RODE NT1a Modifications

I looked into it, but the cost of some of the credible mods (which sounded good in the demonstrations fwiw) exceeded the cost of alternative mics that did what I wanted out of the NT1a, when the original cost of the nt1a was included.

I sold the NT1a with less than 10hours on it for about 50% of what I paid.

The akg 214, 414, nuemann tlm 102, all outperform the NT1a and imho the modded versions, since I couldn't demo thenmodded version in person i had only the questionable online stuff to go off of.

The AT 3035 is brilliant and what I bought at the same time as the NT1a. Now discontinued they can be had for 60-100$. I sold my AT to a former member/mod here. At the studio a pair lives on overheads, and options include 87ai, nt5's, sm81's, 414uls, ect. So it's a damn good mic. I sold mine due to logistical and medical issues I experienced, not due to the mics quality. Highly recommended. Tho the other 30 and 20 series don't outperform their price like the 3035 does. It's a diamond in the rough.

A shure sm7 and beta 57a are my current replacement mics on the list.

As an aside I've got a 414xls for sale PM me if your interested. (Sorry for the shill, you guys understand I'm sure)

Smashh, post: 452223, member: 45856 wrote: Just thought Id see if anyone has modded a Rode NT1a

If so . Was it an easy DIY ?

I have one here that Id like to love more.
I used it a lot when first bought and It helped me get some really harsh mixes
through my daw.
I would like to see it be more useable.

What is the mod meant to do?
And what exactly is being altered in the mod (and the cost)?
Just curious. :)

Its meant to get rid of that exaggerated high end (harshness~) on the top end.
I checked out a few web sights and the mod them for 350 bucks US.
Thats too expensive for me .
I listened to to some A/~B tests online and it tames the highs , so I thought of putting a big ass piece of foam
wrapped around the mic . `about 8 mm thick and it has helped .
After that I decided to do the same to my NT5s .The foam on them is about 50mm square and 70mm long.
I made a hole and pushed the mic about 35mm in, so it has a lot of foam ~( probably medium density ) off the end.
After a few tests ``i think it sounds better .

We had a rehearsal today and I put an NT5 about 5 feet up over the congas .
It does sound better to me :D
Ill leave the foam and try some drums later today and post a sample as overheads .
Of course you won't hear a difference unless you have used the NT5s yourself.
Im sure most of you here probably have .

[MEDIA=audio]https://recording.o…

After hearing the bleed of the hi hat , I took it another step and made a new foam cover with wings
50mm on each of two opposing sides for rejection , and BINGO! . I think Ive made them very useable now.
On a 45 degree angle they even sound good with voice .

If modding your NT1a is still a thing you would be interested to, try changing the capsule, it's very easy to do (if you have some soldering skills) :
https://microphone-parts.com/pages/rode-nt1a-mods

Thanks Marco , Looks like the ticket for me , I will order it (y)

I'm not against modding a piece of gear if the cost of the mod is reasonable and will return awesome properties... there are some mods out there that I think are absolutely worth doing, but in this case with the Rode, I guess a mod like that leaves me wondering if it's worth it ... by the time you pay for the mic ( $225) And then the mod ($350) it seems like you'd be getting into the cost of a mic that wouldn't have those "glassy" or "brittle" frequencies to begin with.
At $600 (or so) for both the mic and mod, you're getting very close to the cost of a 414,
( or at least the price of a used one that is in great shape) and you'd end up with a mic that is much more versatile - with multiple patterns, filters, etc. as opposed to the Rode, which is cardioid only... ??
Just thinking out loud.
;)

DonnyThompson, post: 452240, member: 46114 wrote: by the time you pay for the mic ( $225) And then the mod ($350) it seems like you'd be getting into the cost of a mic that wouldn't have those "glassy" or "brittle" frequencies to begin with.
At $600 (or so) for both the mic and mod, you're getting very close to the cost of a 414,

I don't think anyone should buy an NT1a with a mod in mind. I'm with you on that.
But if you bought the mic a long time ago and you did grow over it. Changing the capsule (149$ if you do it yourself) to make it more usable to you is worth it.
I meen the k47 capsule is fantastic, it sounds a bit tamed in the high end and will give a more flattering sound on any hyped budget mic.
I'd hardly think of putting the NT1a on a guitar cab, but with the k47, you're in for a treat !! ;)

Hey, that's just me ! ! !

