Karma K-micro mics. $5US

n-Track Studio Discussion Forum
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And a big thank you

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Thanks to Bill (who posts here as rockin4themaster), and Tom S, I managed to get hold of a couple of the Karma K-micro mics:

http://www.karmaaudio.com/kmicro.html

(Well actually, we splashed out and went for the expensive $20US matched pair).


I gave the mics a quick test run on an acoustic guitar track last night and they get a big thumbs-up. They sound a little “smoother” than large diaphram condensors do and overall the sound is rather pleasing and very usuable.

I didn’t spend too much time with mic positioning etc, but the result was a couple of tracks that would work nicely in a mix where the acoustic guitar was not the only instrument or feature instrument. I’ll do some more experimenting soon.

So anyone stateside looking for some nice mics should take a good look at these. Afterall, it costs me more to take my family to McDonalds for breakfast than a couple of these cost…

Drum micing next…

And a big thankyou again to Bill and Tom for helping me get hold of these in the UK.


Mark

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Hi, I bought four of these recently for $20( I’m in the UK too).But when I tried them with a Spirit folio mixer they were very noisy and with a home made preamp they were hummy. Looking inside I saw pin 3 was not connected, so I connected an electrolytic capacitor between pins 1 and 3 and the noise dropped significantly. I still have the wav files on my memory stick if anyone is interested. My guess is this problem is dependant on how phantom power and the mic pre input stages are engineered. When I tried the mics on a Motu 828 at work there was no problem.

I hope to try them on acoustic guitar soon, hopefully I’ll be as pleased as you are.

Nick

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Very interesting Nick. No noise on mine.

I had one connected to my Soundcraft mixer (Spirit folio SX) and another connected to my dbx 286 preamp.

Cables?

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Thats very odd, I started to worry about my mixer (Spirit Folio F1) but I’ve just checked it and its fine with my Rode NT1.

I made my test recording by putting the mic about 2ft from a portable CD player playing at a reasonable volume with the gain set to make a recording peaking -6dB or so and the background noise was in the region of -35dB on n-tracks meters when the CD was paused.

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Return the mic, Nick!


Gald you got them and like them - they sound fabulous for the price, IMHO.

However - You received the better quality second design of them, in the blister pack, now at US 36 bushy dollars:


http://www.karmaaudio.com/kmp.html

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Hey guys, I just wanted to add a follow-up. I’m really enjoying these mics - particularly on acoustic guitar. I’ve done a little bit of drum recording too where they certainly did the job. Yet to try them on vocals properly and maybe a guitar cab soon.

Cheers!