Building Or Modding Microphones

Hi Guys,I realise being a guitar forum that microphones aren't guitars . But thought it might be of interest to the people that record out there.

I've built a variety of condenser , and ribbon microphones there are so many cheap chinese mics that we all probably have that can easily be upgraded modded or made. This company makes amazing upgrade kits for a variety of microphones from MXL to Apex. http://microphone-parts.com/mod-kits/

The mods go from a few components to more complicated . The easiest mics components wise to build are Ribbons mainly because there's only three of them the ribbon motor, transformer and I used an old MXL 990 microphone body .The hard thing to do is make the fine foil in the ribbon motor. The microphone sounds amazing totally different , as do my condenser mics with new components and capsules. The upgrades have taken the microphones from very basic microphones to pro quality soundwise.

http://youtu.be/B0GcbPBfhgY

http://youtu.be/DtNH46jpwJo

Give them a try
Best Wishes
Kimball

nice one Kimball.
Could you suggest what sort of microphone I could use for a cajon drum box ? I'd like to fix a mini microphone inside and have a volume control and 3.5mm output jack if possible

Hi Wokka , my buddy Russell uses this it's great allows you to move the mic around until you find the sweet spot area http://youtu.be/IB11vocO3xU

This is also used by a variety of cajon drum box players
Shure Beta91 PZM Mic

Wokka what are you going to plug the mic into
Thanks
Kimball

Cheaper options http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/CAJON-DRU...item19f7498f1d

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PICKUP-TR...item23457190ef

Hi Kimball,
thanks for the info, might look at a cheaper option but was just planning to plug it into a guitar amp. I can't play the cajon but might try and learn to play it

Thanks for the hot tip mate. I've got a few mxl condenser mics, sound ok but nothing glorious.

so Andrew/Kimball is it better to mike up amps when recording or plugging the FX unit into the PC via USB ?
what gives the truest sound ?

What time of the day is it haha? The only multi I've used that got good results IMHO is the pod, but micing an amp is preferable if you can get the tubes warm. Another alternative I adore atm is impulse responses. Google lecab2 and the amp sims from poulet. They use a normal amp Sim plugin in your daw, then another plugin, a cabinet impulse response loader called lecab2, where you load an impulse, a wav file, that emulates how the cab sits in the room. Basically a lot of this stuff is free, and really nice. You can download response packs that have a Marshall quad micd with a sm57 on a angle and a few feet away, or on the cone etc.

Sorry, it's poulin or LePou. Watch "Free Amp Sim Plugins from LePou (Overview)" on YouTube
Free Amp Sim Plugins from LePou (Overview): http://youtu.be/2L8iXXl9dpE

cool cheers Andrew, thats good for a freeby !

Np mate. Best part is you plug straight in to the interface, so no mics or anything, and you can change amps or cabs or mics after the fact.

Eleven rack straight into protools.

Hi Andrew the mods I've done on my Mxl mics are brilliant I've converted one to a ribbon ,the other to a very good quality
Condenser mic . The Rode Nt1a sounds stunning . But favourite mic that suits my voice is the Mxl mic I've converted to a Neumann U87 style mic.

Wokka do try the positive grid demo gives you a great guitar sound without miking up the amp it comes with various amps mics and different sizes of cabinets and speakers .

Thanks
Kimball

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kimball492

Wokka do try the positive grid demo gives you a great guitar sound without miking up the amp it comes with various amps mics and different sizes of cabinets and speakers .

Thanks
Kimball

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will do Kimball,if you can pry me out of the workshop

Also the combination of my Eleven rack interface with the positive grid is just amazing for clean sounds crunch blues and metal
And there's great sounds for the bass guitars also .
Kimball
P.s Ref positive grid as I say you can try the demo free of charge but it is amazing