You can also swap out the IC chips for a couple dollars, which could lend a better sound to it. I don't claim to know the how's or why's of it but it's something one of my co workers always says.

I bought the NT1a about 10 yrs back and doesn't get used.
150 dollars is within reason (only just ) in my estimation .
I want to feel good about using it , and Im sure it good as you say Marco ;)

If I only knew then what I do now.....
I would buy that Roswell mini k47 mic which is in that same price range as Rode .

I agree with you Donny , My next mic purchase will be wiser ,Another 414 would be nice
I do have one bought new , wish I had a pair ,but here in Oz 1 is around 1500 dollars.:eek: ( mine was $1,100 3 yrs ago )
Ebay has an ex display 414 for 800.

Good things take time ,so Im sure one day the opportunity will present itself as it does:).

One advantage to the Rode is they sell well and quickly. I sold mine to GC in a pinch, went back to the store the next day, with more stuff, and they're was someone who was calling in about the Rode I just sold.

So you could probably sell yours person to person or online for about %80 of the cost you paid ten years ago, as long as it's in good shape.

One thing to be aware of is the 414xls may or may not have been changed since Harmon bought akg. My old 240's headphones said made in Austria. The 414xls with the blue logo is post Harmon merger, the painted logo is pre Harmon.

Since they've dropped the price of the 414, which has since crept back up a little, and introduced the 214 and 314, I would suspect a possible alteration in the blue logo 414. Although I have no proof since I haven't taken either apart and would know what I wasn't looking at anyway.

In the mid 2000's the 414xls was selling for 1,099, Harmon took over and it went to 899.

Sounds a bit more tricky changing I C chip Kyle.

Firstly . What is the IC chip ?

Smashh, post: 452250, member: 45856 wrote: Sounds a bit more tricky changing I C chip Kyle.

Firstly . What is the IC chip ?

Integrated Circuit. Basically a chip that's either soldered or pushed/clipped in that contains a circuit that would otherwise have to be soldered point to point or otherwise.

Lol end of my knowledge on the topic.

I like the idea of doing mod because I learn more about the workings.

I started re wiring my guitar a few years back and I believe it has made my playing better
because I know what is going on under the hood .
I must have wired my guitar in different configurations at least 10 times now ,and
Im getting to a happy place with my sound now :).

Another point about decent gear is it appreciates in value. The 414 I have was 900$ I paid $830, new sealed in box, and within a year it went up to 1,000$, then 1,099. Making it a case where the mic is now 6-800$ in general used, even though it's nearly ten years old with moderate use professional.

(Some) Musical gear is a strange beast and ecomonic oddity where you can use it, make money, and recoupe your innital investment or most of it. A Gibson les Paul is another example of this.

-disclaimer not shilling just using a real world example-

Smashh, post: 452252, member: 45856 wrote: I like the idea of doing mod because I learn more about the workings.

I started re wiring my guitar a few years back and I believe it has made my playing better
because I know what is going on under the hood .
I must have wired my guitar in different configurations at least 10 times now ,and
Im getting to a happy place with my sound now :).

Lol about to get into the rabbit hole of self guitar mods myself. Cheers.!

Smashh, post: 452229, member: 45856 wrote: Its meant to get rid of that exaggerated high end (harshness~) on the top end.

what mic-pre are you using?

FWIW, I expected this but had to do it for giggles the other. I compared a few cheap and quality mics I am familiar with through a cheap preamp. Cheap preamps suck big time, they do not represent a true image of microphones or conversion. The mics I tested sounded NOTHING LIKE they do through my higher end mic pre's. The most obvious difference was top end smoothness and the plosives were very exaggerated. The cheap pre couldn't recover fast enough to handle much more than low end dynamics at best. They work but basically what I'm saying... if it were me... if you are using a cheap pre... get a good one before you do the mod on a mic.

Good preamps go a long way.

audiokid, post: 452257, member: 1 wrote: what mic-pre are you using?

FWIW, I expected this but had to do it for giggles the other. I compared a few cheap and quality mics I am familiar with through a cheap preamp. Cheap preamps suck big time, they do not represent a true image of microphones or conversion. The mics I tested sounded NOTHING LIKE they do through my higher end mic pre's. The most obvious difference was top end smoothness and the plosives were very exaggerated. The cheap pre couldn't recover fast enough to handle much more than low end dynamics at best. They work but basically what I'm saying... if it were me... if you are using a cheap pre... get a good one before you do the mod on a mic.

