sE Electronics VR1 Passive Ribbon Microphone

sE Electronics VR1 Passive Ribbon Microphone Overview

sE Electronics VR1 Passive Ribbon Microphone

sE Electronics VR1 Passive Ribbon: For many decades Ribbon mics have been used by engineers for their extremely natural sounding reproduction of source material. The nature of their performance differs greatly from condenser mics, which by comparison sound very 'up front' and lack the harmonic depth of a good ribbon. Even at the high end of the market, the customary roll-off of almost all the top end frequencies (7-10kHz) has always been a major drawback, which is why condenser mics dominate the recording market.

The traditional appeal of the condenser then has been the assumption of consistent frequency response from 20Hz to 20KHz. The pay-off of course is that these mics require a certain degree of circuit board magic to achieve this, since the taughtness of the diaphragm compared with relatively slack ribbon membranes  means condensers tend to be more 'coloured' in their sound. Traditionally engineers using ribbons, however expensive, have had to accept their significant limitations or have had to augment the recording with a condenser mic to capture the high frequencies, absent from the ribbon output.

Such compromises have meant that ribbons have never been very widely accepted or used as a first choice for recording. This is starting change with the introduction of the RNR1 and now the Voodoo range of ribbon microphones. The Voodoo ribbon mic, like its big brother the RNR1 allows high frequencies to be captured using a special patented design. The standard performance of the VR1 is a staggering 20Hz to 20KHz two to three times the frequency range of even the best ribbon mics on the market.