MXL R44 Large Ribbon

[asplashofcitrus]

Buy MXL R44 Ribbon Microphone | Condenser Microphones | Musician's Friend

Saw this new tonight; think it will be any good? I'm sorta stoked, sorta not. At $99 though, it's another mic to add to the list of cheap ribbons however

I'm a sucker for pretty colors anyhow. But I guess we'll see.

[djensen]

Yikes.

[Harvey Gerst]

Originally Posted by djensen

Yikes.

Actually, that's not too bad for a ribbon mic. Go over to wesdooley.com and download the tech pdf of his AEA 440 and take a look at the frequency response.

[Tomer1]

Thats a rather decent mic body for such a cheap mic.

[warhead]

I've still only toyed around with one, but it is promising vs other $100 ribbon mics for sure.

War

[Matt Hepworth]

I've cut a couple guitar tracks with it. Sounds like a ribbon and does mostly what you'd expect.

I also got to cut a couple tracks with the MXL R77 ribbon. Now that mic definitely sounded like what I expected out of a ribbon. Much better, IMO, than the R44, but I was still pretty pleased with the 44. It's the same price as a 57. Is it better than a 57 on electric? Sometimes. And sometimes it's not as good. Just depends on what you're after.

[warhead]

FYI, the R44 is undergoing a name change:

R144

War

[bexarametric]

Anyone else notice that it's on both Preorder and clearance on Musician's Friend?


Is this like when a movie goes straight to DVD because it sucks?

[SMC Productions]

Originally Posted by bexarametric

Anyone else notice that it's on both Preorder and clearance on Musician's Friend?

Yeah, I noticed that...maybe it's due to the fact of the model number changing soon?

[Openreel24]

How very astute.

Yes, the R44 name change, is the reason you see the mics on clearance at MF. The name was changed, so as not to cause any confusion with a much more expensive ribbon microphone from a different manufacturer.

The R144 is the new model number. It is exactly the same microphone as the R44, but relabelled.

So that there is no confusion. I work for MXL.

roy@marshallelectronics.net

[asplashofcitrus]

Originally Posted by Openreel24

How very astute.

Yes, the R44 name change, is the reason you see the mics on clearance at MF. The name was changed, so as not to cause any confusion with a much more expensive ribbon microphone from a different manufacturer.

The R144 is the new model number. It is exactly the same microphone as the R44, but relabelled.

So that there is no confusion. I work for MXL.

roy@marshallelectronics.net

Do you think the previous R44 MXL models will have any "rare" value to them?

[asplashofcitrus]

Anything else new about this $100 ribbon? Experiences?

[WD40]

"Anything else new about this $100 ribbon? Experiences? "

bump

[Matt Hepworth]

Sure, I've now used it on acoustic guitar and violin, as well as a vocal. I was very pleased with it on acoustic - very natural and full, capturing just a hint more natural room ambience than my cardioid SDC (due to the fig 8 polar pattern). On violin, it helped tame the strident quality they express occasionally. On vocals it was natural, full, and had a lounge singer quality to it. Probably the best hundred I've spent in quite a while. For reference my mic collection ranges from a couple budget mics like the R44 and SM57's to vintage Neumanns and some nice tube mics.

[WD40]

Anyone have any experience comparing it to the Apex 205, Cascade VinJet, Nady RSM1, or the Shinybox 46?

[Matt Hepworth]

Sorry, the R44 and some 57's are really the only budget mics I have.

[kevynosborn]

[Somebody who claims to be] Michael Joly did a review on the Musician's Friend product page! That's pretty neat. He says:

The most noticable "feature" to be found in this newest entry in the low-cost ribbon mic arena is headbasket resonance.

The R44 has a very noticable 400 Hz headbasket resonance or "ring tone". I was able to reduce the headbasket mechanical resonance by about 16dB by installing an isolation / diffusor but it still is a pronounced. The problem with a mechanical resonance like this is it can be heard under the right conditions. If the source material contains a lot of deep LF information it can set the headbasket to ringing - but not have enough midrange content to mask the 400 Hz resonance. So it might be wise not to use this mic on bass or drum apps.


Oh, the ribbon was a little on the slack side, but not falling out of the gap slack.


My take away? Its still pretty hard to beat the value found in the Nady RSM-5 with its small size, low mechanical resonance headbasket and "short ribbon / long path motor".


It sure looks se*y.

[Michael_Joly]

Yeah, that's me. This mic is getting quite a bit of buzz over on the Tape Op message board so I bought one to check out.

[Robertt8]

any more recent reviews on this mic?

[asplashofcitrus]

Hmm....MusiciansFriend stupid deal of the day (yesterday) was 79.99 for this. Anyone pick it up for that price?

[DinosaurSR]

Originally Posted by asplashofcitrus

Hmm....MusiciansFriend stupid deal of the day (yesterday) was 79.99 for this. Anyone pick it up for that price?

Yeah, I had to grab it. It just arrived in the mail and it's cute! A much darker purple than the pics, though - it really just looks blue.

I'm going to use it tonight to track tenor sax and some lady vocals. We'll see how it turns out...

