I’ve got a cheap set of MXL 990 and 991 microphones that I’ve been using as room mics and overhead drum mics for all my sessions and they’ve been doing well considering how cheap they are. A while back I saw on the web that there’s a community of people who are into modifying these mics to punch above their weight. The simplest mod is a capacitor replacement; three ceramic caps which are part of the audio signal path are swapped out for film caps. I know my way around a soldering iron so this was a slam dunk for $7 a mic. A few before and after pics are below with audio results on the way later….
Shown above is the PCB with the three new caps sitting beside it, and there they are installed in the image below, noted by the green arrows. Not the world’s most beautiful solder joints but they’ll get the job done.
Tags: DIY, home studio, trumpet