Good preamps go a long way.

Ya know man that's a good perspective. We put those AT mics thru a Manley dual tube pre, which basically is almost exclusively for drums, often to the point where I took it for granted. When it needed service we swapped in my old ART stereo pre with stock tubes, and it was good, surprisingly good, but cymbals suffered and things didn't sound as dank, or full, like a little phase cancellation-ish, relative to the Manley. The art still was a good value, but like usual there were certain qualities in high end unit that were otherwise unattainable.

Using a calrec changed my life, to the point where I felt able to produce commercial quality (albeit not blockbuster quality), and I felt comfy enough to start the hiatus. And that was thru a $300 sm7.

Good pre amps take to EQ in mixing much better as well, and can require less.

It becomes more artistic less problem compensation.

The better the tracks sound going on, the easier they are to mix.
We've got a few recordings for this OASIS project, and Dave (@dvdhawk ) did such a wonderful job at the capture that they will be really fun to mix.
I've already started some preliminary mixes from which I'm gonna extract 30 sec -1 min excerpts for a PR vid for fundraising, and I'm really not having to do much but adjust levels.
A few weeks ago, the drummer we were working with on a song brought in a Craviotto Snare drum ... I haven't had to touch the EQ on that track yet, and probably won't have to at all.
Good performances, good instruments, good mics and pres... are all the foundation(s) to good sounding tracks. Ya... it matters... all of those things.
IMHO
-d.

DonnyThompson, post: 452264, member: 46114 wrote: The better the tracks sound going on, the easier they are to mix.
We've got a few recordings for this OASIS project, and Dave (@dvdhawk ) did such a wonderful job at the capture that they will be really fun to mix.
I've already started some preliminary mixes from which I'm gonna extract 30 sec -1 min excerpts for a PR vid for fundraising, and I'm really not having to do much but adjust levels.
A few weeks ago, the drummer we were working with on a song brought in a Craviotto Snare drum ... I haven't had to touch the EQ on that track yet, and probably won't have to at all.
Good performances, good instruments, good mics and pres... are all the foundation(s) to good sounding tracks. Ya... it matters... all of those things.
IMHO
-d.

Were there any pres that happened to sound really good, either in general or cost vs performance, that stood out on that project?

Jealous of the no snare eq needed comment :)

kmetal, post: 452265, member: 37533 wrote: Were there any pres that happened to sound really good, either in general or cost vs performance, that stood out on that project?

Jealous of the no snare eq needed comment :)

Yeah that Snare really is something. "Instant" tone. But I also have to give props to the drummer on that session (Ronnie Gillard) who played so well. He's a veteran, a pro, and can hear what a song needs, and plays appropriately. That's no small thing, although to some people it might not sound like a big deal.
I think Dave had an Audix mic on the Snare (?) but I don't know the specific model.
( @dvdhawk ) He would have to tell us which specific mic he used.
We are using Presonus S1 as the capture platform, I haven't decided yet whether to stick with that for mixing, or if I'm gonna use Samplitude. I'm much more familiar with Samp than I am S1, and Samp is what I've been using for these recent preliminary mixes, I'm just so familiar with it that I can get around it and do things quickly. It's not that I'm knocking S1, not at all... it's just that I'm a lot more comfortable working in Samplitude. I'm gonna keep an open mind about it though... I'm happy to use S1 to mix if it turns out that it will be easier to do that - the one obvious benefit is that Dave could save an entire project file in S1 and just kick it over to me, as opposed to having to export the wav files and then me having to import them into Samp, which is what we've been doing. No problems doing it that way, it just takes time.
We'll see...
:)

