Can excessive preamp gain damage ribbon mic?

[randrohe]

Hello all,
Hope everyone is doing well.
I purchased a new Beyer m160 and I brought the pre amp gain up to 75.
I was micing a resonator guitar and there was no chance of air blasts, but I was getting a farty kind of sound, like the ribbon was overextended? It sounded ok after backing off the gain, but since it was a new mic, I was concerned.
I’ve been using it as a room mic, and it sounds fine.
Any chance I damaged the mic?

I was experimenting with the overdriven transformer sound on a Daking, and have done this with other dynamic mics with no issues.

Thanks in advance for replies that hopefully tell me not to worry about it..lol

[digitaldrummer]

you can't damage the mic by turning up the preamp gain and the preamp won't affect the movement of the ribbon at all (that's whatever you put in front of the mic that is making it vibrate). I'm assuming you did not have phantom power engaged (although that usually won't hurt most modern ribbons either). And I'm assuming that you had a standard XLR mic cable going straight to the input on the preamp. but you might be driving the preamp (or the mic?) too much and it might be a low frequency that you are not hearing so much in monitoring, but it's causing the "farty" distortion. I'd try re-positioning the mic (to get less low frequency/proximity effect) or if you have a HPF on the mic (I don't think there is one on an M160 though) or the preamp that might help too. If you had an inline HPF filter that might help too but it still is in indication that there is probably too much low frequency going to the mic. Or possibly the ribbon is loose/sagging, but I don't think that typically happens with an M160 either (they have the vertical corrugation). So just changing the angle of the mic, or pulling it back away is what I'd try.

[Recycled_Brains]

If it goes away when you back off the gain, it's probably just that when you crank the pre you're getting distortion from overdriving the input of the preamp.

I've recorded acoustic guitars and resonators with my M160 quite a few times and I can pretty much guarantee you're not hurting the mic at all. I've mic'd my cranked Marshall JMP with the same mic and it held up fine there too, so it can take a lotta punishment.

[floid]

Farts resonate.

[randrohe]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses

[Recycled_Brains]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses

Farts resonate.

[floid]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses

Farts resonate.

Just a thought

[Nick Sevilla]

The farting is coming from the source. Move your butt further from the mic.

[Recycled_Brains]

The farting is coming from the source. Move your butt further from the mic.

right, must take poopximity effect into consideration.

[randrohe]

I wear Mopad adult diapers when tracking so resonating farts are taken out out of the equation.
I did a shoot out (shit out?) with and without I posted over on gear sluts years ago.
The results were surprising….

[Colorblind]

This result is even more likely if the resonator is tuned to B flatulent.

[Snarl 12/8]

Most mic preamps I have encountered behave very nonlinearly when cranked to 75 db gain.