the t.bone RB 500 Reviews

I love the sound, but the stock transformer was noisy

I mainly use it for acoustic guitar. The strumming parts are very usable, but for picking it's just too noisy. On all the tracks there was a very audible background hiss.

I ordered a Lundahl LL2915 ribbon mic transformer. After a couple hours of soldering and a couple of burnt fingers the noise is gone and it sounds divine. Not sure if it was the tranny or the sloppy soldering. Can't say that my own soldering is top notch either. Pretty sure the warranty is void now :)

BTW the LL2915 was to big to fit inside the original tranny shield. I bet LL2912 would fit though. If a mu metal core is a must I recommend LL2914 or a different shielded tranny.

Good microphone

Use it to track guitar amp. Sounds really dark but gives really good lows. I combine it with SM57, to brighten up the sound. Wonder how it sounds on kick and bass amp because it really translates the low frequency punch.

MIND BLOWING!

bought one of these beauties last year, after a lot of online research. The voice samples really helped me decide. Wont lie was sceptical cuz it sounded way to good for the money. Well its sounds better in real, a lot better. So I just bought another one, actually 2 of them cuz gonna give one away for Christmas. Really clean and warm Tone. It sounds very pleasant to the ear; which is saying a lot if you heard my voice lol.

Get this Mic you will love it!

Warm vintage sound

The tbone RB500 is an excellent introduction to ribbon mics specially considering the price.

I have been using a pair as overhead mics and have also recorded some acoustic and electric guitars. Just plug the mic and the warm vintage sound is right there out of the box.

Downsides: the attached XLR and clamp sometimes make it difficult to tilt the mic at certain angles. Also being a ribbon mic, make sure you have good preamps or else you'll need a crazy amount of gain (and then noise reduction) specially in order to record quieter sources such as acoustic guitars and vocals.

This is a nice ribbon mic

I love the sound, but I hate the package. That plastic thing which comes with the mic inside it's not useful at all. Having the cable attached to it it's also not very useful.

Anyways, I'd buy another microphone to have 2 in my set, I love how it sounds for the price.

great as a "dark" room mic

I bought it for recording room response for drums.

It does perfectly what I expected. Love its dark sound.

Easy to mount.

Ribbon mic for cheap...

If you want to have an idea of what a Ribbon mic can sound like, you can try this one. But do not expect to be blown away. It seems to me that the big 'can' underneath the harness and the ribbon works like a sound chamber for the mic and influences the sound. Still experimenting with getting a good sound with this mic...

Beautiful sound!

I use this mic for picking up the voice and the Armenian flute duduk. It gives a beautiful mellow tone. The device feels very solid and heavy.

Lovely warm mic

I bought this as I wanted to try a ribbon mic for recording acoustic guitar. I also bough the Fat amp. Running this through my Focusrite Clarett audio interface was easy and I'm pleased with the results. At this price there is nothing to complain about.

sound for an amateur

too much noise! and the built-in cord does not compliment this mic((

Good overall quite dark mic

Used it mainly on drums, as a room, kit & overhead mic.

Quite nice, a bit dark, so an acquired taste, but great value for price.

Amazing value!

Looks great, feels great - and most importantly, it sounds great! Rich, mellow, velvety and very evocative tone. Harks back to the golden days of Big Band Swing, Doo-Wop, R'n'R and early Soul. Perhaps not a mic for everyone as it doesn't really have the clinical accuracy and piercing higher registers of many modern microphones, but for what I do, the RB 500 is solid gold. Horses for courses - and at this price, I think it's unbeatable.

Unbelievable

I was told so many great things about this mic and it totally did not disappoint me!!

I own really good mics for my drum studio, including a Neumann Tlm 107 that I use as room mic. While that mic is amazing, I wanted to also add a Ribbon mic to the mix for tunes in which I needed a darker sound and less cymbals in the mix. Look no further. This mic sounds fantastic even with no processing, just sometimes the low mids need a bit of control with an eq but nothing crazy, it just sounds good for drums, you get a lot of the body and fatness of the drums. The only con is the cable that's attached to the mic directly, not always ideal, but it really is a minor thing. The look of it is fantastic as well which kinda adds to it.

Do yourself a favour and get this, at this price it's a no brainer

Sounds way better than I expected

The thing is BIG. That sort of surprised me. The build quality is good, though. Nothing to complain about at all.

I tested it with a Newsonic maxximizer and a Golden Age Pre.

The sound was a little bassy, but nothing that a little EQ couldn't fix.

Same with the (missing) highs. Turn them up a little, and you've got what you want to hear.

I've made a couple of ribbon microphones myself....just for fun....so I sort of knew what to expect. The RB 500 sounds a little better than my best effort....AND it looks good. Buy one. You won't be disappointed.

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)

Unbelievable

A ribbon mic at this price? And it's great!

It's my first ribbon mic, I own a pair and used them to record drum room, guitar amps and also vocals.

A bit boomy around 200Hz but nothing to really worry about if you have good EQ, and at this price you can't expect any better.

Totally satisfied, since the day I bough it I don't think there's a production for which I haven't used it.

Cons: the cable makes the placement a little hard, but it's ok. It could be fixed in the future.

Signal level is a bit low (obviously being a ribbon mic), for which I'd recommend buying the FetAmp as well.

Awesome Ribbon Mic

Let's keep this simple... This Ribbon is a gem of a mic!

Surprise !

This mic is too good to be true. As it is a ribbon, and if you buy this you are interested in the 'ribbon' effect which means - warm and round transients, it will do that exactly. If you need more details just blend a condenser mic with it, although it sounds very good as it is (presuming you are using a decent preamp and ad converter).

B.t.w - i read on forums that people claim that taking out it's inner protection net, make it sounds better. Well, i did it and after hearing it, immediately had put back that net and it just sounds worse without it ! It loses all it's ribbon magic and turns into a dull condenser. It is very obvious that this mic was designed and calibrated using that net so my suggestion is - don't touch it ! Just use the mic as is - it is beautiful !

Great for price

I'm using two of these for guitar and vocals. It has a nice, smooth dark sound. My only complaint is the internal XLR but for the price you can't beat the quality. Other t.Bone mics have problems with RFI (SC 140 and EM 9900) but this ribbon is clean and quiet.

Nice addition

I had great fun using a stereo setup of 2 guitar amplifiers on either side of a small bedroom and positioning the RB500 in between. I was strumming my guitar approximately 0,5m above the microphone, but seeing that I was in the 'null'-spot, I didn't hear any acoustic strumming in the recording: perfect!