A good source for the aluminum foil is silver leaf from a craft store. It’s .6 micron thin, so it’s incredibly fragile. I found I could fold it in half to make 1.2 micron and it was easier to work with it. I cut it with the paper around it to make it easier. Then I corrugated it with the paper around it in a paint tube squeezer I got from the same craft store. This method makes good ribbons consistently. They sound great.
It was nice watching you make your DIY ribbon mic but when you guys actually used the mic and came on singing Girl From Ipanema, it blew me away! I was totally entertained. So cool!
This was a really good design, and sounds great -- here we have 'dollar stores' that sell everything for one dollar... You can get an aluminum water bottle, for the mic body, a food strainer or 'splatter lid', for the grill mesh, and probably a few other parts on your list for only a few dollars.
This is the first time I've seen anyone reference the need for a third wire that bypasses the transformer, or the number of turns you actually need on the hand-wound transformer. I haven't rewound my transformer yet, but the third wire and changing from chocolate wrappers that don't hold corrugations to the foil from a Popeye's chicken sandwich solved the biggest problems I was having - thank you! Now, to get rid of the ground loop hum when my laptop is plugged in :\
Hey guy! I'm from São Paulo, Brazil, congrats you the awsome microfone, and too for the great tutorial about to make him! And continue to do good videos like that! :)
Nice video, thanks for sharing your experience with us. I've seen that if you twist the wires both from XLR connector to transformer and from transformer to the motor (the aluminum and magnets) will help to reduce noise from radio frequency and statics. Despite that, your mic have a great performance and a rich sound. The bottom end was a bit muddy but the high end was nice and not too bright, so i could hear the sibilance of your guys voice nicely without any piercing transient. And the song choice was awesome. Saudações do Brasil :) Abraços!
Hey great job :-) however, if you eed, you can find alu foils of 1.8 micron that you need :-) Nice DIY! I would strongly disuggest to connect the pin 1 of the XLR. Leave it just to connect to the case. Not to any of the Xformer coils or any thing. Indeed in case you accidentally activate a Phantom, with the pin 1 connected as you shown on the diagram, you risk to blow up the ribbon. While it's very useful to connect it at the mic body, so the ground will provide screening from hums and so on ;-)
A very small amount of turpentine, citrus solvents, or paint thinner will easily remove the remaining gummy stickiness from any foil wrapper if you're having this issue. Thanks for this tutorial :)
I think the author got the microphone wiring backwards! The coil with just a FEW turns must be connected to the ribbon in the microphone, not the much larger coil. Also, after reading a lot about these 'ribbon' microphones, (also called a 'velocity' microphone) I found that using 'gum wrapper' foil, or any other foil that thin is simply not necessary. This makes the microphone extremely fragile, and easily damaged. If this were dropped on the floor, that 'gum wrapper' foil would be ruined requiring it to be repaired. Just use normal aluminum foil, because it will vibrate with sound just as good (or better!) than a gum wrapper without being so easily damaged! Hope this helps.
Hi, I took the skillshare class and asked a question but seems you’re not checking that these days. In it you mentioned that you had experimented with different magnet size, ribbon width and wire turns o transformer. You demo’d some of your mics but it would be helpful so I don’t have to make a slew of them to know how these variables affected the tone and what you considered the optimal for each. Cheers
Very cool! Looks cool! Mount the mesh it`s a final step of the assembling? What`s holding the mesh in mic body? P.S. The allumium bottle is the creative idea. I like it.
A little advice..At 4:15 connecting the pin one to 3 effectively cancels out its hum bucking ability it unbalances the line. There is no benefit for connecting them together and can actually cause noise SO a better way is the pin one is a ground and should go only to all metal case parts and the transformer to pins 2 and 3 only... I have 25 years of recording studio wiring and repair experience and building all sort of electronics so i knda know what i'm talking about here ... But other than that your videos are great and your mics sound real good bravo! ... would love to know what preamp you are using as well Cheers!
