Better guitar or better mic?

Ha! Tony Rice even played an Ovation for awhile...but came to his senses.

I'm teasing Eric.

Plain ole 57 is hard to beat on a guitar amp, JK. Sure is. Take Paisely for example. Always mics up with Royers. Does it matter? IMO, about 2%. Before the sound ever gets to the mic, it's ready for anything. Probably 80% in the players hands, 10% rig 5% guitar, and the rest really doesn't play in much.

JMO,
I'd say get the mic, you can use it for a lot more than just guitar amps.
get an apex 205 for under a hundred, send it to Mark at Samar, he'll put one of his rt32 toroidal tranny's in it, one of his amazing ribbon installs(i believe 1.5 micron? causes the sensitivity and output to go through the roof!), and a custom designed diffusion plate, you'll be in it under $500, it will sound at least as good as any ribbon mic available, the high frequency response is beauty, seriously. I'll try to post an acoustic guitar sample using one of these over the weekend.

To be clear, i fancy myself a meticulous diy guy, but i failed in comparison to what an expert like Mark did, and that is primarily due to his ribbon forming, mounting and tensioning, i did ok on my ribboning attempts, but i'm a goofball, he's a master.
below is a great donor, not much more, the ribbon stock is 6 microns thick no matter what they claim.

www.frontendaudio.com/APEX-205-Ribbon-Microphone-p/7489.htm?gclid=Cj0KEQjwnZShBRDfxqzr55rcyMEBEiQA1iRNP8jRN1rt14m-vRfsQGGbIdoOFrXZQR85rkz4H3BnJjsaAkNd8P8HAQ&click=18920

I'd buy the guitar.

SG, did you say? I'd sell you either one:

I hear you...but you could say the exact same thing about vocal recordings. Put Marvin Gaye behind a Radio Shack Special and it doesn't matter much...but - I'm not exactly Tommy Emmanuel here. I'd like to be able to achieve a couple different tones. Or - should I get better tone out of the couple of options I have now...that's the conundrum. I guess for what I'm doing it for - the rare home demo - it doesn't really matter that much. Probably shouldn't sink any more into EG considering that if I'm going to get serious about a part, I'll probably (or should) farm it out.

If you go with a mic I would do what Tony suggested. Samar does awesome work with ribbons. I have 4 mics modded by him and a number of vintage RCA's. They all sound great. Bang for buck, Samar wins.

Are you tracking through the Heider?

Hey John

just another take, building on dan's comment; a mike won't help your write better/different songs.

Not to presume, but you are going through some kind of change; you talk to us about GAS but I would encourage you to get deeper into that change desire. There is always different gear, what are you really wanting ? Maybe you don't know ? I'd go with the new guitar and don't cheap out, buy a guitar that whispers to you, " I am the one you have been searching for !"

An inspiring guitar will become a new friend that will reveal their secrets to you in new songs you haven't even dreamed of yet !

working demo of the begining of my new song "promise"

soundcloud.com/kcatthedog/fair-3-6

Agreed. There is something else there with the royer 121 that isn't there with other ribbons. I know people love upgraded Chinese ribbons, but I'm going to be counter and say that it's still not the same no matter how much work or money you put into it. I did all the mods to my old ribbons and the royer still bested them handily. Yeah it's expensive, but it's worth it if for nothing more than to never have to doubt and ask yourself if that upgraded Chinese ribbon is "good enough"

What sounds good or bad is a highly subjective matter so there is no point in trying to convince the other. And as for whether there is a point in spending more money on stuffs with good reputation if there are (supposedly) cheaper alternatives.. I think it all depends on the situation you are in. If you are doing this for a living then you don't want to pull out and use a modded Chinese mics in your session in front of your clients no matter how good you believe it sounds (unless your client has an absolute faith in your engineering skills). But if you are in it for fun or you are recording your own music then you go with whatever option you believe sounds good to your ears (and on your wallet too).

Well, we look at things in different ways.  You see someone doing magic and giving you something expensive for cheap.  I don't see magic, I see physics, plain and simple.

You also immediately take this as me poo-pooing something, when in fact, I am only advocating another.  There IS something different about the royer sound.  It doesn't quite sound like a ribbon.  So if you are saying that the Samar ribbon sounds like a "better ribbon", then I say that the Royer sounds like its own thing.

You see, I might not know Samar specific mic mods, but I know most of the possible the work, and I've done it.  I shouldn't even have to say it, but there are only so many things a person can do to a cheap chinese mic.  Pretty much all of them I tried the moment the first ones came out 8-10 years ago.  I was one of the first of the group buy that brought in one of the first chinese ribbons into the country.  Apex ribbons were still very unknown at the time.

Thinner/wider ribbon..  Check.  I tried 6, 3 and 1 micron..  aluminum, silver, gold leaf and even the "cigarette foil".  I tried making it wider to remove as much gap as possible to the magnets.  Silver and gold leaf were pretty much useless as they had no structural integrity.  Aluminum was OK but finding it thin enough was hard at the time and had to be special ordered.  Corrugating was done by buying a set of RC gears and making a little jig to run the ribbon through it, not unlike what they do today..

Ribbon corrugation.. Check.  I tried small, numerous corrugations (like the Royer) and I tried very wide corrugations (like the apex) and I tried stuff in between.  They all had their good/bad points.

Ribbon tension.. Check..  I tried everything from super tight to floppy loose.  Each try told me something whether it be good or bad.  Without a specific jig, it's hard to make it perfect, but you can certainly do it by eye/ear for a single mic.   I liked the "just barely curved" tension. 

Different transformer.. Check.  I had Lundahl, cinemag and later the Edcor (which is actually kinda nice for the price).  Lundahl of course always wins.

Body modifications..  Check.  Dampening the body, removing inner screening and 2nd outer screening, etc.  Most chinese mics will ring like a bell when struck. I used a lot of mastic and it helped a lot.

Motor mods.. Check.  I've shimmed the magnets closer to a more narrow ribbon to see what happens.  I actually liked the wider ribbon better, and later found out that the Royer's ribbon is about twice as wide as the first chinese long-motor ribbon.

Wiring/connector.. Check.  Due to the whole "gotta be 120% pure copper coated in the tears of angels" thing that people routinely throw out there as a way to upcharge simple mods, I used different wire and connectors to see if there was any credence to it...  No difference of course as the impedance is much too low.

Hell, before the apex came out I was working at a facility with a machine shop.  I tried CNCing my own ribbon motor.  I got sound out of it, but never got further on it after the chinese ribbons came out.

So yeah, the Samar might be a "better ribbon", and it might even spec out better, but I'm still sticking with the Royer "sounding like I hear the amp in the room" description that Ward and others say.  Something about the mixture of frequency response and sensitivity of the Royer is just "right".

I know...I saw that after I got SG fever...vomit.