Audio Technica AT4081 Ribbon mic

[htieksppircs]

O.K So I bought a 4081. I was really excited about the concept of the new AT ribbons. Bought it sight-unheard, and with zero feedback from the Slutz.

My initial impressions are based only on speaking into it and comparing it on that basis to my other ribbon mics: A Cascade fathead with the Lundahl transformer and a CAD Trion 7000, not the standard bearers I know, but both decent mics in their own right.

At first it sounded nasely and pinched in the mids, lacking bass, and sibilant in the highs. I was quite disappointed. BUT WAIT! How can this be? Day 2- It's getting better...? What the...?
It seems, oddly enough, that this mic needs a burn-in period, because now it's sounding very smooth throughout the frequency range, the sibilance has disappeared and the bass is filling out. It's night and day! Weird! Suddenly I love it! It's smooth like most ribbon mics, but with a very nice high frequency response that extends beyond the usual soft high end of most ribbon mics. I'm going to do some more testing. I bought it for Guitar amps, hoping it's a Royer 121 killer for half the money. We'll see... I don't own the Royer, but I know it well. A more fair comparison is probably a Royer 122, since the 4081 and the 122 are both active ribbon mics.

I could see using this thing on a lot of different applications. Check back, I'll report my findings.

[AudioHipster]

Being a ribbon freak I wanted to check the new ribbon out. It was a little disappointing that the AT4081’s frequency response is flatter in both the lows and highs than is the AT4080. -3dB points are 40hZ and ~16kHz. (30-18Hz) The amp’s self-noise rating, 25dBA, that is noisier then any-other ribbon I have seen. To me ribbons is all about that Natural fat sound, it is nice to have Recording Hacks give us a peak inside. Audio-Technica AT4081 | RecordingHacks.com The Ribbon is a new cool design and comes with a great warranty, but sound is everything so tell us more.
Trust your ears... as far as recording guitar it is hard to beat ribbons, you can spend hours with your e609 trying to find the sweet spot to rid yourself of nasally tone... or for heavy rock do yourself a favor, stick a Cad Ribbon and a D189 and hit record, for clean I love the Oktava and for fat tone a kick drum mic TGX-50. My favorite most used ribbon is a Superlux R102 from upright bass to overheads it just sounds natural.

[MarkyGoldstein]

So how is it ?

[spiral]

Originally Posted by MarkyGoldstein

So how is it ?

+1

[htieksppircs]

Sorry it took so long to get back to you on this topic.
The AT4081 is stellar on a guitar amp, clean or distorted. Strat and an SG into a Carvin Nomad 1-12 w/ Celestion Vintage 30. I put the mic on axis about 10-12" in front of the cabinet going to a Focusrite ISA One, a Distressor and Apogee converters. The amp is elevated on a custom made, solid maple amp stand. Fantastic results: smooth, clear. No harshness or exaggerated graininess to the distortion. Really smoothes out the rough edges without taking any "balls" out of the sound. Surprisingly nice high end. Most ribbon mics sound rolled off on top, and while the 4081 certainly retains some of that overall characteristic, to my ear it has a more extended high frequency response. Slightly brighter than your average ribbon. The track sits well in the mix and is very present without being in yo' face. Other mics I've tried for the same application include, CAD Trion 7000 ribbon, Cascade Fathead Ribbon with the Lundahl Transformer. SM57, AT4060 tube mic, Peluso 2247SE, and an Audio Technica ATM63HE dynamic. I only tried the Cardioid pattern on the Peluso. The 4081 easily smoked them all in front of an amp. Although, the Peluso and the 4060 sound great a little further away as ambience mics, nothing was as good up close (but not too close). I'm afraid the Royer's got nothin' on this baby.

[spiral]

I've also bought this mic but have yet to try it on anything but an acoustic guitar through the Focusrite ISA428. I would say the noise spec is no lie: its self-noise is pretty high. This might only be useful on louder sources. I will try again with a JH M1.

[htieksppircs]

Yeah, it's not alarming but it's there. I thought at first it was the headphone amp on the ISA One, which I was using for monitoring at the time. The noise spec on the 4081 at 25db is 8 db higher than a 4050 at 17db. Now, if you consider that if you were using a passive ribbon mic, you'd probably introduce as much or more noise by cranking the mic pre, it puts it more into perspective. However, you'd also have to compare it's noise spec to another active ribbon like the Royer R-122, but Royer doesn't print their noise spec, and even if they did, they may not measure it the same way as AT.
For my purpose, which is mostly for mic-ing guitar amps, it probably won't make any difference. For brass, which is another common ribbon mic application it won't make much difference. For any other application I would probably choose a different mic. I prefer LD condensers on vocals, SD condensers on acoustic guitar and overheads anyway. I've heard ribbons can be great on strings, I've never tried it. For that application it would have to be quiet.

