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#1
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
I have no other ribbons to compare it to. Street price is $90 these days. So why not? The pattern is nice and tight and it picks up very little room . It's also my first fig-8. That's nice. It is rather dull-sounding. It's dark and wooly. It sort-of works on acoustic guitar if you want a ... vintage sort of sound. You can add EQ to the upper few octaves to brighten it. But it mainly sounds muddy on my dreadnoughts. Perhaps on a parlor? Seems okay on vox. I suspect a better singer than I would sound better on it. I have the sort of voice that sounds best on an SM57. It shines on electric. Nice and detailed without being scratchy or fizzy. Just for giggles, I ran it coincident with a Behringer ECM8000, took a deconvolution between them, then applied the convolution to the ECM. It's not a bad mild "stereo" solution and I'd defy anyone to double-blind tell which is which. I suspect the convolution kernel plus the ECM8000 will prove more valuable than the mic itself over time - just throw the ECM8000 on something, then "I wonder what that would sound like..." and presto. Fortunately, it comes with a nice case so it can rest quietly on the shelf fully protected. Conclusion: You can't go wrong for the price. Obviously there is the Fathead and various Royer offerings ( and an apparently growing list of others ). The mic is rather dull which is what gives it some measure of value - it's a contrast to condensers. I'd like to try it on a good singer and snare some day. Something tells me that about three-four feet out, even with the top of the kik drum, against a nice pair of overheads in a good room might be a fine drum mic setup. There is an emerging market of phantom-powered buffers designed for ribbons; might try one for it and my various dynamics. -- Les Cargill |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
Les Cargill wrote:
-------------------------- I have no other ribbons to compare it to. Street price is $90 these days. So why not? The pattern is nice and tight and it picks up very little room . ** FFS it's fig 8 pattern, so it picks up damn near the whole room. It's also my first fig-8. ** No fooling .... That's nice. It is rather dull-sounding. ** Like all fig 8s, it has a strong "proximity effect" that boosts the low end when sited close to sources - it ain't dull. It's dark and wooly. ** No, it has strong proximity effect. Seems okay on vox. I suspect a better singer than I would sound better on it. I have the sort of voice that sounds best on an SM57. ** Or a telephone ..... Try the same mic in a large room at longer distance and you will get a very different impression. And don't use your own voice as a sound quality test. There is an emerging market of phantom-powered buffers designed for ribbons; might try one for it and my various dynamics. ** Don't waste your money. ..... Phil |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
Phil Allison wrote:
Les Cargill wrote: -------------------------- I have no other ribbons to compare it to. Street price is $90 these days. So why not? The pattern is nice and tight and it picks up very little room . ** FFS it's fig 8 pattern, so it picks up damn near the whole room. So I ran an omni condenser[1] coincident with it. I normalized both tracks to the same level (using the RMS calculation in CoolEdit ). The end result is that the R144 has less *apparent* room. If you split the tracks left and right, the room tone is a few dB more with the ribbon than with the omni. This shows up in headphones and on the meters. Are you then saying that this is attributable to proximity effect? I was... about a foot away from them, with an acoustic guitar. It's also my first fig-8. ** No fooling .... snip .... Phil -- Les Cargill |
#4
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
On Sun, 3 Dec 2017 11:43:02 -0600, Les Cargill
wrote: Are you then saying that this is attributable to proximity effect? I was... about a foot away from them, with an acoustic guitar. Get yourself more than 6 feet away if you want to drop proximity effect to a reasonable level. d --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
On 12/3/2017 12:43 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
I was... about a foot away from them, with an acoustic guitar. If you're only about a foot away from the front of the mic, unless you're in a really small room or the back side of the mic is a foot away from a wall, you're going to get much more guitar than room in the recording, same as you would with an omni mic - except that the omni will have negligible proximity effect. -- For a good time, call http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
Les Cargill wrote:
------------------------ The pattern is nice and tight and it picks up very little room . ** FFS it's fig 8 pattern, so it picks up damn near the whole room. So I ran an omni condenser[1] coincident with it. I normalized both tracks to the same level (using the RMS calculation in CoolEdit ). The end result is that the R144 has less *apparent* room. If you split the tracks left and right, the room tone is a few dB more with the ribbon than with the omni. This shows up in headphones and on the meters. Are you then saying that this is attributable to proximity effect? I was... about a foot away from them, with an acoustic guitar. ** A guitar is a relatively large sound source - at one foot the mic is in the "near field" so room sound is defeated PLUS the proximity effect of a fig 8 boosts the guitar's sound, but not room sound arriving from far away. Your comment about having a tight pattern is what is wrong, a false assumption based on a meaningless test. ..... Phil |
