Microphones

[kdj432]

I wonder if there's a well put together site such as this for building Microphones.

[motterpaul]

Funny you should mention it...

I just built  microphone from scratch over the weekend. It was a very cool project. It was a one-day "course" at a local college, the instructor was the owner of the company "Austin Mics" here:

http://www.diyribbonmic.com/

My mic worked the first time. I was very surprised at how basic the parts were. We actually built the diaphragm from two magnets, a piece of plastic, aluminum foil (not "wrap" but very thin foil), and two pieces of flat metal grill. Almost nothing was pre-shaped or  except the mic body and the plastic frame for the ribbon. We even had to cut the ribbons to size and plavce them ourselves.

BTW: they make outstanding guitar speaker mics - fantastic low end.

[kdj432]

That's fantastic!  do they offer a course to build a pre amp?  I find the ribbon mics I have need a little more volume but they really are great sounding on a guitar cab.

[Pedalhead]

Groupdiy.com forum have a section devoted to microphones. Plenty of preamp circuits there too.


Gyraf Audio have the G7 tube microphone project and G9 tube mic preamp projects.  
http://www.gyraf.dk/gy_pd/gyraf_diy.html

[motterpaul]

FD - they offer a pre-amp kit made just for that mic. I have not tried it but I hear it is good. He also sells the mic with a variety of different transformers.

http://diyribbonmic.com/diykits/

Scroll down for the pre-amp kit.  

I'll tell you I learned a lot about ribbon mics, and even tho I have tons of experience with vintage Neumanns, etc, I had never had a good ribbon before. Now I know why you see so many people using the Royer on guitar amps along with an SM57. The low end you get from the ribbon has ALL the tone you don't normally get from the SM-57. It's really incredible.

[cylens]

I'm planning to buy a pair of those:

http://www.diyrecordingequipment.com/collections/microphones/products/ra-23

there's also micandmod.com proposing several microphone kits

[motterpaul]

Those condensers look great. I have a Pearlman M-250 and at his web site it shows how he constructs them, but he actually even makes the capsules. It is a tube mic.

http://www.pearlmanmicrophones.com/

- they are C12 capsule equivalents

In the kit Cylens mentions above the capsules are pre-made which makes it a lot easier and I think will yield a more reliable end product. So, I would feel fine doing those kits, looks pretty easy actually and a great price.

I would do my research on the capsules. I know the 87C was used in the U-67 also (probably the most famous vocal mic in history). But the C12 was also used in the Original Telefunken M49 which should mean more low end. But ask the sellers what they think about what the capsules - it is the one variable that makes the biggest difference.

AND btw: a great resource for audio transformers: http://cinemag.biz/mic_output/mic_output.php