Acoustic Ribbon Mic

[HudsontheStudson]

Originally Posted by BLUElightCory

None of this is true. Beware the internet! (Says the guy on the internet).

well said my friend

i agree 100% (except for the part about how they are built). thats why i continued looking around lol

[HudsontheStudson]

Originally Posted by ShinyBox

I no longer sell a "stock" version of this microphone, all three models are built using the highest quality transformers I can have wound.

I saw that on your page when i heard about how amazing of a deal your stock ones were. i would of loved to of bought one as of hearing about the stellar sound of them, but the ones available now are a few hundred too steep for me

[HudsontheStudson]

Originally Posted by mcgruff

ADK A6. Excellent mic for acoustic guitar. If you listen to some samples on dreamguitars.com you can hear them in action (spaced pair).

well, after a few days of procrastination i finally decided to check this mic out. WOW. the guys at front end (whom i highly trust for mic reviews) highly praise this mic. Never heard of ADK untill now and i might have to do some looking into them. thanks a ton for the reccommendation

[ShinyBox]

Hey Don,

No offense taken , just clarifying the facts.

I have not worked with Alctron for about 4 years now.

I am still sourcing microphone parts overseas, but from my own drawings, and made by different companies.

The 46U transformer is of my design, a couple years in the making. It is wound for me by a company here in the US.

Regards

Jon

[dkelley]

Impressive, Jon. I'm glad you're not actually winding the trannies yourself but having them made to spec... and in the US yet...

alctron is behind many apex mics (to those who don't know) and have some decent designs but imho have the worst unit-to-unit build quality control issues of all the chinese mike manufacturers.

Buying many alctron mics (which are often rebranded in the rest of the world as Apex, Nady and other familiar names) is a crap shoot.

For a famous example, no two apex 460s are the same (the 460 is an alctron mic originally designed by telefunken and subsequently reduced in quality of internal parts and build consistency by alctron). one has too much hiss and distortion, the other has too much harshness. and none are good in both departments ;-)

[vincentvangogo]

I wouldn't buy any mic unless you've heard it in action. Ribbons on acoustic can work in some contexts, but not that often. I'd consider a second hand sm81 though try to listen to one first.

[mcgruff]

Originally Posted by HudsontheStudson

well, after a few days of procrastination i finally decided to check this mic out. WOW. the guys at front end (whom i highly trust for mic reviews) highly praise this mic. Never heard of ADK untill now and i might have to do some looking into them. thanks a ton for the reccommendation

Here's a couple of samples from dreamguitars.com recorded with a spaced pair of ADK A6.

Petros grand concert
Martin D35
Somoygi 000

[HudsontheStudson]

Originally Posted by mcgruff

Here's a couple of samples from dreamguitars.com recorded with a spaced pair of ADK A6.

Petros grand concert
Martin D35
Somoygi 000

all of those were recorded with the ADK? wowzers thats really fresh. i love its neutrality in its sound. do you own one of these yourself?

[mcgruff]

Originally Posted by HudsontheStudson

all of those were recorded with the ADK? wowzers thats really fresh. i love its neutrality in its sound. do you own one of these yourself?

Yeah. It was the dreamguitars clips which finally clinched it for me. That's not a bad sound for the price...

Several people (with expensive tastes in Schoeps, Neumanns etc) had recommended it to me as a great mic on acoustic guitar. It also works well on a range of things: anywhere you'd reach for a neutral, accurate mic which doesn't hype any part of the spectrum.

[HudsontheStudson]

Originally Posted by mcgruff

Yeah. It was the dreamguitars clips which finally clinched it for me. That's not a bad sound for the price...

Several people (with expensive tastes in Schoeps, Neumanns etc) had recommended it to me as a great mic on acoustic guitar. It also works well on a range of things: anywhere you'd reach for a neutral, accurate mic which doesn't hype any part of the spectrum.

thats what caught my eye: just how neutral of a mic it was. its frequency response is ridiculously flat, which is awesome because it picks up what it hears and nothing else. my budget was $200 max.

was.

i am set on this mic. when i get the money, you better believe this will be a workhorse. thanks for the recommendation again dude

[dkelley]

that's why I use cad m179's on acoustic sometimes - neutral response, great sound if the guitar already sounds great.

quite possible the a6 is better, not comparing here, just saying that I agree about the neutral mic on acoustic IF the acoustic has a great tone in the first place.

I suggested ribbon as good on ovations etc which is where I've used them.

[HudsontheStudson]

Has anybody ever used a CAD E70? I was recommended it and saw that it was only $99. I heard Lewin Barringer's videosong review of it on piano, bass, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar and it sounds like a very nice mic.

[NYM1985]

Originally Posted by HudsontheStudson

Has anybody ever used a CAD E70? I was recommended it and saw that it was only $99. I heard Lewin Barringer's videosong review of it on piano, bass, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar and it sounds like a very nice mic.

I haven't personally used one but I reckon it is a quality mic. I've never used/owned a CAD mic I didn't like especially for the money. Perhaps you should see about giving one a test drive or find a place that also has the ADK you are interested in with a liberal exchange policy, that way if you end up hating it (which you'd probably know within the typical 7-30 day periods depending on the store) you could always return it and exchange for the ADK A6. Just my two cents.