#8
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 1:41:39 PM UTC-5, Don Pearce wrote:
On Sun, 03 Dec 2017 18:28:52 GMT, (Don Pearce) wrote: On Sun, 3 Dec 2017 11:43:02 -0600, Les Cargill wrote: Are you then saying that this is attributable to proximity effect? I was... about a foot away from them, with an acoustic guitar. Get yourself more than 6 feet away if you want to drop proximity effect to a reasonable level. d --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus I've made plots of the bass lift of a figure 8 out to 1 metre away. You can see there is still plenty of lift going on at that distance http://www.soundthoughts.co.uk/look/bass_lift.png The vertical scale is decibels d thats funny Figure 8 at the top refers to the mic pattern, not the number of the figure. m |
#9
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
On Mon, 4 Dec 2017 07:40:04 -0800 (PST), wrote:
On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 1:41:39 PM UTC-5, Don Pearce wrote: On Sun, 03 Dec 2017 18:28:52 GMT, (Don Pearce) wrote: On Sun, 3 Dec 2017 11:43:02 -0600, Les Cargill wrote: Are you then saying that this is attributable to proximity effect? I was... about a foot away from them, with an acoustic guitar. Get yourself more than 6 feet away if you want to drop proximity effect to a reasonable level. d --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus I've made plots of the bass lift of a figure 8 out to 1 metre away. You can see there is still plenty of lift going on at that distance http://www.soundthoughts.co.uk/look/bass_lift.png The vertical scale is decibels d thats funny Figure 8 at the top refers to the mic pattern, not the number of the figure. m Yep, I could probably have labelled that one a bit better. d |
#10
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
Don Pearce wrote:
On Sun, 03 Dec 2017 18:28:52 GMT, (Don Pearce) wrote: On Sun, 3 Dec 2017 11:43:02 -0600, Les Cargill wrote: Are you then saying that this is attributable to proximity effect? I was... about a foot away from them, with an acoustic guitar. Get yourself more than 6 feet away if you want to drop proximity effect to a reasonable level. d --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus I've made plots of the bass lift of a figure 8 out to 1 metre away. You can see there is still plenty of lift going on at that distance http://www.soundthoughts.co.uk/look/bass_lift.png The vertical scale is decibels d That's substantial. Thanks, Don. -- Les Cargill |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
On Monday, December 4, 2017 at 10:40:10 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sunday, December 3, 2017 at 1:41:39 PM UTC-5, Don Pearce wrote: On Sun, 03 Dec 2017 18:28:52 GMT, (Don Pearce) wrote: On Sun, 3 Dec 2017 11:43:02 -0600, Les Cargill wrote: Are you then saying that this is attributable to proximity effect? I was... about a foot away from them, with an acoustic guitar. Get yourself more than 6 feet away if you want to drop proximity effect to a reasonable level. d --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus I've made plots of the bass lift of a figure 8 out to 1 metre away. You can see there is still plenty of lift going on at that distance http://www.soundthoughts.co.uk/look/bass_lift.png The vertical scale is decibels d thats funny Figure 8 at the top refers to the mic pattern, not the number of the figure. Pros? Jack m |
#12
Posted to rec.audio.pro
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MXL R144 ribbon microphone premature review
Les Cargill wrote:
I have no other ribbons to compare it to. Street price is $90 these days. So why not? The pattern is nice and tight and it picks up very little room . It's also my first fig-8. That's nice. It is rather dull-sounding. By ribbon standards, the pattern is kind of sloppy. The thing about the figure-8 is that it should have a really really tight null. You can put an instrument in the null and it will almost completely disappear. This mike does... not exactly have a good null, but it has a better null than any cardioid mike will ever have, and for $90 that's useful. It's dark and wooly. It sort-of works on acoustic guitar if you want a ... vintage sort of sound. You can add EQ to the upper few octaves to brighten it. But it mainly sounds muddy on my dreadnoughts. Perhaps on a parlor? There's really no top octave at all in part because the ribbon is too heavy and in part because the magnet assembly is too big (and in part because the transformer is hard to build). If you put it into a higher impedance input, you might be able to get a little of that top end back, but it's never going to have the detailed and clean top end of a Royer or an RCA BK-11. But for $90 it's okay. If you're close-miking a guitar and the mike is too dull, move the mike farther up the neck. Maybe even up to fret ten or so. I suspect the convolution kernel plus the ECM8000 will prove more valuable than the mic itself over time - just throw the ECM8000 on something, then "I wonder what that would sound like..." and presto. Fortunately, it comes with a nice case so it can rest quietly on the shelf fully protected. The most useful thing about the microphone is the pattern. Using an ECM8000 with fancy equalization might make it sound the same on-axis, but that's not the useful thing about the mike. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
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