I occasionally get asked about the discontinued XM10 model, usually when one comes up on the second hand market, and so here is a little bit about them. I don’t have any sound clips of the XM10 and it was never sent out for review.
The XM10 was intended to be our budget offering, with the ribbons and transformers made and fitted here at Xaudia, and the bodies made overseas. The transformer is the same as in the BM9, and the ribbon is a little narrower. It has a big bottom end with a large proximity effect,
In the end we only produced a small run of perhaps 20 of the XM10 in 2017 to 2018.
I re-built this old LEM ribbon microphone for David, with improved magnets, new ribbon and a medium impedance transformer. You can hear the results on David’s videos.
It’s always great to see and hear how our customers use the microphones we send out.
Joe Montague was kind enough to share these recordings and video of our Reslo Beebs in action. The microphones were set up as a stereo pair in front of the kit.
The recording in the video/sound clips is just the Beebs, no other mics at all, and just a touch of EQ and compression. It is an impressive result from just two microphones. Of course, you need a good kit as well as good microphones, and being a great drummer helps too!
I haven’t had much time to blog this year, which has been partly due to working hard on a new project. Finally, after years of fixing, testing, upgrading and procrastinating…. Adam and I finally launched our own brand of ribbon microphones.
Introducing the BM9 from Extinct Audio. I have been heavily involved in all stages of the design and manufacture of this baby. It is a general purpose ribbon microphone with a true figure-8 pattern, low noise and a big proximity effect. The aim was to produce an excellent blend of vintage sound and modern utility.
Update – there are now many much better recordings over at the recordings pages of the Extinct website. But these were the first recordings that Adam and I made with the first production microphones, so let’s leave them here for a little bit of history.
A pair of Oktava MK18 condenser mics have been knocking about the workshop for a few years. Both mics had similar faults, with weird inconsistent dropouts especially when changing patterns. I suspected leakage somewhere but could not track it down. The capsules seemed OK but the mics were unusable as they were, so I put them to one side and waited for inspiration to strike
The boards are nice quality and arrived with full instructions, which makes assembly very easy – or at least it would be with the intended MK219. In the case of the MK18 there is some hacking to be done.
Inside the MK18 – the PCB is smaller than that of the MK219
The capsule mount in the MK18 is longer than that in the MK219, so it needed to be chopped, milled and drilled to fit the board. The MK18 also has a 5 pin DIN output, which was drilled out on the lathe with a 19mm bit to make room for an XLR socket.
That done, I discovered that I had lost, sold or binned the original transformers. However, I found a pair of spare BV107s (from Neumann KM84s), which fitted nicely.
MK18 with Russell Technologies mod
I omitted the pad and high pass control switches. And I went for cardioid pattern, using just one side of the MK18s double sided capsule, although it would be easy to wire both sides of the capsule in parallel to have an omni pickup.*
Against the popular tide, I also added a layer of fine stainless mesh, to keep dirt and damp air away from the capsule. These mics are bright enough, so I am happy to risk losing a fraction at the top end.
Modified MK18s – ready for overhead action
The result is good. I like the sound and I think they would make a nice pair of overheads or stereo instrument mics.
*Or even figure-8. I will let the reader think about that one. 😉
These include an RCA KU3a, Gaumont-Kalee 1492 and a bunch of other ribbons, plus some trashy dynamics for fun.
Thes files are for use with convolution reverb plug-ins such as those found in Logic and Pro-tools. I have been using AudioThing’s Fog convolver, which works well.
Layla Lane are Heday Ikumo and Valerie Stern, who together have written music for Coca-Cola and Mello Yello commercials, recorded a song for the Ashton Kutcher film Killers, toured Japan, and produced/wrote songs for big Japanese artists such as Sunplaza Nakano-kun and Yoko Oginome.
Thanks to Oswaldo Terrones, who works in Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, for sharing the album Tidal Love by alternative rockers Nothing Places.
Oswaldo made extensive use of ribbon microphones for the recordings, using a B&O BM5 stereo set for the drum room mics, an RCA 74B for guitar cabinets, Coles 4038 as the overhead and Beyer 160s on the lead guitars, percussion, etc. The music itself defies description, but you can listen for yourself at their bandcamp page.
The album was released on Spanish indie label Foehn Records, which champions new artists and “the less traditional facets of pop, rock and electronics.”
Having myself once tried (and failed) to run a little record label, I have the utmost respect for those who have the tireless enthusiasm to make it work!
