Another Ribbon Demo

[Doug Young]

Ivan Lee inspired me to grab a budget ribbon mic. He's been posting tracks with the Pacific pro Audio R2, I grabbed the Cascade X-15, which is the same mic, just imported, QA'd and sold under a different brand. Mine has an upgraded transformer, and I think the seller is an AGF poster as well.

Anyway, here's my first stab at recording something with it. Not entirely ordinary, because I spent the day messing with a cool little Parlor guitar, and that's what I'm recording here. I suspected the ribbon might fatten the little guy up a bit, and I think it does. I recorded with the Cascade in MS mode, and a pair of Brauner VM1s at the same time, as spaced pairs. This is clearly not a comparable "shootout", just a couple of different options to compare. This is a short improvised noodle:

Cascade Ribbon mic

Brauners

Both sets of mics, mixed together

I used an AEA RPQ preamp for the Cascade, cranked to full gain, with a slight bass rolloff at 85 Hz. The mixes add a little reverb, and a slight high frequency lift on both tracks around 10Khz. Other than that, no EQ. The Cascade was a tad noisy, and I did a mild noise reduction pass on it.

Oh, I didn't really level-match these, other than by my mix. This isn't about which one is "better', just thought it was an interesting set of sounds.

[Fran Guidry]

Sorry Doug, but you're just terrible at shootouts - the way you improvise who cares what mics are involved, we'll just play the clips over and over and drift away.

Fran

[KenW]

I agree with Fran.

It does sound more like a parlor guitar on the Brauner clip.

[wcap]

Originally Posted by Fran Guidry

Sorry Doug, but you're just terrible at shootouts - the way you improvise who cares what mics are involved, we'll just play the clips over and over and drift away.

Fran

I agree. Lovely playing, lovely sounding guitar.

I don't know how much of that guitar's sound comes from it being a parlor, and how much is more a matter of who built it and how it was built, but it is truly a lovely sounding instrument (and of course, the person doing the playing is influencing the sound a lot too!). The sound is very reminiscent of a classical guitar, but with the sparkle of steel strings. A VERY appealing sound. (A sound very much like a lovely, fabulous Carruth owned by another AGF member that I had opportunity to play recently.)

I'm thinking I probably would really enjoy a good parlor guitar.

[ukejon]

Nice comparison. What specifically is your noise reduction process, Doug?

[rick-slo]

Like you said, more of a mike demo than a mike comparison due to setup differences. Both sound good and in your face (close miked or just your room?). The ribbon recording has a nice natural reverb but is less detailed than the other recording. I like the separate microphones a little more than the two mixed together.

[Doug Young]

Jon: for noise reduction, I used Izotope RX. It has a training mode, where you give it some sample "silence" and it can reduce the overall noise. There are a lot of these tools out there, but iZotope's the first one I've tried that doesn't seem to negatively impact the sound.

Rick: Mics were maybe a foot away. This little guitar is very responsive, and very resonant in the lower mids, which sounds really cool in person, but tends to really pop out and get peaky on the recording, so I'm back a little further than usual. There's a bit of reverb on the track from the Bricasti M7.

I think the Brauner's are more accurate to the natural sound of the guitar, but the ribbon seems to complement it well.

[Ty Ford]

Ain't noise reduction wonderful! Which software? I'm using iZotope RX2 these days.

On my lap top all three are good. Haven't heard them in the studio yet.

[rockabilly69]

I love the natural rolloff of ribbon mics, I use a pair of Cascade Fatheads (with the Lundahl transformers) for lo-fi style recording. They have a nice warmth to them. I have to use a good pre with them as they need a LOT of gain! I bought two cloudlifter Z models and they really help with getting the fullrange out of those Fatheads! Those Fatheads really excel at electric guitar amp recording. For serious acoustic guitar recording though I always use a Rode K2, and a John Bonnell modified Rode NTK in M/S. I like the stereo image I get with that setup, along with the tube warmth and clarity. I run those mics into a Drawmer 1960.

This is what the Rode rig sounds like...

http://www.soundclick.com/player/sin...&q=hi&newref=1

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

Ain't noise reduction wonderful! Which software? I'm using iZotope RX2 these days.

On my lap top all three are good. Haven't heard them in the studio yet.

Yes, I'm using RX2. Probably wasn't strictly needed, but there was some broadband noise on the cascade.