@@jellevanmourik8250 Indeed. phatom uses the ground as it's negative polarity and the two pins as both dc 48volts using typically 68k resistors ridding on pin 2 and 3.... but It can still happen if conditions are just right but it will reduce that chance of that for sure. Thanks for that addition...cheers!
@@chuckthebull does that mean that you should leave the pin one not connected to anything. I'm confused cause i'm not really experienced in sort of this things.
Clever using gum foil. I have a few questions if you don't mind. What did you use for the iron core? I can't think of common household items for that purpose. Did you have any other ideas for foil other than gum (to avoid the paper removal)? With parts this common, this would be a great school product for more to learn about ribbon mics. Very cool!
Thank you! it´s hard to find very thin aluminum sheets without a layer of plastic or paper, some cigarettes boxes have aluminum but with paper too, and for a school project gum is more appropriate, if you let it soaking it will peel easy, the iron core is a ferrite iron core frame an electronic shop!
Brazilian here👋 always wanted to make a ribbon microphone. And when I find a good video, you still play Garota De Ipanema incredibly well. Congratulations. I will use these tips to build my own microphone just a question. Could you tell me the measurements of the magnets and the thickness and length of the copper wires used?
HI! phantom power will destroy the ribbon, with an audio interface is enough to run it! I'll explain the transformer makin in an upcoming video, thanks
hello! first of all congratulations! transformer cores have any name or code? Primero que nada, felicitaciones! Los núcleos de los transformadores tienen algún código para identificarlos? Excelente video y proyecto! Espero tu respuesta! Saludos!🙌🏾
Fantástico sonido, comparable a cualquier micro comercial. Yo lo he querido replicar, pero con los imanes de un disco duro viejo. La cinta corrugada suspendida entre los neodimios produce sonido, pero al insertar el transformador no pasa nada. No sé qué estoy haciendo mal, pues me parece que he seguido tus pasos al pie de la letra...
hola, estoy pensando en hacerlo con los imanes del disco duro, tenes algun contacto podriamos intercambiar conocimientos! me interesaria ver tu proyecto tmb.
@@espanholparainiciantes6044 Estaré en este video puedes ver de donde saque la hoja de aluminio, próximamente estaré publicando un tutorial completo en skillshare , saludos
The physical size of the magnets affects the frequency response, and there is a formula to figure out the effects (you can find it on the internet, if you research the topic). Basically, the sound coming to the front of the ribbon also proceeds around the magnets, to the back side of the ribbon, and the longer that path is (according to the size of the magnets), the different frequencies will be cancelled out (due to phase effects). In short, the larger the magnets are, the longer that path is, and the more high frequency roll-off the mic will have. I think your suggestion of 100x10x10mm will sound fine, but you should either research the physics, or simply do experiments with different sized magnets (as magnets are quite inexpensive nowadays). I think 100x10x10mm is within the range of typical magnet sizes used in ribbon mics.
Hi. This is amazing! I have some questions. 1.gum foil is thinner than food foil? 2. what material you use for transformer ring and it size (in video you say 2x2 cm) 3. Thikness of wire and numbers of turns. (For me very diffucult understand on hearring) Thank you alot
Hi, 1. yes gum foil is thinner, the thinner the foil is the better it captures the sound 2. It's an iron core ring for transformers you can find on an electronic components shop, it's 2cm x 2cm 3. The wire thikness is 0.25mm (copper) 500 turns
@@MrDendy88 The primary coil of the transformer can be made of thicker copper wire. You can even choose a power supply wire that is larger than 1 mm thicker, as long as it can pass through the transformer, it can be any size. Because the secondary coil has too many turns, only small diameter copper wire can be selected. The aluminum foil for candy packaging is thinner than the aluminum foil used for kitchen food. The former may be 6 microns, and the latter is over 10 microns. Neither of these two thicknesses is a good choice for microphones. Most people recommend 2.5 microns.
