RB 500 : Great character mic, after a simple mod.

Out of the box it's too "ribbony" sounding, meaning there is very little presence in the sound, much proximity effect, narrow frequency response and very, very low output.

The mod to save this mic is to take it apart and remove some of MANY layers of built-in pop filtering, this thing has 3 different mesh layers and two of actual CLOTH in each side (I assume because it is targeted to inexperienced people that could easily break it by not putting a pop filter in front of it), after leaving only the mesh layers, the mic became way less muffled and more open in both low and high end.

Its freq. response is scooped at the high mids, but it does capture transients and "air".

I always use it with a FetHead, the output is still low for some vocals, but without it you need some serious SPL to move it.

Conclusion:

After modding it and using the FetHead, it's a great backround vocal mic, hallway, or crush mic for drums, I've even used it for a small bass amp and it ROCKED!

It's almost the opposite of a SE-X1R which is "5000 shades of only mids" (fantastic mids though)