Personally I know for a fact that the M179 is awesome on acoustics (if you have a nice sounding guitar to begin with). My two acoustics sounded great when I had those mics but they both have really good setups, bone nuts, bone saddles, tusq pins, fresh strings all the time, and of course the most important ingredients solid top back and sides (one is spruce over mahogany, the other is spruce over rosewood). I find that most of the challenge with getting a good sounding recording is to have a good sounding instrument in a good sounding room (and of course a good player). Oftentimes especially in low end price ranges the differences between cheap mics are subtle at best (your best bet is to find something neutral because cheap "quality" character pieces almost don't exist).

[dkelley]

Originally Posted by NYM1985

I find that most of the challenge with getting a good sounding recording is to have a good sounding instrument in a good sounding room (and of course a good player).

damn, so THAT'S been my problem all along... ;-)

(I'm not going to specify which point you made though... LoL)

[guitarmax_99]

Originally Posted by HudsontheStudson

the sm81, as much as i would love to have 1 (or 20..) its about $150 to steep. whats your take on MXL mics? From experience, are they nice mics?

Another vote for going with an SDC for acoustic guitar recording. The SM81 is a good sounding mic on acoustic guitar, esp. if you can find one used.

Personally, I'm a fan of stereo miking acoustic guitars with two SDC's. You asked about MXL mics - The MXL 991 was one of my first condensers (which is actually the same mic as the 603). Honestly, I don't think they sound bad on acoustic guitar.

Here is a link to some sound clips I posted a while back (two different guitars miked with MXL 603's).

Is there better out there? Sure. But for the money, they aint bad. You can find used ones very cheap.

[dkelley]

I'm not a fan of the mxl sdcs (603) stock. but some people are. I find them too bright on top and too thin on the bottom, by a long shot.

an MXL mic that works great on acoustic, similarly to how the cad m177 or 179 work great on acoustic, is the MXL 2003. dunno I think the 2003a is the current model, but either way they're nice on a good acoustic.

they're LDC but trust me, some of those studio recording basic recommendations like "use two SDCs on acoustic guitar" are only true if you happen to have a pair of vintage neumann km84 on hand for a few thousand bucks :-)

for the rest of us, the best sounding neutral mic that isn't sorely lacking anywhere is what you want, ribbon, LDC, tube, whatever..., and the MXL 2003a fits the bill without breaking the bank. the v67g also does, although is a slightly different sounding mic - still nice on acoustic though. so if you have easy access to a local MXL dealer you can look at that stuff. there are others from them too but those are the well talked about examples that I'm aware of and aren't getting into pricier ranges.

[guitarmax_99]

Originally Posted by dkelley

I'm not a fan of the mxl sdcs (603) stock. but some people are. I find them too bright on top and too thin on the bottom, by a long shot.

an MXL mic that works great on acoustic, similarly to how the cad m177 or 179 work great on acoustic, is the MXL 2003. dunno I think the 2003a is the current model, but either way they're nice on a good acoustic.

they're LDC but trust me, some of those studio recording basic recommendations like "use two SDCs on acoustic guitar" are only true if you happen to have a pair of vintage neumann km84 on hand for a few thousand bucks :-)

for the rest of us, the best sounding neutral mic that isn't sorely lacking anywhere is what you want, ribbon, LDC, tube, whatever..., and the MXL 2003a fits the bill without breaking the bank. the v67g also does, although is a slightly different sounding mic - still nice on acoustic though. so if you have easy access to a local MXL dealer you can look at that stuff. there are others from them too but those are the well talked about examples that I'm aware of and aren't getting into pricier ranges.

The 2003a is certainly a decent mic for the money. Another option from MXL is the CR-24 (which is a 2003a in a chrome body). Musician's Friend has a package of CR-24 and a SDC (which is essentially a chrome 603), for $199 (it includes a decent case and shockmounts). A friend of mine picked this kit up and (having played around with it), I would say that ,for someone who is just starting out, it's a pretty good bang for the buck. The LDC is certainly nice to have as it can be used for vocals more readily than an SDC. The two together can be used to stereo mic the guitar (if the OP decides he wants to give that a shot).

[corbetta]

FWIW, my personal preference for affordable SDCs for guitar is the Line Audio CM3. Might be hard to come by, but at a bit over $150 a piece they're in a class of their own. I use one live regularly and it gives me a neutral, un-hyped, and true-to-the-source sound (half the battle when recording solo guitar...)

[Stembeck]

I've uploaded to SoundCloud a recording of a Bach cello piece that I recorded using a pair of Nady RSM-5's, each one having been upgraded by Michael Joly (Lundahl transformer and a thinner ribbon than the stock ribbon). The recording was done in my cousin's basement, which had a nasty node around 195HZ, so that had to be zapped in the e.q.'ing.

One mic was placed sort of above the cellist's head/shoulder near the fingerboard and looking down at the body of the cello; the other mic was placed in front of the cello about 3 or 4 feet, about 30" off the floor and a bit to the right as one faced the cello/player. Although it wasn't a true stereo recording technique, the mic's were panned a bit apart to give some semblance of stereo. Preamp was a Metric Halo ULN-8. Added a bit of compression, e.q. and reverb (Metric Halo's haloverb).

I realize this version is slower than the Bach Courante is typically played, but I asked the player to do so, because I thought it would fit better with the documentary video I was pairing it with.

I'm posting this because I know when I was considering an affordable ribbon mic, I was looking to hear recordings others had done to get a sense of how the various mics sounded before I purchased it. So here's a little effort to "give back." Enjoy.

1-10 Bach Cello Suite No. 1 Courante by Get jaggy wid it on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free