The Ribbon Microphone

For anyone interested in how mucrophones can sound different, check out Jim Lill&#x27;s video [1] where he A&#x2F;B tests a bunch of mics against one another and industry standards.<p>He has a whole series of videos where he explores what contributes the most to &quot;guitar tone&quot;, all the way from the strings to your ears and in between. It&#x27;s a bit of an eye opener to say the least. Highly, highly recommended.<p>1: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;4Bma2TE-x6M" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;4Bma2TE-x6M</a>

An interesting feature of ribbon mics - because the ribbon is open at the front and the back, they reject sound from the side (and top&#x2F;bottom) almost perfectly. You can arrange these cleverly in live or studio settings to amplify one thing while rejecting another completely.<p>A typical usecase for this is a singer with an acoustic guitar - one mic can pick up the guitar and almost fully reject the vocals, and vice-versa. Pretty cool.

Relevant <i>Wired</i> articles from 2011:<p>* &quot;Relics Reborn: Ribbon Microphones Rally for Vintage-Audio Geeks&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;01&#x2F;gallery-ribbon-mics-part-1&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;01&#x2F;gallery-ribbon-mics-part-1&#x2F;</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20240118172709&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;01&#x2F;gallery-ribbon-mics-part-1&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20240118172709&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired...</a><p>* &quot;Ribbon Microphones: Audio Icon You Can Build in Your Garage&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;01&#x2F;ribbon-mics-part-2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;01&#x2F;ribbon-mics-part-2&#x2F;</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20160326035336&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired.com&#x2F;2011&#x2F;01&#x2F;ribbon-mics-part-2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20160326035336&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.wired...</a> (the internal link from part 1 to part 2 in the <i>Wired</i> story is currently broken!)<p>(These were posted in 2011 by user mainland but didn&#x27;t get any comments.)

It also led to the ability to sing in a quieter, more natural way, and gave birth to the &quot;crooner&quot; style. The earlier popularized carbon button microphone (invented in 1878) didn’t enable this personal singing style. If you look at one you might mistake it for the receiver of an old telephone handset (which in essence it was).

Seems like you could get many of the benefits of a ribbon by using a laser to measure the vibration of the ribbon vs measuring the voltage. Of course the ribbon won&#x27;t vibrate the same without a magnetic field applied so you could still supply that. You&#x27;ll also just be picking up the vibrations at one point of the ribbon instead of the summation(?) of it&#x27;s movement. But you won&#x27;t have to worry so much about noise and shielding, while still retaining a low resonant frequency.

If the author&#x27;s reading this, the site renders like this in a recent Firefox - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;lazMsqx.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;lazMsqx.png</a>

Is there a recording somewhere to hear what this sounds like?

Ribbon mics: Expensive, and notoriously fragile (to high SPL).<p>Some are so sensitive that you can actually destroy the ribbon by shutting the (mic) case lid too fast.

That’s great, but would love to hear samples to see if it’s any good!

Apparently aluminum ribbons can be used the other way too with some success. I recently came across a ribbon speaker: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.instructables.com&#x2F;DIY-Tinfoil-Ribbon-Speaker&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.instructables.com&#x2F;DIY-Tinfoil-Ribbon-Speaker&#x2F;</a>

Is this basically just the inverse of an electrostatic speaker? I&#x27;ve seen DIY builds of those using very thin films coated with some electrosensitive solution - would that work as an alternative for the foil&#x2F;leaf used here?

This was an excellent read! I dabbled in DIY audio gear as a teenager, mostly building headphone amps. Never dreamed of trying something as complex as this.

I built a ribbon mic from a kit a while ago, and only broke the ribbon once putting it together! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bumblebeepro.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bumblebeepro.com&#x2F;</a><p>Of course, as soon as i tried to record my guitarist with it, he cranked his amp and broke it again. Guitarists, man...

They don’t have any EMI shielding? I use an aluminum pedal box, cut holes, and screen them with fine steel mesh. The XLR terminal grounds the mic, cable, and transformer together. These should have such a low noise floor they can pick up LF signals like train tracks and subwoofers rumbling off in the distance.

I bought my father a RM-BIV3 ribbon microphone [0] to record violin. It&#x27;s a beautiful piece.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;micpedia.com&#x2F;microphone&#x2F;bashaudio-rm-biv3&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;micpedia.com&#x2F;microphone&#x2F;bashaudio-rm-biv3&#x2F;</a>

Is there a sample sound? Cool design

there is (now) a sample recording, for anyone interested.

All lowercase text is so hard to read.

In the good old mandatory <i>&quot;headphones are speakers&quot;</i> spirit (which us kids at 12 years old had fun with by plugging our headphones in the mic input to act as a mic) I&#x27;ll mention that ribbon tweeters in speakers are a thing too. My floor-standing loudspeakers have two tweeters, one of which is a ribbon tweeter.<p>The vertical tweeters in the vid here are ribbon tweeters (same speakers but not my vid):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;Tgk_ke1BRiM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;Tgk_ke1BRiM</a>