A long time ago, I was contacted by a guy who had put together a DIY ribbon mic design. I sort of ignored him but like so many things we all get ignored from time to time. Anyhow, he put together a PDF and started selling the plans. Yes, it's America. I'm going to steal a couple of posts from Wireline's manufacturer's theads and start a thread just for Rickshaw Records.

Steve
www.mojopie.com



I don't know if I qualify as a mic manufacturer, but here I am. Thanks for the invite.

I'm Rick from Rickshaw Records, a fledgling surf/instro label in San Diego.
In January 2007, I wanted to buy a Chinese Ribbon Mic to record my band, and after researching them, I figured that I could probably just make one, so, I did.

I am not an inventor, per-se... I stood on the shoulders of giants. I looked at Google images of old designs, read-up on the physics and electronics, found modern powerful magnets and cheap and readily available parts, and then I designed a Ribbon Microphone for myself.
It turned out so good that I made another one with my leftover parts, photographed the whole process, and wrote a DIY manual for how to do it. This tutorial is avaialable from my website: www.rickshawrecords.com/ribbonmic. A few people have bought it.

In the year since I wrote the plans, they've been noticed by some real microphone gurus, and had some press in trade magazines. Along the way, I learned about why ribbon mics work, and why they fail, so I have a pretty good working understanding... But I'm more focused on refining my design so that it's easier to build. With about $100 in parts and some patience, almost anyone can build a ribbon mic that sounds really good.

So, my point is: I'm no expert, but I'm available to you guys to bounce Ribbon Mic ideas and questions off of me. They might be more "educated guess" based on my own design and building experience rather than "book smarts", but sometimes that's what people need. I'm always open to learning too.

Thanks for inviting me in.

- Rickshaw
www.RickshawRecords.com

Well, I'm not a manufacturer per-se, but here are my 2-cents:

My motivation with the DIY Austin Ribbon Mic Plans is 3-fold:
1. Ease of manufacture
2. Using commonly available parts to reduce cost.
3. De-mystify the Ribbon Microphone

It was initally just an experiment to see if I could do it myself, cooked up in an Austin hotel room during downtime on a business trip. (Hence the name) But when I made my first mic a few weeks later, and found out that it actually worked (and worked well!) I thought some other DIY'ers would want a crack at it too. So I built another one, photographed the whole process, and wrote-up the plans.

Regarding Ribbon Mics in general, I think the next big thing is Roswellite or something similar. A new ribbon element that is lightweight and super robust compared to traditional Aluminum ribbons. (just FYI, Christmas Tinsel and CrO2 cassette tape don't work as ribbon material - I've tried)
In my own hunt to ease DIY construction, I'm currently developing an idea I have for making ribbon installation easier and less prone to damage during installation. If I can reduce the ribbon installation time from 60 minutes and 50% failure rate to 15 minutes with a 10% failure rate, I will be very happy.

I'm new at this, and relatively unschooled as far as the theory, so my "fresh" ideas are not concentrated on improving perfromance, but about improving the ease of construction of the Austin design. I'm finishing-up a plan to use another manufacturer's cheap chassis, so you can avoid cutting metal if you want.

An unforseen side-benefit of my Austin plans is that the people who build the mics start learing about ribbon mics in detail based on how and why they work, (rather than just reading magazine ads) then they tell me their experiences and successes/failures. I now understand why a Crowley & Tripp sounds great, and the Chinese offerings are not always so good. I have also used input from real builders to improve the design and re-word some passages.

Again, I'm no ribbon mic guru. The ideas were developed 70+ years ago, and I've just taken the basic theory and distilled it down so that average people like me can build a fairly good ribbon mic.

Rickshaw:

Have you sold plans just to hobbyists or have any pros or manufacturers bought them as well. Just curious.

interesting

It's hard for me to tell who is buying and what their association with the industry is. All I get is email addresses unless someone writes to me specifically.

Bob Crowley (Crowley & Tripp) bought a set last year, and we subsequently began corresponding on a regular basis about ribbon mic design. He seemed genuinely impressed and wrote me a nice testimonial quote for my webpage, and the result of our discussions was that we traded mics - one of mine for one of his. He tested my mic and then put it in his mic museum, and I put his to good use in my studio.

Garrett Haines from Treelady Studios (and an editor at TapeOp and EQ magazines) also bought a set, and I had one order from NIST - although I don't know if they are using it for reference or what.

I also went to NAMM this year looking for distributors, and I rubbed shoulders with the guys from Royer, Earthworks and a couple indie mic manufacturers. Nobody was really interested in making a production mic from my design, but I was asked to leave several booths when I told them that I was a designer. Again, de-mystification of the Ribbon Microphone is one of my goals, and it seems that some of the mainstream manufacturers want to keep it mystical.

Hope that answers your question,

- Rickshaw

Interesting. Just do what you think is the right thing for you. I'm not against sharing info with others as I've found implementation to be the hard part in most instances.

You know, information would be good for the market when there are a lot of resellers of the same mics reportedly all from the same single Chinese factory. Michael Joly has been very helpful on giving his opinion of a lot of these products in stock form, as well as giving some points towards where to enhance them. I like the idea of taking it beyond experience of products to fundamental principles of how some of it works that might help predict the product before the reviews are in. From this perspective, buying RickShaw's info is an investment an informed consumer might want to make.

Bear

Actually they are mystical... at least for me. And the more I think of ribbons, the more I realize that.

this is stupid. But, I know the feeling...its a different thread, but at a few AES booths this year, I was welcomed with open arms...

Its not like ribbon mics (or any others) are new secretive technologies....everything is a variation of things 1st developed 70 years ago, and it would seem that info sharing wuld result in a win-win-win situiation....

But, what do I know? I just use the stuff.

Welcome, Marik!

Marik knows ribbon mics--he's probably the major authority on them in the online DIY community. So I really want to hear more about the mystical.

(And I still need to do his ECM-8000 mods--good god those clips sound awesome.)

Bear

Thank you Bear for the warm welcome and nice words.
As for the "mystical" part, I think it is a topic for a different discussion, as I don't feel it is fair to highjack Rick's thread

Best, M

If anyone is interested, I posted some new samples recorded with my Blumlein Pair of DIY Austin mics:
www.rickshawrecords.com/ribbonmic/ribbonmicsamples.html

The Acoustic Guitar sound from Paul's Larrivee Parlor guitar is very nice.
Thanks to Paul Abbott at www.ZenMastering.com

- Rickshaw
www.rickshawrecords.com/ribbonmic

I've posted several new samples of sounds recorded with the DIY AUSTIN Ribbon Mics, made by various people who have built them:

Pipe Organ and choir in a Cathedral in France
Piano

- Rickshaw
http://www.rickshawrecords.com/ribbonmic