[seventn]

I also just picked one up a few days ago. I got it to do guitars. I usually use a 57 and have tried many more in the past. The 57 was nice but I found myself missing some of the low end and have to EQ to try to get rid of the harshness.

The AT4081 is warm but defined. All the guitar tracks I have recorded did not need ANY EQ. The mic also sounds more "3D" and natural. Could also be because it has a figure 8 pattern.

Tried it on acoustic guitar and it sounded very good. Just needed a roll off in the lows and a bit of a boost in the highs. Very smooth sounding and even better if you use a pick.

Don't forget to turn on 48v cause the mic still works without it but wasn't designed to be used this way. Have not noticed high noise floor and the mic has alot of gain.

For ref; I am using it with a Portico 5016 Pre.

Love the mic and you can't go wrong at 589.00$

[Stepping_Stone]

Has anyone else noticed these mics crapping out when used up close on a guitar speaker? I got mine in from Sweetwater earlier this week, and when I put it up close on my Mesa Road King cab, I could hear a distinct, almost metallic buzzing sound on the "bloom" of certain palm muted notes (especially the low A in standard tuning), almost like something was vibrating inside the mic housing. Just to make sure it wasn't something in the room or in the cab, I swapped it out for my NT2000 in figure 8, and the sound disappeared. Tried it with my SM7, and again, no buzzing. I switched back to the AT4081 and moved the mic back to about 12" or so off the speaker...no buzzing. Moved it back to about 6 inches off the cone, and the buzzing came back. So, thinking that it might have gotten knocked around during shipping, I called my sales guy and told him what was going on, and he overnighted me a new one, which got here this morning. I hooked it up and same story...if I get within a foot of the cab (at moderately loud volumes, nothing crazy), that metallic buzzing sound would show up again. I even tried putting the included wind sock on it to make sure it wasn't a result of air from the speaker cone hitting the diaphragm, and I also stood in the room with headphones on and put one hand between the mic and the speaker cone while hitting palm mutes with the other, and the buzzing was still there.

So after all of this the only thing that I can come up with is that this mic either has a serious design flaw, or Audio Technica did some "fuzzy math" with the SPL rating, cuz no way was I hitting 150 dB.

[synthoid]

Originally Posted by spiral

I've also bought this mic but have yet to try it on anything but an acoustic guitar through the Focusrite ISA428. I would say the noise spec is no lie: its self-noise is pretty high. This might only be useful on louder sources. I will try again with a JH M1.

The AT4080 has quite a bit of self-noise too. I was taken aback when I went to edit some vocals I tracked with it.

-synthoid

[Stepping_Stone]

Originally Posted by StudioRat81

Has anyone else noticed these mics crapping out when used up close on a guitar speaker? I got mine in from Sweetwater earlier this week, and when I put it up close on my Mesa Road King cab, I could hear a distinct, almost metallic buzzing sound on the "bloom" of certain palm muted notes (especially the low A in standard tuning), almost like something was vibrating inside the mic housing. Just to make sure it wasn't something in the room or in the cab, I swapped it out for my NT2000 in figure 8, and the sound disappeared. Tried it with my SM7, and again, no buzzing. I switched back to the AT4081 and moved the mic back to about 12" or so off the speaker...no buzzing. Moved it back to about 6 inches off the cone, and the buzzing came back. So, thinking that it might have gotten knocked around during shipping, I called my sales guy and told him what was going on, and he overnighted me a new one, which got here this morning. I hooked it up and same story...if I get within a foot of the cab (at moderately loud volumes, nothing crazy), that metallic buzzing sound would show up again. I even tried putting the included wind sock on it to make sure it wasn't a result of air from the speaker cone hitting the diaphragm, and I also stood in the room with headphones on and put one hand between the mic and the speaker cone while hitting palm mutes with the other, and the buzzing was still there.

So after all of this the only thing that I can come up with is that this mic either has a serious design flaw, or Audio Technica did some "fuzzy math" with the SPL rating, cuz no way was I hitting 150 dB.

