Ribbon Mic with weak low end

[shwashwa]

I've got a restored 1930s amperite ribbon mic. It's got a new ribbon motor and new 1.8 micron thick ribbon but original transformer. The mic seems to be lacking low end I originally bought it because I thought it was going to have a huge old school vintage vibe but it sounds kind of hollow. I'm using it through a high impedance in line gain booster. What could be the cause of the low end loss? Original transformer?

 

[seamonkey]

The output from the transformer is low impedance. Plug it straight into your interface.

And expect to use some EQ in your DAW.

 

[shwashwa]

thanks for the tip. i will try and report back. i have this gizmo: DM2 TNT 1-channel Active Inline Preamp | Sweetwater
i will ov course try all of the settings, but which one would you think would work?

 

[shwashwa]

also, i read this article, which made me think that the higher the input impedance, the better. is this not true?
How Impedance Can Change The Sound of Your Ribbon Microphone

 

[shwashwa]

amazing... i went through all the settings on my SE booster. higher impedance cut the lows but reduced the hum. the lower the impedance, more lows came back but added noise, up to a point. the best tone was aroun 350 ohms, but with a lot of noise. below that, down to 50 the volume dropped a ton and the noise went up a lot. the sweet spot for tone was 350 though, but too much noise. then i plugged directly into my interface, which has an imput impedance of 4k. noise was very low and sound was pretty full. just slightly less than 350, but the lack of noise made this my favorite sound so far. so i went back to the booster to find the 2 closest settings to 4k. 2k and 6k. they were both pretty close, but added noise. straight in with gain maxed is the winner i guess! now can someone explain this to me??

 

[silky smoove]

The mic seems to be lacking low end I originally bought it because I thought it was going to have a huge old school vintage vibe

IME most ribbons have a pretty noticeable low end roll-off, similar to many dynamic microphones. The distinguishing characteristic of ribbon mics is the more drastic high frequency roll-off resulting in a darker top end response. In essence, it’s not that the bottom is bigger, it’s that the top is smaller. I own a few ribbon mics, admittedly none are super high end with the highest being a Cascade model, and they all exhibit these characteristics. It’s possible that if you’re looking for a huge sound that it might not be the right mic for the job, even though some ribbons might get you there.

 

[shwashwa]

Thanks, i have recorded with some ribbons in the past so kind of know what to expect. There was definitely something wrong happening here. See my post above. The sound varied greatly with the impedance changes as well as the volume and noise level. I'm thinking about recording something on each impedance setting and uploading it just for information purposes