Who does cheap ribbon mic repair?

[standup]

I asked this over on GS because it’s a bigger crowd, FWIW. But nobody’s got anything so far.

I have a cheap ribbon — ART M-5. It’s blown. MIchael Joly has closed up his shop. Who else does cheap ribbon repairs?

This mic cost a bit over $100 I think. Shiny box charges $125 it looks like.

Who does the repairs on the cheap china ribbons?

I have a working m160 and a working AEA R92. So I got the nice ribbons. But it might be cool to have the ART working again if I can find someone who will do it for less than buying a new NADY ribbon mic.

[drumsound]

Check in with John at Shiny Box. I believe he does some repairs.

[I'm Painting Again]

try it yourself - i did it once


had a pretty decent ribbon mic that got smacked and I decided to try it myself for the $16 or so bucks for a 1.8 micrometer foil from Geistnote, LLC in Texas and you know what ? It sounded better than the legit ribbon in there. That might have been dumb luck or the new thickness was nicer or a combo ?? maybe

A lil research into how to do it and what tools to use and I had it running in 30 mins

[standup]

I'm gonna try DIY. Since it doesn't work at all right now, I really can't make things worse. I ordered some foil and a crimper.

[Brett Siler]

I re-ribboned this cheap MXL Ribbon mic and it was so stressful I was sweating while I was doing it. It was like in Leathal Weapon when they were cutting the wires on a bomb, and all the sweat was beading up on their forehead and neck. I successfully pulled it off though. It's very dark but sounds great on guitars.

[I'm Painting Again]

heres some diy advice from Joly in case you wanna try for a better tension

Bring the ribbon up to tension so that there is just the tiniest amount of sag in the middle when the ribbon is horizontal (say 0.5mm), Then tap the motor structure with your finger and watch for the vertical Oscillation of the ribbon. You should see a rapid flutter of the ribbon, perhaps around 10Hz rate. If the ribbon is too tight, and the resonance too high, the vibration of the ribbon will exceed the ability of our vision system to follow the motion and it will just be a blur - probably around 50Hz as I note above. So the 0.5mm sag and loss of visible motion define the lower and upper limits for ribbon tension.

You could do a more accurate job by using the spectral analyzer software available in many sound recording applications. In this case, tension the ribbon as above, connect the ribbon mic to your recording system, tap the motor repeatedly, record the thumping, analyze the resonant frequency then repeat the procedure until you get a ribbon tuned to about 42Hz in the case of a Fathead or RSM-4 type mic, or 20Hz for an Apex 205 type mic.

[emrr]

heres some diy advice from Joly in case you wanna try for a better tension

repeat the procedure until you get a ribbon tuned to about 42Hz in the case of a Fathead or RSM-4 type mic

Interesting to see that observation, because my pair of Fatheads with the Lundahl transformers had resonance about 17Hz, you could see the bump on an analyzer. They'd cause feedback at surprisingly low volumes if someone opened the control room door to the live room. They've been re-ribboned with a thinner material and more even sonic result, I should look at them now.

[I'm Painting Again]

you got an analyzer that reads at 17 cycles?

[emrr]

Yeah, Spectrafoo Complete gives real time data down to DC. Also, an Audio Precision test set, but that's much harder to see graphical info in real time.

[I'm Painting Again]

that is awesome - mine only goes to 20Hz yet my converters can capture 10Hz - gotta upgrade my 15 year old computer one of these days