UPDATE:
Sweetwater is currently talking with Audio Technica about this issue. AT requested that I send them clips recorded with the AT4081 as well as a couple of my other mics for comparison. I will keep this thread updated as I hear from them. If anyone else is experiencing a similar issue, please let me know. Thanks.

[Stepping_Stone]

OK, so after trying 3 different AT4081s, none of them worked in front of my amp. They all exhibited the exact same "crap out" problem. So, I gave up on that model and decided to give the new Royer R-101 a shot. This is not meant to be a plug for that mic...just a statement of my experience with it, which is...no problems at all. I am using this mic in the same positions as with the AT4081 with the same amp settings, and I have yet to hear a hint of this mic not being able to handle it, and the R-101 has a 15db lower max SPL rating than the 4081. So, that confirms to me that Audio Technica either has a serious design flaw or a serious manufacturing error on their hands. I don't want to trash AT by any means...I know a lot of people use and love their microphones, and I actually preferred the sound of the AT4081 to the R-101 when it was working properly. But with this being their first forray into the ribbon world, maybe they just have some bugs to work out? I don't know, but hopefully these observations help move the dialogue in the right direction.

[synthoid]

Originally Posted by synthoid

The AT4080 has quite a bit of self-noise too. I was taken aback when I went to edit some vocals I tracked with it.

Just wanted to post an update to say that the self-noise disappeared the next time I used the mic and hasn't reappeared. I don't know whether I did something wrong the first time I used it, or it just needed a burn-in, or what, but now it is quite quiet.

-synthoid

[toolate4roses]

Just bought one today for guitars... I sure hope this isn't the case with mine. I'm going to try and test it tonight and report back.

[Stepping_Stone]

For anyone who is interested, these are the audio clips that I sent to Audio Technica illustrating the problem I was having with this mic. I used three different mics (the AT4081, a dynamic, and an LDC) set in the same exact position on a Vintage 30. The only adjustment that was made between the takes was to the preamp gain, to compensate for the differences between the mics. The amp was set for a completely clean tone.

[chout]

Originally Posted by StudioRat81

For anyone who is interested, these are the audio clips that I sent to Audio Technica illustrating the problem I was having with this mic. I used three different mics (the AT4081, a dynamic, and an LDC) set in the same exact position on a Vintage 30. The only adjustment that was made between the takes was to the preamp gain, to compensate for the differences between the mics. The amp was set for a completely clean tone.

Yikes, bummer. I feel for you man.

[ARIEL]

That is good AT is looking into it right away , I like their mics for sure - thanks for the info and update

[imaginaryday]

Originally Posted by StudioRat81

For anyone who is interested, these are the audio clips that I sent to Audio Technica illustrating the problem I was having with this mic. I used three different mics (the AT4081, a dynamic, and an LDC) set in the same exact position on a Vintage 30. The only adjustment that was made between the takes was to the preamp gain, to compensate for the differences between the mics. The amp was set for a completely clean tone.

i've owned the at4081 for a couple of months and never had any issues with it. as a matter of fact, i used it this evening to record a sax player.

[muziekschuur]

Any update on this microphone?

[Earcatcher]

Originally Posted by muziekschuur

Any update on this microphone?

I used it on a classic jazz sax player. We also tried AKG C414 B-XLS, Brauner Valvet-X and Schoeps CMC6MK21, but we both preferred the AT4081 for his particular sound. Very nice and natural, slightly warm with a touch of vintage vibe. No EQ needed. I ended up tracking with a Schoeps CMC6MK8 added for M/S stereo. The guy was in a hallway with good natural reverb, which made the M/S worthwhile. (It was a solo recording, so no need of mixing him in with other instruments.) I placed the AT4081 in an sE reflection filter (pro) in order to avoid the backside picking up too much uncontrolled reverb. Finally I added some mild compression (SPL Frontliner, before A/D-conversion) and I ended up with a fine recording. Later on I had to add a little reverb to some pieces, but that worked out very well with the original natural reverb. No noise problems by the way. I just ordered another AT4081 for stereo drum overhead use. I like its sound, but also its form factor. A very pleasant mic to work with.

[imaginaryday]

i would love to hear a small sample if all posible!

it's funny as i just got my second at4081 for that very reason.


cheers.

