Which ribbon mic to buy?

[kellyb]

I love ribbons, and another vote for AEA here! I've had a few R84's, R88's over the years, and now an R44. All are easy mic to recommend. The R44 is the easiest to recommend, and while expensive, used prices are still pretty close to a new R88A. You're already aware that those mics are 'far field' ribbons...for example, proximity effect starts at about 6 feet for the R44...which is nuts. Thing is, if I had to choose, I'd always choose a far field mic. They're amazing tools for recording, well, anything. If you position it right, judicious use of any capable high pass filter is going to take care of you. :-)

Oh...the N8 is just half an R88 (or R88A) I believe. I LOVE the R88 for just about anything - It's a "classy" sounding ribbon...maybe event a little more refined than the R84. Definitely easier to wrangle than the R44.

Playing Devil's advocate about Active v. Passive, I'd choose passive and get a Cloudlifter Z, a booster with variable impedance. The difference between 3k and 16k of input impedance for any of the passive AEAs above is not subtle! 16k will brighten any of those (passive) mics right up, and hearing one at 16k through a Neve (or clone) pre is pretty special IMO!

And a quick shout out for the Coles 4038. Maybe the darkest of the bunch, but smooth, interesting, and highly malleable with EQ!

Enjoy your search!

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by kellyb

I I LOVE the R88 for just about anything - It's a "classy" sounding ribbon...maybe event a little more refined than the R84. Definitely easier to wrangle than the R44.

Playing Devil's advocate about Active v. Passive, I'd choose passive and get a Cloudlifter Z, a booster with variable impedance. The difference between 3k and 16k of input impedance for any of the passive AEAs above is not subtle! 16k will brighten any of those (passive) mics right up, and hearing one at 16k through a Neve (or clone) pre is pretty special IMO!

Or get a preamp intended for ribbons. I use the AEA RPQ with my R88, and it has an input impedance of 63K, designed by AEA for their ribbons.

And a quick shout out for the Coles 4038. Maybe the darkest of the bunch, but smooth, interesting, and highly malleable with EQ!

It's funny, I had this long dream the other night that I was at a recording session and the engineer brought out multiple pairs of 4038s and was using them on everything. I don't usually dream about mics, but.... When I was playing with the Townsend L22, the model I liked the most was the 4038, making me really interested in trying the real thing someday.

[kellyb]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Or get a preamp intended for ribbons. I use the AEA RPQ with my R88, and it has an input impedance of 63K, designed by AEA for their ribbons.


It's funny, I had this long dream the other night that I was at a recording session and the engineer brought out multiple pairs of 4038s and was using them on everything. I don't usually dream about mics, but.... When I was playing with the Townsend L22, the model I liked the most was the 4038, making me really interested in trying the real thing someday.

Doug, I loved it in your video when you went straight for the 4038 after the M49! I finally grabbed some proper headphones, and after listening (to your cool playing) in that video, I would say YES definitely get your hands on the real thing. The Townsend is intriguing, but the difference between a tube mic like that and a coles seems LOT bigger to me (my comparison is a flea 47 and a coles tho). The coles is recent to me, and what it does to cymbals in small overly bright rooms is nothing short of a miracle. So smooth. Generally speaking, I expected it to be much darker than it actually is. It does just fine capturing acoustic trebles and airy resonance. But I personally don't pay much attention to freqs above 15k. I'll often low pass it out on various instruments in fact.

Also, re: the RPQ, absolutely! I have one and love it. The high pass filter on that sounds like it was made exactly for those ribbons (because it was? :-)) it cuts exactly the right freqs at the perfect slope...amazingly useful.

[standup]

I have some ribbon mics here. Stager SR2N is a very good sounding mic, but figure-8, which means it might pick up unwanted room noise.

Better for guitar would be a Beyer m160, which I used recently, or an AEA r92. M160 is a directional mic, not figure 8. r92 is a figure-8 but designed for close micing, so minimizes room sound.

Possibly consider AUA KU5A, which is a very tight directional mic.

My AEA r92 spends most of it's time on a guitar amp, and the KU5A I use mostly for vocals in a full-band environment. I should try it (KU5A) and the Stager on acoustic guitar and keep in mind the results I get.