As a side note, interestingly, is that the song I'm having the most difficulty mixing is the one that's the simplest, both in content and arrangement. It's got a Motown vibe to it, both in the way the song was written - arranged and in the way we tracked it.
I find that I keep having to restrain myself from trying to create a "modern" sounding pop mix, instead of letting it sound the way we originally wanted to, with a vintage sort of flair and sonic tip of the hat kinda thing to Motown.
It's a second nature/habit thing, I think... because I normally mix towards more modern mixing trends... and I find I'm having to really reign myself in from doing things like adding certain frequencies to certain instruments... and, there's also the verb/space part of it; I don't have a real chamber or an EMT plate, which were both so commonly used on so many songs of the time period. (I've even toyed with the idea of using a mono verb on this one).
It really all comes down to just having to remember to get the hell out of my own way. Lol.
If we were going for the actual sound, then What we really needed was to be in the actual Motown studio, with all that vintage gear, and with @Bob Olhsson at the helm. ;)

I agree the preamp would make a good difference and sometime make a bad mic sound better.
About the mods, I think changing the capsule will have a bigger impact on the sound. Otherwise Matt at microphone parts would have come up with a circuit upgrade which he didn't.
Things for sure, you can communicate with him, he is a very passionnate guy and answered a lot of my questions with honesty.
He is also the founder of recordinghacks.com if I remember correctly.

DonnyThompson, post: 452266, member: 46114 wrote: I'm happy to use S1 to mix if it turns out that it will be easier to do that - the one obvious benefit is that Dave could save an entire project file in S1 and just kick it over to me, as opposed to having to export the wav files and then me having to import them into Samp, which is what we've been doing. No problems doing it that way, it just takes time.

Not sure if S1 has it or not but have you considered OMF export? I've heard it's works varying degrees of well, but maybe worth a shot?

This is precisely the reason I did my best to make sure all my new software was as cross compatible as possible, and have several copies of some basics like the renessiance pluggins. I've essentially got the software side of things broken in Main, Mobile, and Client, systems/setups to help ease this. Ideally, if the hardware end of things ever comes together, they'll be able to remote access the client setup which would be identical to the main, barring the rediculously expensive single seat stuff like media composer or sequoia. In an even more ideal situation we could both use remote access or watever to tap into the main system.

This is also one of the main areas 3rd party pluggins have the edge over proprietary stock plugs. In theory even two different daws could be using pluggin presets and tweaks on the same pluggins, and use basic omf or some other method for basic fader and pan settings, even automation. Although probably not ideal.

It just seems things aren't quite there yet in an easy universal way. Hopefully my prototype/test system will shed light on that.

DonnyThompson, post: 452268, member: 46114 wrote: As a side note, interestingly, is that the song I'm having the most difficulty mixing is the one that's the simplest, both in content and arrangement. It's got a Motown vibe to it, both in the way the song was written - arranged and in the way we tracked it.
I find that I keep having to restrain myself from trying to create a "modern" sounding pop mix, instead of letting it sound the way we originally wanted to, with a vintage sort of flair and sonic tip of the hat kinda thing to Motown.
It's a second nature/habit thing, I think... because I normally mix towards more modern mixing trends... and I find I'm having to really reign myself in from doing things like adding certain frequencies to certain instruments... and, there's also the verb/space part of it; I don't have a real chamber or an EMT plate, which were both so commonly used on so many songs of the time period. (I've even toyed with the idea of using a mono verb on this one).
It really all comes down to just having to remember to get the hell out of my own way. Lol.
If we were going for the actual sound, then What we really needed was to be in the actual Motown studio, with all that vintage gear, and with @Bob Olhsson at the helm. ;)

Not sure is this would even be useful or what your after at all, but I scooped this plugin for $19 from audiodeluxe a few months back.

I've never heard a great plate pluggin, or used a real one myself, but this at the time seemed to have a bit of a vintage vibe out of the box. Might be worth a demo, hopefully the have a fully functioning trial period so you can print it if useful. PSP Spring Box. lol I swear this sounds like Tom Dolbear on this vid, former Samplitude rep.

2min in on this one

I apologize to smaash for going way, way off topic.

kmetal, post: 452271, member: 37533 wrote: This is precisely the reason I did my best to make sure all my new software was as cross compatible

I have a different approach to it (not saying it's better).
What ever the OS or DAW. I'm not attached to any pluggins.
I start by trying those included first. If something is not available I will try to find a replacement.
If I can't find it, I'll make the best of what I have.

All my energy is turned to capturing the best tracks. Once it's in the box, I try to do the minimum change to it.
When you envision a sound, there is so many ways to make it work anyway...
But that's just me ;)

All good Kyle ,
Hey that Springbox was a good score .
I now believe I should have more reverb plug ins than anything else.
I see PSP has another new spring verb too.