Originally Posted by Earcatcher

I used it on a classic jazz sax player. We also tried AKG C414 B-XLS, Brauner Valvet-X and Schoeps CMC6MK21, but we both preferred the AT4081 for his particular sound. Very nice and natural, slightly warm with a touch of vintage vibe. No EQ needed. I ended up tracking with a Schoeps CMC6MK8 added for M/S stereo. The guy was in a hallway with good natural reverb, which made the M/S worthwhile. (It was a solo recording, so no need of mixing him in with other instruments.) I placed the AT4081 in an sE reflection filter (pro) in order to avoid the backside picking up too much uncontrolled reverb. Finally I added some mild compression (SPL Frontliner, before A/D-conversion) and I ended up with a fine recording. Later on I had to add a little reverb to some pieces, but that worked out very well with the original natural reverb. No noise problems by the way. I just ordered another AT4081 for stereo drum overhead use. I like its sound, but also its form factor. A very pleasant mic to work with.

[Earcatcher]

Originally Posted by imaginaryday

i would love to hear a small sample if all posible!

it's funny as i just got my second at4081 for that very reason.


cheers.

Here is a dry, untreated sample from the session. Since it is 96Khz 24bit you can play with it yourself and see what you can do with it. In the next post I'll attach a wet sample, the way it ended up in the movie it was recorded for. No EQ, just reverb. I had to cut the samples pretty short because of upload limitations. Sorry.

[Earcatcher]

And the wet sample:

[imaginaryday]

Originally Posted by Earcatcher

Here is a dry, untreated sample

it sounds very nice! how far was the mic from the sax?

thanks for posting!

[Earcatcher]

Originally Posted by imaginaryday

it sounds very nice! how far was the mic from the sax?

thanks for posting!

It was 85cm away from the lip of the sax, just above it. And contrary to what I said in a previous post: I did not use the SPL Frontliner for this recording, but the built in preamps of the Sound Devices 788T, so you can be sure that you are listening to a very clean representation of what the mic sounds. I checked my notes. For the M/S stereo decoding I used a setting of approx. 75% mid and 25% side. Decoding was done during recording, inside the recorder. No compression or limiting was used.

[spiral]

I bought a Vinjet and wanted to compare it to my current favorite ribbon which is the AT4081. So here are some clips of the AT4081 on a guitar amp (dry, no EQ, no compression):

Clip #1. 6" from grille, 2" off center from cone
http://soundcloud.com/spiesteleviv/allen-sweet-spot-6-from-grille/s-5Z3s4

Clip #2. 10" from the grille, 1" off center from cone
http://soundcloud.com/spiesteleviv/allen-sweet-spot-10-from/s-a45ck

[Succulence]

Originally Posted by spiral

I bought a Vinjet and wanted to compare it to my current favorite ribbon which is the AT4081. So here are some clips of the AT4081 on a guitar amp (dry, no EQ, no compression):

Clip #1. 6" from grille, 2" off center from cone
http://soundcloud.com/spiesteleviv/allen-sweet-spot-6-from-grille/s-5Z3s4

Clip #2. 10" from the grille, 1" off center from cone
http://soundcloud.com/spiesteleviv/allen-sweet-spot-10-from/s-a45ck

This is interesting. The Vin-Jet to me sounds nearly identical to the AT4081 and definitely as good. Seems that the Lundhal does nothing at all, or if anything sounds a tiny bit weaker and more plasticy (if that makes sense). I'm guessing that the sonic differences between the mics would be more apparent with a vocal comparison, which is more of what I'm getting into ribbon mics for right now.

Do you have a preference between these mics for guitar? Have you tried them on vocals? I just ordered a Vin-Jet with a Lundhal and currently have a Velo 8.

[nigeldaddy]

i like the 4081 better. particularly the highs. they seem to have more presence and air to them. i kind of agree w/the other post that mentions a plastic-y sound on the vinjet. still usable, but side by side with the 4081 there's no comparison in my opinion.

[kerouac]

I liked the stock Vinjet best, each time.

[Igor2012]

Originally Posted by Stepping_Stone

For anyone who is interested, these are the audio clips that I sent to Audio Technica illustrating the problem I was having with this mic. I used three different mics (the AT4081, a dynamic, and an LDC) set in the same exact position on a Vintage 30. The only adjustment that was made between the takes was to the preamp gain, to compensate for the differences between the mics. The amp was set for a completely clean tone.

It sounds like the mic's internal electronics might be clipping.