UPDATE: since this article seems to get an enormous number of pageviews, I thought I should mention that we did in fact carry-out the intended shoot-out of the mod’d R40 versus a range of other similar ribbons (with a Royer R121 as the ‘control’ sample. CLICK HERE to listen to some apples-to-apples action.
I love the sound of ribbon mics. Friends and clients will often ask me why, or ‘what’s the difference’ (b/w a ribbon and other forms of mics) and I generally reply that good ribbon mics seem, to my ears/brain, to reproduce sound in a way that more closely resembles the actual event. To my ears, a good condenser like my U87 or U47 FET sound fantastic – more spectacular than the actual sonic event, in many cases – and a good dynamic mic like a 441 or an SM7 can really improve the sound of an electric guitar speaker – but there are ways that they do seem distorted, especially on material with complex, aggressive high-frequency content, such as cymbals played with a heavy touch. Ribbon mics also seem to respond better to additive EQ, and on bass instruments they also seem to create the impression of bigger, fuller bass without actually taking up as many DBs in the mix as you might expect. Anyhow, I keep writing ‘seem’ because all of this is, necessarily, subjective. That being said, these are opinions that more and more recordists and musicians have come to share since ribbon mics came back into vogue a decade or so ago.
FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW TO READ-ON AND LEARN HOW TO MAKE YRSELF A REAL-NICE SOUNDING RIBBON MIC IN 45 MINUTES FOR UNDER $100…