I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a gear slut. Lately, I’ve become fascinated with ribbon microphones, especially the low-cost ribbons available from Chinese manufacturers. There’s a great article written by Michael Joly, titled Chinese ribbon microphone buyer’s guide. The article covers the basic types of ribbon mics available from Chinese manufacturers, and potential quality issues to look out for. If you’re thinking of buying a Chinese ribbon mic, you should read the article.
I saw the Nady RSM-4 ribbon mic on Amazon for $70 a piece, so I decided to pick up a couple, with the intention of modifying them to see if the sound can be improved, and by how much.
First Impressions
* the boxes are not storage boxes, need to address that
* look decent
* read somewhere that the mic adapter may not be up to the task, may need to get another adapter
List of Mods
Search for RSM-4 mods using your favorite search engine, and you will find a number of links discussing various mods to upgrade the sound of this microphone. The specs for the RSM-4 list the ribbon thickness as 6 micron, which is pretty thick for a ribbon mic. A common mod performed on this mic is to replace the ribbon with something thinner, like 1.8 micron. This results in better sensitivity and extends the upper frequency range. Since I already have a couple of ribbon mics with thinner ribbons, I plan to stick with the stock ribbons in the RSM-4’s and see what effect the other mods will have. I plan to perform these in order, recording the progress as I go. The mods I’m thinking of are:
- Visually check for ribbon sag. I’ve had a couple other ribbon mics that had some visible sag. If there is any, retension the ribbon.
- Headbasket mod. Remove some of the filtering material on the inside of the grill. If there’s a screen on the ribbon motor itself, I plan on leaving that.
- Upgrade the transformer.