Listening impressions of Marik's new ribbon mic

Hey everyone! In the course of coming to Fandemonium Con in Boise, I had the chance to stop and visit Marik for a few hours on Thursday. While there, I got to sing through his new ribbon mic, plus a modified Nady tube mic, provided by his friend Nat.

His latest ribbon design sounds absolutely heavenly with my voice. I have found the microphone I want. :thumb:

Marik himself is quite a delightful person to be around, and we had a blast with me doing some singing, and Nat playing some guitar. I really need to practice with my singing voice, though. :green:

Just thought you'd like to know. :thumb:

Yes, I've already heard the results of that session ( :wink: ) and it does sound quite good on your voice.

BTW, does anyone know where Marik can borrow or rent an AEA, Royer, Coles, or some other quality ribbon for comparision test?

i think that Vintage King could do that..
i'd like to hear that session too.. could I?

I have no worries with anyone wanting to hear my off-the-cuff singing, but Marik has all of the files, so you'll need to pester him. :grin:

The preamp we went through was one of the ones that came in an Edirol AD/DA, so it was at best an average pre. Even then, my voice came through with the qualities I like in it. I'm sold.

Consul,

Thanks for your nice words about the mic (and myself :grin:--my wife still tends to agree with that). I completely agree that for your voice it was much better choice. I will post the files when I come back from California.

Unfortunately, because of car problem, I missed live recording, Brent has arranged. Anyway, hopefully we will have chance to record something
in the studio here, so will be able to give more complete report, as using on different instruments, etc.

YAY! I finally made it back home, and now here I am at work... :?

Yes, Marik's mic is definitely a winner. Hopefully, you'll get to hear my vocal tests and get to comment on them. The mics, that is, not my singing. :green:

Dang, Consul the crooner! Hey Consul, howabout a little Frank or Dino!
You know Old Man River?
:razz:

[quote author="cjenrick"]Dang, Consul the crooner! Hey Consul, howabout a little Frank or Dino!
You know Old Man River?
:razz:[/quote]Speaking of Dino, I bet Cousul could sing a killer "That's Amore"! :green:

Consul, go for it!
It goes something like this:
When the moon hits your eye like a biga pizza pie.....
:razz:

but there is some spoken word Italian in the bridge. Cionsul, you know the lingo?
:guinness:

Everybody loves my body sometime....


I use to get up every morning and put Dino on while I ate Spaghettii for breakfast. Don't ask me why. Just a phase I was going thru.
:guinness:
Anybody else have pasta for breakfast?

I could never sing like Dino, although I'm told I did a pretty good rendition of "My Way" at a karaoke party once. :razz:

Thank you all for the comments. When others hear my little samples, we'll see just what happens then... :green:

Speaking of, did you actually hear the samples I recorded at Marik's, CJ?

I don't have computer speakers, thats how primitive I am.
He might be dropping by here, I do not know if he has the tracks with him or not.
Do you have a union card?

Since there is some interest in this, I thought I'd add a little detail to Consul's report.

We recorded a ribbon mic track and a condenser mic track at the same time though an Edirol UA-1000 into a PC, using the pre-amps in the Edirol. These are your standard "good enough if that's what you've got" pre-amps. Not much gain, a noticeable amount of noise at high gain, but not really bad-sounding. The noise was noticeable, but not in the way on the ribbon mic guitar tracks, and not significant on the fairly loud vocal tracks. I don't know how it would be with a different pre-amp.

The Nady mic was a TCM-1050 that Mark had modified for me with a different circuit and components, higher-than-average tube current, Lundahl transformer, and a 6N1P tube, I think. I think it sounds really good: flattering to voice and guitar and drums, without the usual Chinese-mic high-frequency buzz.

On Darren's voice, recorded at a distance of about three feet, the ribbon mic smoothed out his voice nicely, compared to the condenser. It still had plently of high end for intelligibility, which was remarkable compared to an Octava ML-52 that Mark and I had used before. The Oktava really never sounded good at all, even after Mark tried to soup it up considerably. Mark's ribbon doesn't sound like a condenser (which is good), but it has very good high end, and no noticeable frequency anomalies.

I thought (and I think Mark and Darren did, too) that the mic really shined on distant mic'ing of acoustic guitar. With the microphone about three feet away, it gave a really even and nice sound to the guitar. I like the sound of the Nady on guitar (though I can view both of these mics objectively, I'm not rooting for one or the other), but it didn't sound as good in some ways as the ribbon mic. For solo guitar, the more aggresive sound of the condenser wouldn't be as appropriate, in my opinion.

Of course, it always depends on the mix, and the application, and the desired results, but the this ribbon mic does sound generally very good.

Now I wish I had just written that last paragraph to be concise, but I enjoy a healthy new-mic detail frenzy as much as the next guy. Hope that helps.

I really liked the way the ribbon sounded on the solo guitar, but I still think the modded Nady would be just the thing for that guitar if you need to cut through a mix.

I am, overall, very impressed with Marik's ribbon mic design. I'm also glad to see Nat posting here. :thumb:

If I'm ever in town again, maybe we can play around with the ribbon going through some of the really good preamps. :guinness:

Finally I am back home, so as promised, here are some files from that session. As Consul and Nat have said, the ribbon mic was checked against modified Nady. The tracks as follow:

Guitar--my ribbon:

http://home.comcast.net/~markfuksman/Track05.mp3

Guitar--Nady

http://home.comcast.net/~markfuksman/Track06.mp3

Consul--my ribbon

http://home.comcast.net/~markfuksman/Track07.mp3

Consul--Nady

http://home.comcast.net/~markfuksman/Track08.mp3

Also, in LA I spent a wonderful day in PMI Audio with Brent and Alan, where we made some guitar tracks, with Alan playing. I will convert the files to MP3 and post them later tonight. Maybe Brent will give some more comments, including the other mics we checked the ribbon against, and some details on equipment used...

Ah, now you all get to hear my dubious singing voice. :green: Thanks again, Marik, for letting me into your home.

I like it very much, vey smooth like good ribbons.

Marik, witch one is it? You have showed us somany ribbon mics that I don´t know witch one we are talking about anymore...

[quote author="rafafredd"]I like it very much, vey smooth like good ribbons.

Marik, witch one is it? You have showed us somany ribbon mics that I don´t know witch one we are talking about anymore...[/quote]

This witch :green: (sorry Rafa, I could not resist) is this one:

http://www.groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=1553&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Oh Ritgh, mi bed engleshi agian...



I always do it...

[quote author="Marik"]...we made some guitar tracks, with Alan playing...[/quote]Alan playing?? I gotta hear this! :green:

Oh, and welcome home! Glad you had a good trip!

Here are the tracks from PMI. Each pair of tracks was recorded simultaneously--one track condenser (Brent can fill more with details), and another with my ribbon. I splitted them later. During first run Alan did not realize that we were recording him. So here they are:

My ribbon with phantom powered impedance converter:

http://home.comcast.net/~markfuksman/BounceRibbon1.mp3

Brent's condenser:

http://home.comcast.net/~markfuksman/BounceES1.mp3

My ribbon without impedance converter:

http://home.comcast.net/~markfuksman/BounceSamarNoImpConv2.mp3

Brent's another condenser:

http://home.comcast.net/~markfuksman/BounceE1Fig8.2.mp3