Microphone Repair?

[James Steele]

So I took my Red Type B microphone out of long term storage, set it up, and it’s got a problem. I’ve isolated it to the mic itself. It’s making periodic little spikes/pops… they’re fairly tiny, but it’s enough to not be useable. They seem random like maybe a few seconds apart. I tried cleaning the bayonet and XLR connectors and doesn’t seem to help. Any ideas? I have emailed Blue Microphone support (as they were the ones who manufactured these and sold them under the "Red" brand) to see if they might offer repair service, but I'm not hopeful.

Can anyone recommend a place that might be able to repair this mic. It's probably a capacitor or some component inside the microphone that has gone bad. Attached is a pic of what it looks like:

Type-B.jpg (29.51 KiB) Viewed 1925 times

[Rick Cornish]

Hey James.......
I have someone who was highly recommended to me when I was having trouble with my Neumann (highly recommended as in "this is the only guy I ever use"). I ended up sending that mic to the factory, so I don't have personal experience with him, but all reports are this guy is great. (The recommendation came from a great and *VERY* experienced studio/live engineer who mixes and now produces for National Public Radio. He's also going to mix and master my solo guitar album this spring.)

I don't have the guy's digits, but you can find him on Facebook and he responds to Messenger. His name is Eddie Ciletti.
https://www.facebook.com/eddie.ciletti

You could always just look him up and see what he says.

[James Steele]

Hey James.......
I have someone who was highly recommended to me when I was having trouble with my Neumann (highly recommended as in "this is the only guy I ever use"). I ended up sending that mic to the factory, so I don't have personal experience with him, but all reports are this guy is great. (The recommendation came from a great and *VERY* experienced studio/live engineer who mixes and now produces for National Public Radio. He's also going to mix and master my solo guitar album this spring.)

I don't have the guy's digits, but you can find him on Facebook and he responds to Messenger. His name is Eddie Ciletti.
https://www.facebook.com/eddie.ciletti

You could always just look him up and see what he says.

Appreciate this a lot. I won't know if it's cost effective yet to repair, but it's worth it to me to find out as they don't make these mics anymore and it this particular mic fit my voice well.

[James Steele]

I sent a FB message to Eddie. Hopefully he will see it. I do have a friend who owns two of these mics and told me he'd sell me one of his, so depending on cost of repair versus buying another, I might go with buying one from my friend.

[mikehalloran]

Are there any switches? If so, burnish the contacts by flipping back and forth a few hundred times. This normally does it for me, even my Neumanns. I've done this successfully with AKG, Shure, Groove Tubes and Sony mics as well.

Unfortunately, there are other potential causes such as cold solder joints, failing transistors, shielding and capacitors.

[cuttime]

Eddie used to write for Mix and Keyboard magazines so he does have some street cred. His wonky website:

https://www.tangible-technology.com/

[James Steele]

Are there any switches? If so, burnish the contacts by flipping back and forth a few hundred times. This normally does it for me, even my Neumanns. I've done this successfully with AKG, Shure, Groove Tubes and Sony mics as well.

Unfortunately, there are other potential causes such as cold solder joints, failing transistors, shielding and capacitors.

No switches on this one. Just the XLR connect and a bayonet mount for different capsule options they sold at the time. I'm waiting to see what the friend who has two would want in order to sell me one of his. I expect it won't necessarily be cheap to fix, so I might want to just buy another.

This is a mic from 2005, so could be that mic technology has come a long way and I might want to consider something else entirely. Not quite sure at this point. I'm using, for a now, an old Groove Tubes GT-66 that I like. It's a little less present in the top end, but sound pretty good. I don't have many LDCs... the Red was my go-to for my vocals. GT-66 works in a pinch. I have a very cheap MXL that I bought on a recommendation that it was a good mic "for the money" but I haven't put that one up yet to test it.

[James Steele]

Eddie used to write for Mix and Keyboard magazines so he does have some street cred. His wonky website:

https://www.tangible-technology.com/

I did hear back from him. He advised me that I might want to find out what I can get another one for first. It may be that repair just won't be worth it.

[EMRR]

Leave it on a day or two and check it again. Might work itself out.

[HCMarkus]

Leave it on a day or two and check it again. Might work itself out.

A warm, dry place can make Mic happy.

[mikehalloran]

Leave it on a day or two and check it again. Might work itself out.

Agreed. It may also get worse but that tells you something as well.

[James Steele]

Thanks for the suggestions. It was definitely always dry and kept in its box, but it may have gotten cold. I’ll set something up with a cheap mixer and send phantom power to it for 24 hours (or more?) and see if it does indeed work itself out.

[James Steele]

Hmmm... really strange. I went out to set up the mic with a little Mackie mixer in the rehearsal room. Figured I'd leave it on with phantom power for a day or so and see if it got better. Darned thing wasn't making the noise anymore! Don't know if maybe warming up over a day helped.

It do think maybe it started acting up a little bit a moment ago but the little tiny "clicks" or whatever are so ridiculously low that I don't think it will be an issue. And the mic has already sort of settled down again. Might just need to be warmed up and used for a bit. Might also be that my Millennia HV-3C is ridiculously sensitive and other pres aren't even registering it?

Not sure... but I think it's usable. I really love this mic. For my voice, I can almost really just put zero EQ on it and it still sounds good. It's crazy. Everyone has a mic that really suits them... this seems like one of those for me. I hope this holds. Might still be a good idea to take it out to the rehearsal room and just leave it on with phantom power overnight. I think I'll do that. Although it gets cold out there. Ugh... should maybe do it inside instead probably. Yep.

[EMRR]

Sounds similar to RF problems. I have a Sony C-48 that picks up less RF junk if the battery door is open! Some places it’s totally clean. See if parking your phone closer/further makes any diff.

[James Steele]

Sounds similar to RF problems. I have a Sony C-48 that picks up less RF junk if the battery door is open! Some places it’s totally clean. See if parking your phone closer/further makes any diff.

Hmmm… that’s an interesting possibility! I’ll have to investigate that further!