Hi folks,

This is a very specific mic q, but I feel like this is perhaps the room for it?
I have and use a beyer M500 ribbon mic that I use most of the time when I'm recording myself "singing."
On paper the M500's plot looks coocoobananas:
In practice it sounds very good (imo), so I'm curious if there's an LDC out there that will give me a sort of "similar but moreso" sound. Something that doesn't have quite a pronounced rolloff on the top end and is a little less tight in terms of the pattern. Comparing graphs on recordinghacks is maybe not the best way to go about this (cursory research shows that a vintage ELAM251 is a great choice), so I'm wondering if anyone on the forum is familiar enough with the M500 to make a recommendation?

The blue mouse looks promising maybe?
tyty

TLM103 maybe? Doesn’t have as much boost anywhere, but doesn’t dip in the high end like either of those plots.

There was a time when I was knee deep in mic research and could explain the near cliche about why ribbons "take eq well, especially high end boost", it's something about the linearity of the overtones they pick up not being distorted, or grating and therefore not being exacerbated by boosting top end. I'm either generally right about that, or a pretentious ass hat that is describing a true paradigm using utterly idiotic explanations.

Long story short, a weirdly bright ribbon like the m500 is hard to compare to an LDC with anything approaching that kind of heat up top. As you pointed out those big peaks up in the 2k-10k range look like they'd sound harsh, but that badass just doesn't. This is where the cork sniffers with fat wallets end up with vintage Neumanns, or if you own a yacht, that ELAM251 you were reading about.

My Pearlman TM-47 has a similar thing to a degree, it's pretty flat through the lows and miss (like the Beyer) and then has a little more action in the high mids/treble articulation zone before you get into the over tones where it settles down. It's nowhere near as pronounced in that peak, but ribbons to condensers it might compare favorably. You'd get those upper reaches 15k etc where the Beyer rolls off. Soyuz Bomblet has a flatter 5k area than either the Pearlman or the Beyer, but then bumps up around 10k and rolls off more gently then the ribbon's cliff.

Mics that do bright and articulate well seem to be very expensive, which makes the Beyer kind of a unicorn. It's why snobs say the SM7 sounds like a can of socks (I don't think it does), because we working stiffs find it's reliable mids and lack of ear splitting sibilance pleasant, even if it doesn't have that "sparkle" everyone loves writing about over at Gearspace.

Then again, if a high shelf above 10k sounds good on the Beyer, you might just have the job done. No spending necessary!

This may well be one of those happy instances where the best mic for me is $500 not $5000, and I honestly have no complaints about the M500 (I even used it live recently at a Big Show™ and it ruled).

A pal is lending me a Soyuz Bomblet for the weekend so we'll see what's up with that.
If I low shelf everything under 1K it sort of looks the same lol

Can’t help but I’ve been checking the mics I actually own against the M500 just to get an idea of what’s what and it’s cool how bright the ribbon is.

At4060 has a similar-ish curve? https://docs.audio-technica.com/us/at4060_submit.pdf

I really love that (Audio Technica) mic, but I paid $600 used for mine and then had to sink another $400 into it for a repair, so I’d better!

edit: Audio Technica!

Honestly, the 635n/d-b I use to do my garbage "working out the melodies" scratch takes at home sounds totally fine, I'm trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist!

BUT SHOULDN'T EVERYONE HAVE A NICE LDC???

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Thu Jan 18, 2024 11:41 am Can’t help but I’ve been checking the mics I actually own against the M500 just to get an idea of what’s what and it’s cool how bright the ribbon is.

At4060 has a similar-ish curve? https://docs.audio-technica.com/us/at4060_submit.pdf

I really love that mic, but I paid $600 used for mine and then had to sink another $400 into it for a repair, so I’d better!

$1000 for a thoroughly refurb'd and g-t-g 4060 seems like a great price (unless you mean the M500, and I don't think $1K is too crazy these days with a ribbon refresh).

I think I paid $200 for an M500 20yrs ago but those days are long gone.

mdc wrote: Thu Jan 18, 2024 11:13 am This may well be one of those happy instances where the best mic for me is $500 not $5000, and I honestly have no complaints about the M500 (I even used it live recently at a Big Show™ and it ruled).

A pal is lending me a Soyuz Bomblet for the weekend so we'll see what's up with that.

If I low shelf everything under 1K it sort of looks the same lol

Oh wow, that chart is WAY different from another one that came up on the google machine. And it's the one on the Soyuz site, so I'm assuming it's most accurate.

Nevertheless, please report back on your experience with it. Many users have said it's an all-time awesome guitar amp mic, but also does something really nice for many voices.

That mid dip is right where you want it if you're trying to smooth out either harsh guitars or vocals.

I had a few M500s and used them for a number of things. They were the weapon of choice in the upper end of live vocal mics back in the 70s, where you regularly saw ABBA with them on stages. Legend has it that Frank Sinatra liked it for singing live as well.
A) as somebody else said: shelve 10khz, why not
B) if not afraid of convoluted stupid ideas: pair the M500 with any SDC, align the capsules, lowcut the SDC and add to taste
C) shelve 10khz

It is one of the ribbons that withstands the most SPL of any ribbons besides the Crowley and Tripp.. if the original (non-RCA-crimped) ribbon is in there. Stewart from Xaudia once told me, this way of crimping has a spoonful more of nonlinearity than the RCA style, but for keeping ribbons from dying it can be stressed more.. i hope i have quoted it kind of not completely wrong.
IMHO the M500 is not one of the mics that easily fit a lot of sources, just some. For making it more universal, pull down a bell around 3-4 khz, it is voiced kinda like a .... (duh!) vocal mic. Another Stewart Taverner quote: "Ribbon mics naturally have a big rich proximity effect, which is one of the things that we love about them. In the M500 a lot of work has gone into removing that sound."
Beyer said to me they were trying to re-create that thing with their ribbon vocal mic line they had again until recently, i could look up the model numbers if anybody needs the info. I got to try one of these and have to say, it does the thing but way nicer than the M500s. Less obscure, less "omg-i-crap-my-pants-vintage" so less dumb prices.