1/29/2021 - Senior Project Update 2

Success! The microphone is assembled. After jerry-rigging a phone camera stand and prepping a table full of equipment, I've completed the task of building my microphone kit from microphone-parts.com. Some changes were made from my last post informing about which tools I planned on using for this build. For example, I called upon my dad to let me borrow his professional soldering iron; one that has much more power and ability than mine. I also went out and bought a circuit board holder, and boy did it help. Here's an idea of all the tools I used in this build. Keep in mind that I had to use one or two extra tools from my toolbox for trivial, unforeseen obstacles that I ran into during the process.

I used everything in this picture except for the electrician's tape and a couple of extra components that they give you in case you lose any.

For the most part, I felt pretty confident about the project. Most of the build was pretty straightforward and fairly easy for someone with previous soldering experience. However, when I got to the portion where I was instructed to attach the microphone capsule (which is a $159 component by the way) to the chassis, the instruction booklet informed you to go to microphone-parts.com and search your specific type of capsule and how to install it. Once I found mine, the instructions were a little bit confusing in some places, and thus I forgot to install the backplate wire to the backplate of my capsule. I didn't realize I had made that mistake until after I was completely finished with the build though, so I ended up getting a really interesting effect once I plugged the mic in for the first time to try it out. Here's what the microphone sounded like with and without the backplate wire connected to the capsule:

Although it took a little bit more of my time to disassemble and fix the mistake I had made, I think it was a valuable experience learning about what effect that mistake had caused on the sound of the microphone. Once I got back on the website and attached the backplate wire to the capsule, that full sound potential really showed up as expected.

I did a couple test-listens immediately following the completion of the build, but pretty soon I'll be putting it head-to-head with a Neumann U87 to truly see how close this DIY kit is to the mic which it was based off of. I'll also be handing it to one of my buddies who's also an engineer to try it out and give me a different perspective and opinion with different ears. Coming up next Friday, I think I might have a video made displaying some of the soldering and assembly that I went through putting this mic together. I'm very excited to see how this microphone stacks up against similar large diaphragm condensers!