MXL - R40 Ribbon Microphone

Anyone else into poverty ribbon mics??? :-) T.bone rb500 MXL R40 SE VR1 Cascade X-15 I feel like budget gear gets a bad rap bcs people associate a high price tag with good sound quality. I will admit all of the mics above besides the SE have flaws (usually either poor build quality or poor noise performance), but in terms of sound quality, I have found them all to be very useful!!! I use a pair of the T.bones and faux-Coles 4038 for drum overheads, I use the MXL R40 as a nice dark guitar cabinet mic, and the Cascade X-15 is the very very best option for anyone interested in getting into stereo mic-ing for the drums on a budget!

Six or seven years ago I got an MXL R44 Ribbon mic on sale for $50. I use it all the time on guitar cabinets and sometimes on acoustic guitars.

MXL r 40 with a transformer upgrade imo fab is a good one

Uhmmmm the beyerdynamic TG I51 is a great mic it lives on my fender along with my mxl ribbon mic (I put a new transformer in there so it wouldn’t have so much mud sounds crisp imo) those are Fs cheap also 57 can be had at estate sales 20-40$ online 60 all day. But my most favorite cheap mic is this mf’n cad E-100Sx amazing acoustic mic like made for acoustic and I have it on a Marshall cab and origin 50 I also have a wa-87 it’s alright I almost like the 47jr more but I have lots of uses for the 87 I just kinda forget about it it’s so versatile so that’s all debatable

the times i swapped out the u87 i preferred: c414, rode ntk or nt2 (i dont remember which) but they were both transparent and i was happier with what i got. For stuff that was clearly warmer i borrowed a warm audio ribbon (idk the model), and even preferred the cheap mxl ribbon mic (extreme on the other end of the spectrum, arguably different use case). i was over the u87, especially for the price. id probably even prefer a number of live mics, give me a 58beta or a senn e835 instead... disclaimer, i only tried it on vocals, mostly female, i didnt own it, i just got to use it for 5 sessions i think. but i wouldn't shell out that cash out of my pocket for one. i would rather get a bunch more mics or id lean into a nice ribbon for that price, not sure which.