microphone care

[Jim]

I have a home studio with a drum kit that's left set up and miked 24/7. I have some fairly expensive mics (around $500 each) that are left out in the open, and even powered up most of the time when I have my audio system fired up.

Is it better to turn off the phantom power when I'm not using the mics, or is repetitive powering and un-powering more deleterious in the long run?

Doors are slammed in the room from time to time also. I read that's bad for ribbon mics... but what about condensers or dynamics?

It seems to me that if you unhooked your mics and put them in something like a Pelican case, which is air-tight, that slamming the cover on the case could do some real damage to your mic diaphragms.

Any thoughts? Horror stories? Acts of redemption?

[rockitcity]

Jim, relax. Your microphones are made to pick up sound. As long as you aren't firing gunshots into them from a few feet away, they should be ok being left set up. You're more in danger of accidently blowing speakers from a feedback loop with them left live than you are of damaging the mics. Dust or dropping them is more likely to cause damage. Put some wind screens on them and they should last many years. Only the ribbon mics are suspectable to wind damage, and most of them have pretty good wind screens. I'd not worry about powering them up and down with your console; when it's on, the mics are on and ready to use.

I used to work in a studio with some vintage U-67 tube mics. They had their own seperate power suppies, and we left them powered on all the time, mainly because of the long warm-up time to get the electronics to quiet down.

While $500 is a significant outlay of cash, especially for a home studio, those don't fall into the category of expensive mics. They are good quality workhorses, and if treated with a decent amount of respect should be ready to perform when you are.

[wonder]

i've seen many studio cover the mics with big ziploc freezer baggies. Protects from dust on the capsule. then you could cover the baggies with a small towel ...

[qo]

Yes, one thing to be aware of is that the electrostatic charge associated with condensers attracts dust. Windscreens do help with this. Don't use e.g. felt covers, or anything that contains it's own dust/particles since these can do more harm than good. Plasic baggies, as wonder points out, are better. Also, if the mic case has a foam form-fitting area inside (as many do) realise that particules of this foam can come loose and be attracted to the capsule. So, it's good to wrap the mic in plastic before placing it in it's case.

Actually, there's a really good forum, moderated by a guy that repairs mics, over at prosoundweb.com that deals specifically with microphones and their maintenance. I was unaware of the static electricity issue before reading that forum.

EDIT: Adding a more specific link to the Mic Lab Forum

EDIT #2: Probably stating the obvious, but cheap foam windscreens can actually do more harm than good if the foam is old and falling apart...

<small>[ July 19, 2005, 06:35 PM: Message edited by: qo ]</small>