DIY microphone builder, you have to try this!

 

[rmaier]

I built a pair of these around Alice PCBs and some capsules I had lying around. I use them with both the Townsend plugin as well as the one from Austrian Audio and the range of sounds and patterns to be had is great. They're definitely fun mics to have in the collection.

 

[JW]

So, all one needs for a dual output mic is two circuits?

There a number of KM84 transformers and circuit boards that are pretty small. Would be cool to do two flat circuits with dual sided k47 or m7.

 

[k brown]

Even doing this is quite useful (two AT2035 capsules, which can be taken out to separate outputs):

 

[emrr]

https://groupdiy.com/threads/tlm67-modification-to-dual-output.68096/

 

[kingkorg]

A bit more advanced, but well worth it.

https://groupdiy.com/threads/townsend-labs-sphere-guts-and-basic-analysis.77464/

 

[kingkorg]

As for the Manley, here's my clone. More info throughout the thread. I have 3 of these in different configurations


' What if you opened up a Manley Reference C and ...

 

[Tubetec]

Nice work Kingkorg ,
I like the dual mono stack approach .
Taking the output of a capsule as two seperate signals never really occured to me .

A cathode follower stage using wired in sub mini tubes might be an easy way to do it , typically you only need your grid resistor/cap ,capsule bias and one or two other components in the mic body itself , output circuit components and transformers can be located in the PSU , as its two single ended outputs not balanced , regular 7 pin tube mic cable should remain compatible and keep the abillity to vary polarisation from the psu if needed .

On digital processing ,
I did once experiment with the mic array on the Sony Ps3 eye camera ,
The Voxengo Pha-979 Phase align VST allowed me beamform the four microphone array ,
The webcam sampled 4 channels at 16khz so the results werent great for audio, I treated the linear four mic array as two stereo pairs(1,4 and 2,3) in terms of processing ,as proof of concept or as a lo-fi, low bandwidth ambient room mic its was a huge success , its like your position along with the shape of the room your in is changing before your ears . X-Y capsules and the polyhedral type array looks nice ,but four capsules eight preamps and your going to need multi core snake cable to connect it up , maybe an 8 channel A/D converter in the mic itself ,
a look at an ambisonic schematic might be an idea ,just to see how the pros do it .

 

[kingkorg]

Wow, thanks for the idea. You just gave me a ton of things to think about!

 

[Tubetec]

It was the PS3 eye camera and CL eye driver I used for my experiment years back
The newer PS4 eye appears also to work with PC via the Orbis eye driver and a suitable USB3 adapter .
The main issue with the ps3 eye was it was designed for speech and doesnt handle loud sources , as the electret elements are on a header plug in the newer units its easy to change the physical layout or use other capsules
I think I'll be poking out a PlayStation 4 eye for disection next chance.

The Sony C-8@@ usb , 4 channel surround sound with eyes , BM-800 body transplant , (;-)