The Xaudia Blog

23-05-2020

Lustraphone VR53 upgrade

It has been a long time since my last blog post!

This is mainly because the launch of Extinct Audio took up much more of my time and energy than I had ever imagined. But I have missed this blog and will be posting a bit more often in the coming weeks and months. Thanks for your support.

Lustraphone VR53 ribbon microphone

This week I have been working on a few Lustraphone VR53 ribbon microphones. I have never been very enthusiastic about these mics because generally they have a weak output and can sound dark and flabby. Replacing the ribbons and transformers will get the mic so far, but they never quite get up to the performance of other British ribbon mics like the Reslos and Grampians. Which is a shame because they have a unique vintage design and look as though they should be good!

Part of the problem is the magnetic circuit. The two horseshoe magnets provide the field which is conducted (rather inefficiently) around a steel structure to the ribbon. This gives a field around 1500 to 2000 gauss. (For comparison, the field in a healthy Reslo would typically be around 4000 gauss.)

Milling the pole pieces to make room for new magnets.

The steel pole structure is the limiting factor here and so swapping the horseshoe magnets gives only marginal improvements. For this upgrade I made a decision to mill out the pole pieces and fit some strong magnets right next to the ribbon.

The difference is impressive, bringing the field across the ribbon to 6000 gauss, which should provide about +9 to +12dB increase  in output voltage. With a new ribbon fitted. the output and signal to noise were improved overall by 20dB. Now it can give the other microphones a good run for their money.

Before and after… new magnets and ribbons.

As an aside, the stock 200 ohm transformer in this example is actually pretty good and don’t need to be replaced. The 30 ohm and high impedance models are not very well suited to a modern studio and in those cases it is worth swapping them out for a more sensible tranny.

You can read my earlier post about the Lustraphone VR53 microphones here.

01-01-2020

Xaudia XM10 ribbon microphone (discontinued)

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.

They were excellent at the price point, but in a way not very different from, say, a fully upgraded SE ribbon or something of that class, We won’t do another run as all of our resources were funnelled into starting Extinct Audio as a new business and producing the BM9 family of microphones.

25-05-2019

David Broad’s LEM ribbon microphone

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.

11-12-2017

Reslo Beeb drum recordings by Joe Montague

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!

Here are some further sound clips from Joe.

Drum groove 1
Drum groove 2 
Drum groove 3 
Drum groove 4
Drum groove 5

Joe can be found at joemontague.co.uk

01-12-2017

BM9 Ribbon microphones from Extinct Audio

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.

https://xaudia.com/SoundClips/BM9_SmallAcousticStereo.mp3

Electric Guitar


https://xaudia.com/SoundClips/BM9_GretschStrum.wav



https://xaudia.com/SoundClips/BM9_FramusElectric_Vibrato.wav



https://xaudia.com/SoundClips/BM9_FramusElectric_Clean.wav



https://xaudia.com/SoundClips/BM9_FramusElectric_Chorus.wav

Drums


https://xaudia.com/SoundClips/BM9_Drums_OveheadsOnly.wav



https://xaudia.com/SoundClips/BM9_Drums_OveheadsOnly_RollingFloorTom.wav


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. 

16-02-2017

Oktava MK18 vs Russell Technologies Mod

Oktava MK18

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 MK18 is an ancestor of the MK219, so when I came across some circuit boards from Russell Technologies designed for the MK 219, it looked like the perfect opportunity to revisit and rehabilitate these microphones.

Oktava MK219 PCB from Russell Technologies

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. 😉

03-05-2016

Inside a Beyer M130

Here is the motor from inside a Beyer M130 figure-8 microphone.

The mic has two ribbons, similar to the M160, and the metal spiral acts as a magnetic return path.

17-03-2016

Reslo Beebs in action with Layla Lane

Pop duo Layla Lane kindly shared their video of their cover of ‘In My Life’ by the Beatles, which which extensively used a Reslo RB microphone with Xaudia’s ‘Beeb’ upgrades. 

The guitar, piano and all the vocals were recorded with the Beeb connected into an Ampex 350 preamp and Urei 1176 compressor. You can read more details about the recording at their youtube page.

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.