It must be awesome having those tracks at your fingertips Donny.
I have the good fortune of working on a couple of mixes that I captured pretty well , ( compared to my previous efforts) ,
with the gain / filtering in a decent place and it is such a buzz listening to the tracks and being able to envisage
where I want it to go with the reverb . Before this point I would listen and get overwhelmed with unwanted noise masking everything
and playing blind Freddy with it .

Chris,
For pre amps , I have the ones on the studio live desk that I dial back on the gain and boost the channel make up gain, Also the H/LPF.
Also I have an ADL 700 strip.

I recorded a drum track today and put the snare top (57) through the ADL .
The 414 was over the head of my wife (playing drums ) .
A sm 58 just outside the front hole of the bass drum , Rode NT1a about a foot away from front of bass drum and NT5 ohs.

So my question is , With only 1 outboard pre /channel strip, What mic would you put through it and if not the snare ,why?
BTW it is a ballad .

I probably should've started another thread Chris . If I am the starter of this thread can I take it where I want.?
Personally I don't mind if it gets taken wherever , because its all relative , once it goes over my head i just move on ;)

Sample of drum track with no plug , only dither

[MEDIA=audio]https://recording.o…

The snare mic we've used on every kit so far has been the Heil PR22.

The mic rundown for those sessions was listed here.

The only external pres used on the live-tracking sessions were Donny's ADK with his C414EB on vocal, or with my C414XLS on acoustic guitar, plus the Avalon U5 on bass, but even those ended up being fed through the StudioLive console pres on their way to S1.

S1 does not support OMF at this point, although it is a heavily requested feature. I don't know enough about it to know what benefits it might have. It didn't seem like importing the stems into Samplitude took more than a few seconds. Exporting the stems for a session only takes a minute to execute, but the session housekeeping that needs to be done takes a couple minutes to insure you can drop all the stems into any other platform starting at 0:00:00 (including the count-in). The players all get a good demo of the song far enough in advance that they can come in already very familiar with the song. The sessions typically have a few takes as everyone is basically fine-tuning the arrangement, ironing out the bugs, and getting a feel for the right tempo. And I'm usually recording all of that incase we stumble across something that's magic. Once all the kinks worked out, we usually don't quit rolling until we've got a several good complete takes and hopefully one that's extra special. I'm usually dropping "Markers" on the timeline on the fly every time there's a new take. I could export a segment between markers, but that doesn't give me an easy way to insure any future stems I import back in will start at the same place. Yes, I could navigate the cursor to the marker and zoom in and line everything up manually. Instead, I do a "Save As" for export, move the cursor to the correct In Marker and cut all the tracks at the cursor, and delete all the previous takes from the timeline and then move the 'keeper' tracks all down to 0:00:00. It's a few extra minutes of work on the front end, but should save time if/when additional tracks are imported back in. I could also export the stems between the markers and just import the stems into a new session, but then I'd have to save and recall I/O mapping, etc. - so pick your poison.

My apologies too to Smashh for veering off his original topic.

pcrecord, post: 452274, member: 46460 wrote: I have a different approach to it (not saying it's better).
What ever the OS or DAW. I'm not attached to any pluggins.
I start by trying those included first. If something is not available I will try to find a replacement.
If I can't find it, I'll make the best of what I have.

All my energy is turned to capturing the best tracks. Once it's in the box, I try to do the minimum change to it.
When you envision a sound, there is so many ways to make it work anyway...
But that's just me ;)

That's the beauty of music and art everyone has something unique they do. Getting it the best possible at capture does seem to be somewhat of a universal rule, if there was one for recording.

I work between two commercial studios, my cousins home studio, and my 'rig' if you can even call it one at this point lol. Add that to the plethora of laptop setups random clients have, I've found file management and daw session transfers to be a huge weak point in my case, and essentially a nightmare, and a time consuming effort. Even going between the two studios there's always missing fade files, or the I/O settings freak out, or there's a pluggin or two on one system, but not the other.

Really this isn't an issue if it's a more typical case of track at one studio, mix at the other, but it comes into play with small tweaks when one studio or the other is booked, or my setup is PC theirs is Mac. I feel I've wasted a lot of time on small tweaks. Heck, just turning the lights and firing up the gear takes 15min by the time the session is open, saved as, and running.

