very easy to communicate with, and I had numerous emails with him before I even bought the kit. But to save some time
and cash, I wanted to upfit an old MXL mic.
Being an engineer, the first thing I did immediately after ordering my kit, was to look how to improve what was already a
good thing. A couple of things immediately struck me. 1
st
was that no matter what, I knew full well I would need to
eventually re-ribbon the thing. And I wanted to make that process as easy as possible. And I wanted to be able assemble
and disassemble the mic cleanly. So I started to work on some 3-D Printed parts.
But before you get started you will need to hit Rick’s site at
and his OTA transformer. You will need an MXL 990 mic, and the 3-D printer files on thingiverse.
Why MXL Mics
In a word, they’re cheap, easy to find, and many folks buy them as part of their 1
st
studio equipment, to then end up
tossing them in the back of the closet somewhere as they move on to get better quality gear. So they are good
candidates for cannibalizing for upgrades. While ripping the inner layers of mesh out of the basket is a bit of a pain in
the butt, you can’t beat them as a nice mic body as a base for an upgrade. And they most often come with a decent
shock mount. I often find them used for less than $50 each on craigslist, and found 4 for $25 each. Sticking a quality
Ribbon Motor and Transformer into one, quickly turns them into sounding like a mic costing $1,000 or more.
1
st
is a Series
This is in fact the 1
st
in a series of Instructables, with adjoining 3-D printable files to either upgrade or entirely build a
Ribbon Microphone. Since it’s my first, I’m making it fairly detailed. The ones that follow won’t be as long.
This Instructable is to take a ribbon microphone element (motor) from Rick at
along with
his OTA transformer and upgrade an MXL 990 using some 3-D printed fixtures and tools.
Over the coming months I will be offering up other Instructables. I have recently completed an upgrade for the MXL
R144 Ribbon Mic (Ultimately, I plan to build in a phantom powered preamp into this body), and will shortly be working
on similar upgrades to the MXL R80 Ribbon Mic. All this will ultimately culminate in an entirely 3-D printable Ribbon
microphone (active, with a Phantom powered preamp), which I also hope to CNC a metal motor. They will come in time.
Needing Some Tools
(Here’s where some CAD skills and a 3D printer helped)
When I traversed the web, what seemed to be missing, were some tools that would make things much easier to deal
with ribbon prep, installation and the final build. And that’s what I wanted to accomplish in this Instructable. Some
things I realized would make things so much easier.
Cutting Guides –
Terribly simple, but really necessary. You need to cut the Ribbon straight and of a particular
width. So I fired up InDesign, and made a very simple cutting guide of parallel lines for different Ribbon Widths.
