Thoman t.bone ribbon mics

[Let it burn...]

I'm pretty curious about the cheap thomann ribbon mics (especially the RM700 and rb100).

Does anybody has some experience with them?

 

[Soundlurker]

I've tried the RM700 in a few situations and to be honest I don't feel it fits to my idea of how things should sound. It does record things in a natural sounding way but it's muddy and dark for my taste.

 

[if6was9]

yep- I've got the Rb 100. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Its a bit on the muddy side but its full of warmth- its a really useful mic. I think it sounds great on guitars, vocals and its my secret weapon on bass- Its amazing on bass IMO. Any bands I've used it on bass with have been totally happy with their bass sound.
It's a good mic for blending on a guitar amp- for distorted tones you really need to blend it for clarity but with cleans its nice on its own.
Some guys say its a nice drum room mic but while I throw it up when recording for that purpose I don't usually end up using it in the mix.

Its one of the best 80 euro's I've spent- you get ALOT of microphone for you're money. I've heard some of their T bone condensors and dynamics and was far less impressed.

 

[mr.L.]

As stated the Rb-100 is great. Especially for clean and room micing it sounds great. They do break easily though. My first one broke down after a couple of weeks although I did handle it with a lot of care and did not expose it to very high volumes. Got it repaired and now it's working without trouble for a couple of months.

 

[~BURNY~]

I recently bought a rb-100 out of curiosity. The ribbon was slack (surprise!) so I had to fix it myself without knowing how to tune it. Now it's tight but It sounds really poor imo plus it smells weird. I'm not kidding. It's like there was some kind of moisture in there. Fuck.

I also have a rb-500. Sounds good on aggressive vocals and absolutely great as a room mic in a ms-setup. I had some interesting results on rockish guitars as well. I think I'm gonna grab another soon so I can make a 100% ribbon room setup.

I had a not so great Apex 205 (same chinese crap) but I fried it.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

I'm loving robbons for chinas, but I'm usually using the beyer m160 (love that mic) for that.
the Rb-100 looks really interesting, I might have to try it

 

[TheDriller]

its my secret weapon on bass- Its amazing on bass IMO. Any bands I've used it on bass with have been totally happy with their bass sound.

I can verify this, some utterly spectacular bass sounds can be had with this mic.

 

[mick thompson]

im scared of ribbons, what if i burn it out!

 

[if6was9]

im scared of ribbons, what if i burn it out!

Seems to be the case with alot of people but if you're clever with it it won't happen.
If you're using it on anything with alot of moving air just throw up a pop shield in front of it and see if you can still feel moving air behind it with your hand. If you can't you're good to go.
Some can tolerate pretty loud SPL's when you give them the chance- The Rb 100 can take SPL's of up in the 140DB's- You could stick it on a snare if you wanted to.

Don't stick on phantom power with it- I don't use it for live gigs so I always have it on a different group from my condensors when recording so that I won't accidentally turn phantom power on. Some are transformer isolated and can take it but mine came with a warning so I don't.

 

[mick thompson]

good points there if6was9 - i'll try out the pop shield trick

 

[Seizure.]

Turned on Phantom on my Rb100 once and it still works..

 

[Let it burn...]

Turned on Phantom on my Rb100 once and it still works..

I wouldn't repeat that though

 

[greyskull]

use em in blumlein for room mics

 

[MetalJonesy]

hmm very interesting, may look at getting an RB100 when i have a bit of extra cash lying around

 

[musickey]

I own a RB100, Its killer as a mono drum room mic. I have only used it once on dirty guitars, and it was usefull. going to have to try it on a bass cab.