Again I don't claim my way to be any better or right than any other, just with plans for online mixing and eventually realtime remote tracking, I'd way rather remote access someone's cubase setup for an hour to tweak, than get into a logistical death sentence, as my past has required. Lol. You lose or you learn.

Smashh, post: 452276, member: 45856 wrote: All good Kyle ,
Hey that Springbox was a good score .
I now believe I should have more reverb plug ins than anything else.

Just for the record (lol pun not intended) reverb is the pluggin I use the least in general, delay is more prevalent on most tracks. I also use the verb chambers when at the studio, particularly for drums, and ambient mics on amps for stuff. So this is probably the main reason I don't reach for the verb as much. I also started with an MXR digital rack delay when I first started, not reverb, just purely out of chance since it was $10. Also in the late 90's 'tight' rooms were popular for drums, so it gave me what I now know as a 'clean outline' for my otherwise roughly recorded tracks.

That said, since I haven't found a verb pluggin I love, I bought several over the last couple years for the new rig. The D16 Toraverb was super cool sounding and lexicon-ish, and affordable. I absolutely love the eventide verb I picked up on sale for maybe 30 or 50$, it's freakin fun! It has an eq section on it (ugh I think it does, sorry brain hurts) and definitely some pitch shifting ala eventide, and uniquely, a compressor! What a compressor on a verb!? I thought it'd be useless, but i messed w it in a non critical tablet/Bluetooth, on Samplitude, and it was really cool even on a stereo mix. it didn't kill the snare drum, even with some narly pitch shifting, and long verb trails. Lol love this little pluggin.

Also scooped the lowest priced lexicon native verb, and the Sonnox verb, which includes an eq section. (The verb was part of a Sonnox bundle)

Frankly the best sounding pluggin I've used for verb was from softube, but it's price is resemblant of its quality and above my means for now.

I'm not suggesting that cheap verbs are best, but after using just about every one out there (the studio has a massive pluggin library) I couldn't find much reason for some of the higher end ones at this point.

I like the variety of verbs because each one has something unique to offer, and I'm really burnt out from minor tweaks and over re-mixing.

So it seemed to me having some things that do something quickly to either have prepped on auxes and/or instansiate quickly made sense. Hence something like spring box.

To be honest one of the best reverb pluggins out there I've ever heard was the stock ones in Adobe audition 2.0. Still to this day, they outperform many.

Beyond that it's hardware land, with Bricasti ruling (imho), I can't wait for the next gen to drop. Then there's always the fun and widely varied price points and models of Lexicon, Eventide, and ensoniq. Even those little half rack lexicons are super fun, and very usable.

Smashh, post: 452276, member: 45856 wrote: So my question is , With only 1 outboard pre /channel strip, What mic would you put through it and if not the snare

Snare is never a bad place for a great channel strip. For drums I'd lean towards OH for my best channel strip or pres ect. In most cases, but particularly for ballads.

OH and kick is the majority of the drum sound, and the OH grabs the whole kit. It can grab anything from hardly any room, to a lot of room depending on placement. If you involve samples the OH (can) add some 'authenticity' or whatever. Metal may want the best on the snare for the ghost rolls ect, or kick.

With your setup as you described, I'd have the stereo OH in x/y over the kit, and the 414 centered OH, plugged into the ADL. trying to keep everything phase coherent is easier with the capsules close. Alternatively, I'd do a mono OH 414/ADL, and spaced pair of nt-5 either above or out in front of the kit, or even the room. A nice wide panned room subtly (or not) mixed in can really be cool. At least that's where I'd start from anyway.

I will add (fwiw) that in my experience the SL console does a good job at recording. After using many times live, I was surprised at the quality recording the same band did in there practice space, they brought to me for mixing. I felt it was decent overall and personally I like the pres better for recording than live. Although perhaps live there's more to it than just the pres relative to tracking. Either way its sonically good and not harsh or bitey, and not noisey, like I found the D8 rack to be in use for acoustic or room duties.

Thanks Kyle,(y)
The micing of the drum kit advice,
Makes a lot of sense . I will put overhead mono into the ADL next time as you described .

I have heard interviews with mixing engineers who also prefer delays to reverbs . I guess Im not hearing those details yet .
I love the fact that theres so many different variables to mixing:)