Ribbon Microphones

This category contains Ribbon Microphones. Ribbon microphones are a type of 'velocity' or 'pressure gradient' microphone that is fundamentally fairly simple in design. An extremely thin sheet of metal is suspended within the field of a permanent magnet. When air pressure changes move the ribbon, its motion within the magnetic field causes a current to be induced within the ribbon itself, and this small current is tapped off, sent down a mic cable and amplified. Ribbon microphones were the industry standard for recording and broadcast from about 1920 to 1950 and are one of the defining factors in the recordings from that period. They were the high-performance microphone at that time. Ribbon microphones are typically bidirectional, meaning they pick up sounds equally well from either side of the microphone. As many mixers are equipped with phantom power in order to enable the use of condenser microphones, care should be taken when using condenser and ribbon microphones at the same time. If the ribbon microphone is improperly wired, which is not unheard of with older microphones, this capacity can damage some ribbon elements. A microphone's directionality or polar pattern indicates how sensitive it is to sounds arriving at different angles about its central axis.