DIY Studio Microphone – Doable or Not?

Self-construction is that type of topic about which sooner or later you will always find some information in your language, at least in a good part of the guitar world there are many various portals that provide even very detailed information on the construction of a device, be it a speaker, an amplifier or pedal.

Much less information (at least in Italian) can be found about studio microphones, there are many laboratories that manufacture them but there is not the same community of “geeks” that has characterized the world of self-construction of pedals or amps.

So I armed myself with ingenuity and a bit of sane and good will to see if such a thing is actually objectively feasible, so I started looking for what I wanted to recreate in the first place.

Obviously there are many pros and cons when comparing an industrial product with one made by hand or at least "self-produced", when working on these types of instruments all the welding and calibration of the various components are very important and this is true. note when you work with stereo microphones, with common instruments it is very difficult to make two microphones sound the same, and here comes the plus of industrial construction but on the other hand the construction cost is considerably reduced, the pro of the so-called "do it yourself ".

We will be able to see together i pro e against of this experiment in the next episodes, but now we begin to see what the world offers us….

What do I want to create?

I opted for the very famous Neuman U87 model vintage, beautiful and very expensive studio microphone, very famous and used for an infinite number of top-level productions and with a price very close to 4000 euros, a utilitarian used in practice….

Being the whole project based on a vintage-style microphone, compared to a current one U-87 AI there are about 10 db of difference in favor of the new Neumann (And the capsule also changes, one is used K-67)

What do I need?

The procurement of components must be done in steps, many components are found with disarming ease while some could create inconvenience both in terms of shipping and relatively the intrinsic cost of the component.

The most expensive components are actually three:

The capsule
The transformer
The chassis

Everything else costs about fifty euros for various electronic components (Capacitors, resistors, etc., etc.) and just over twenty euros for PCBs to put all our components.

For the PCB I contacted the good Danny of www.vintagemicrophonepcbkit.com, a very friendly person who explained to me a little how all his projects were managed, from there I was able to find all the remaining information for the construction of the microphone .

There are different types of PCBs for this project which is called D-87, they are compatible for the use of BV13 type transformers so the following transformers are compatible:

You love T13
Cinemag 13113
Peluso P87

The use of the PCB is quite varied, it can be used directly to clone the Neumann using the K-87 microphone capsule that we will see later, or to improve the performance of a cheap condenser microphone, the choice is up to the user.

The various electronic components can be found through BOM of components for the project - Mouser.it and in all it is less than fifty euros, it is not an impossible expense, but the difficult thing is now.

Where do I get the "Important" material

Here the donkey falls, the problem is that the main components of the microphone are built in America, so the shipping is subject to considerable times and expenses (hoping that the customs were not already brutal enough) so the basic costs could go up by quite a bit since:

The capsule K-87 for the microphone it costs about 130 dollars (always better than the 640 of the original Neumann capsule) and you have to have it shipped from America, I have not yet found a European dealer, so alas there is no hope.

Almost the same goes for the transformer, I had found the You love T-13 sold for about 95 dollars but always from America, I'm still looking for someone to sell it to me on European soil, there is currently a company in Hamburg that sells Ami transformers and is called Digital Audio Service, but I still have to make direct contacts.

Another is the transformer of Peluso P-87, which is sold by KMR Service at least in Europe, but as mentioned above I have not yet made direct contacts, I will try to give more info when they reply to my emails, and the same thing also applies to Peluso capsules, but they cost almost double the price. first website I turned to (microphone-parts.com) and I don't know what it's worth.

For the chassis we are lucky enough, if we can say so but….

Either we buy an empty body (and a little expensive) on store.studio939.com or we do our best and hope for luck and buy one of the following microphones, maybe already broken or used, so we only need the body:

Behringer B-1
Alctron MC-330

How to build?

Being a FET microphone, these components must be calibrated, I recommend that an expert do this part of the construction, for the rest you still need a certain familiarity with the welder and I do not recommend this at all as a first project for a young builder, both for the basic cost of materials and the difficulty (not really for beginners)

Here is a more explanatory video than many of my words, which was sent to me by the good Danny to get an idea of the difficulty of construction.

It seems that a lot of practice is needed, the chassis is still quite small compared to that of a pedal and also the transformer and the capsule must be managed, it is not something for newbies.

Is it convenient?

We are talking about a total cost of about 400 euros or a little more against the almost 4000 of the original microphone, it is an important figure, if you have no experience in miking and recording I would not recommend it at all, I would look for a good capacitor from another brand rather than try to create a clone that is much more of an investment in the dark than anything else.

I sincerely want to route to study this particular microphone and its particular sound a bit, so as soon as there is a chance I will try the construction and post the results, for now we have a way forward to try to build a microphone.

PRO