[Vintageblue02]

Originally Posted by asplashofcitrus

Hmm....MusiciansFriend stupid deal of the day (yesterday) was 79.99 for this. Anyone pick it up for that price?

I pre-ordered one back in July and have used it mainly on drums, acoustic guitar and vocals. I wish I had purchased another one! I'll have to buy an R144 now, I want to get a another one to use for stereo OH. I like the tone from a mono OH so stereo would be oh so sweet!

[asplashofcitrus]

Originally Posted by Vintageblue02

I pre-ordered one back in July and have used it mainly on drums, acoustic guitar and vocals. I wish I had purchased another one! I'll have to buy an R144 now, I want to get a another one to use for stereo OH. I like the tone from a mono OH so stereo would be oh so sweet!

Rad. I'm not sure if you already posted some, but would there be any chance you could post a clip of the mic in action? Preferably acoustic guitar/drum OH/Room? I'm on the border about getting one but the boost at 400hz seems kind of hm to me. I guess I just need to have a listen to it. But all ribbons emphasize the low mids so yeah.

[Vintageblue02]

Originally Posted by asplashofcitrus

Rad. I'm not sure if you already posted some, but would there be any chance you could post a clip of the mic in action? Preferably acoustic guitar/drum OH/Room? I'm on the border about getting one but the boost at 400hz seems kind of hm to me. I guess I just need to have a listen to it. But all ribbons emphasize the low mids so yeah.

I'll post a snippet of the R44 as a room mic on a drum track later, but for now, here are some things you might find helpful.

1. AEA 440
2. AEA R88
3. AEA R92

4. MXL R144
5. MXL R77

[Vintageblue02]

For anyone interested, here is the R44 in action as a mono room mic for drums. This is from a session I did at the end of summer.

[asplashofcitrus]

Nice- thanks a ton for posting a clip here for us finally...is it the raw track? The ambience is pretty cool from when the snare hits. I like what it does with the ride as well.

Hm...kind of comparing apples to oranges, but it seems like I get a lot more low end and more detail (though that's a preference thing) from a mono drum room mic from my Oktava MK219; how far back in the room did you have this?

[Vintageblue02]

Originally Posted by asplashofcitrus

Nice- thanks a ton for posting a clip here for us finally...is it the raw track? The ambience is pretty cool from when the snare hits. I like what it does with the ride as well.

Hm...kind of comparing apples to oranges, but it seems like I get a lot more low end and more detail (though that's a preference thing) from a mono drum room mic from my Oktava MK219; how far back in the room did you have this?

Raw track, R44 was 15ft out in front of the kit. Again, I didn't need this mic to pick up a lot of high end detail, just enough low end to make all the close mics gel in the mix.

[Empty Planet]

Wow, what a surprise. stike

That I would even subject myself to the almost-certain cheap-mic-sound disappointment involved in a cheap mic expenditure. Haven't subjected myself to that possibility for years. But I did it anyway. Kissed a C note goodbye. What a moron.

I got the thing in this morning, and omg this is a completely usable ribbon. I'm a bit floored. A different flavor from my Peluso R14, which I really adore (particularly after it fairly slayed a 44BX recently, weirdly). The R144 was not quite as velvety and rich (though with perfectly fine, gentle ribbon highs), a different sort of frequency curve, but it was plenty tasty on old-timey vocals and acoustic guitar. Build quality surprisingly good as well (how the hell did they manage that at this price point?).

I've heard there's rather large variance in the tensioning of these low-budget ribbons once they arrive at your door, so I don't know if I particularly lucked out or not...but I'm thanking my lucky stars this morning. Cool little mic!

Surprise, surprise.


Cheers.

[mixlrose]

I picked one of these up today with a gift certificate that someone gave me for Jim's Music in Tustin, California. I took it to my friends studio where we A/B'd the R144 with a Royer 121 on vocals and drums (mono front of kit). I wish I had some clips.. but I didn't take anything home with me. He had an RCA 77 there for a while but, sadly, he did not have it tonight. I'm hoping to geet back over there to do clips of all three. We plugged both mics into API channels and recorded into ProTools HD.

The Royer was clearly a "better" sounding microphone by technical standards, but the R144 brought a very familiar character to the sound that we missed when flipping back to the 121. The Royer sounded much more focused, detailed and brighter than the MXL R144 which had more of that big vintage ribbon sound with the rich low mid saturation that you would expect to hear from an old RCA. The 121 was more mid-forward and focused. On drums, the R144 gave us a much deeper kick sound but the 121 was more balanced across the spectrum.

I was pretty excited with what I heard since I got the mic for free and I was looking for more of a "one trick pony" vocal mic with character. The R144 will do just fine.

[Michael_Joly]

Given the choice between dropping a hundred bucks on the MXL R144 which has a physically resonant headbasket and the Apex 205 which does not, I would choose the 205. And if price is a consideration the Nady RSM-4 and 5 are still only $79 at MF.

The graph below shows the resonance of the stock R144 (red curve) when the headbasket is set into oscillation by mechanical vibration. The yellow curve shows the significant (14dB) resonance reduction I was able to achieve with a headbasket / body mod.The light blue curve show the body resonance with the headbasket removed.