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Does anybody use a Cascade microphone?


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I know one personally
;)

 

Yeah.... I know one personally also.

 

On the recommendation of folks who should know better on another forum, I sent my Beyer M260 to a supposedly reputable guy for ribbon replacment because the mic was losing output after thirty years of constant use.

 

I eventually had to file a police report for theft to get the mic returned and even though it supposedly had a new RCA ribbon replacement, the mic sounded the same and suffered the same low output.

 

I ended up sending it to Beyer for a rebuild. They said the magnet structure had weakened and needed to be replaced and they replaced the RCA ribbon iwth the stock one. The mic sounds great again.

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Bummer. I wouldn't have that trouble with my guy (I know where he lives :D), but I'd like to learn to do it. The leaf is disgustingly cheap, but you have to buy it in sheets, then cut and corrugate it yourself. The minimum purchase would do dozens and dozens of ribbons, so I can wreck a bunch of them. I can't see shipping off a mic for a repair that will cost twice or more what I paid for it, I'd just as soon discard/sell for parts and replace it. Plus, while I'm in there, I could do a transformer upgrade.

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You could give it a try yourself, but it really is an art form in terms of getting ribbons tensioned properly...

 

I got away with it on the first one! I might have it a touch tight, but the whole procedure was so dicey, I'm just glad I didn't kill it. The ribbon was visibly sagging when I started, I think I erased a corrugation taking up the slack.

 

It wasn't absurdly fragile, probably not much moreso than wet toilet paper. The real problem was the magnet attacking the tools. If the inner screen weren't so heavy, I might have had some trouble.

 

I may have reinstalled the motor backwards. :facepalm: I'll check the other one to be sure.

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You jerks have forced me to look into a Fathead before my next session :)

 

I've been wanted to get into some M/S stuff for a while and I think that might be a decent direction. Unfortunately, I heard the comparison clips with the stock tranny and the lundahl (sp?) and it's drastic enough that I think I need to spend the extra dough.

 

So let's see: before we get the ball rolling on this album, I'm going to upgrade my monitoring chain AND buy an entry-level ribbon. Not a cheap hobby, is it?

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No, it's not cheap. :) I was going through my studio last night looking at how much I've spent and feeling kind of down about it, but then I spent the evening mixing some sessions we've been working on and remembered that it's all worth it. :D

 

My Cascades have the Lundahl transformer, and I think it's a solid addition.

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The main reason a ribbon mic is always fig 8 is the ribbon element is only a thin piece of metal, with no parts like a diaphragm. You can't really have any pattern choices with a thin peice of metal! Phil said someone makes a ribbon mic with patterns, well thats probably true by now! I just don't know how they would do it, but I aint no lectronix engineer. I have a Fathead 1 with the lundahl, and it is worth every penny and more. Works very good in mid-side with an SDC, but on acoustics you are very limited to placement distances, gotta be right up on the source.

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The main reason
a ribbon mic is always fig 8
is the ribbon element is only a thin piece of metal, with no parts like a diaphragm. You can't really have any pattern choices with a thin peice of metal! Phil said someone makes a ribbon mic with patterns, well
thats probably true by now!
I just don't know how they would do it, but I aint no lectronix engineer. I have a Fathead 1 with the lundahl, and it is worth every penny and more. Works very good in mid-side with an SDC, but on acoustics you are very limited to placement distances, gotta be right up on the source.

 

 

Well, the Beyerdynamic m160 has been around 50 years and it's hypercardioid. Just sayin'...

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