Last update 10/8/07

Blacky's visit to the ER

Below are pictures of my 44B after a most unfortunate fall, face first onto a concrete floor (tears) during a session.  The mic was actually perfectly flat on one side, the first picture below was after I already had popped the head out with my hands.  The ribbon was completely misaligned, but not torn, so I thought I would give repairing it a shot.  I have fixed 3 of my ribbon mics (this one, the 77B, and the 74B) using a dual axis micrometer table and a lab jack to precisely maneuver the ribbon back into alignment.  It will never be perfect, but my hope was to make it functional again

About 4 hours of gentle hammering, hand working, pressing, clamping... I was able to get the head into decent shape.  The ribbon was very bent, and proved to be tough to get in between the magnets without touching.  Eventually, with a little luck from the gear gods, I managed to get it in the gap, relatively straight.  The fear of course being that one wrong move and it would tear and the mic would have to be sent off to an expert.  The tension was set completely by gut feel on how the ribbon seemed to respond to extremely gentle air pressure.  I'm sure this would probably make a qualified ribbon mic technician laugh, or gag.

Finally, with the ribbon locked in place, I eagerly reassembled the mic and took it into my studio.  Amazingly it worked, and actually sounded nice.  I decided before I began using it again, I would make a stand that would never tip over.  So I took the base of a typical micstand, and set it into 50lbs of concrete.  That should do it.

Blacky reunited with friends, all happy to see him out of the mic ER.  The End.

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