The sagging ribbon, as I am sure you have read, is VERY common in the Chinese ribbon microphones. Sad but true.
The ribbon adjustment is not too hard. The motor assembly is made up mostly of set screws that sandwich all the parts together--basically the ribbon is squeezed between two pieces of metal and simply held in place. Figure out what screws, nuts, and/ or bolts are holding your ribbon in place, un-attach one end and use a toothpick or the like to pull it tighter. While holding the ribbon in place, snug down the set screws and you are in business. If you want to 'tune' the ribbon, you'll have to do some reading. I had provided a link early on in this thread. That is a VERY good resource for this sort of thing.
FWIW, the guy with the DIY ribbon mic thread that I posted on this thread is a serious advocate for thinner ribbon material. I must admit that I have NOT traded out the stock ribbon material on my Chinese ribbon microphones, as I was happy with the darker sound--the mics provide me with something completely different than my other microphones. However, it is said that the ribbon mic will have better output and be more responsive with a ribbon made from thinner material--it makes sense: less density of the ribbon would make the ribbon move more freely/ responsively.
I have swapped out transformers on all my Chinese ribbon microphones and was very happy with the results. I will probably take one of the pairs and swap out the ribbon material some day, but I am in no hurry to do that.
Okay, so if you feel like you are good with working with small parts, have a gentle touch, some patience with your efforts and a sense of adventure, tear that microphone apart and make it better!
If not, then send it back. But do be careful with taking the mic apart. The ribbon is VERY, VERY, VERY easily torn. Even with the more 'thick' Chinese ribbon material. "Thick" is a very relative thing here, because we are talking about 6 microns compared with 2 or 3 microns--all still very thin, indeed!
Quote:
Originally Posted by saxmeister  Okay, so I noticed some ringing with this mic on low frequency sources. I checked the ribbon with the rocking test and had no issues, so I thought the ribbon might have been okay even though, through all of the layers of mesh it looked a slight bit saggy.
Tried some horn parts and close up voiceover work and got some bad distortion. Pulled the grill off and, voila, sagging ribbon.
I think this could be a great mic with a good ribbon adjustment and a transformer swap out. But, I'd like to hear it working 100% before I do anything.
Suggestions? Send it back and try for another one? Talk to someone at the place from where I ordered the thing or go straight to MXL? |