Pretty sure I blew up my ribbons on my Fat Heads. Not sure exactly when it happened, but I had a session the other night where a bunch of weird/bad stuff happened in succession, and it could easily have happened then.

I use the M-Audio Octane for its eight mic pres and also its A/D conversion. It has a switch that turns on phantom power for either channels 1-4 of 5-8 or both. I had the Fat Heads running in channels 7&8 and a pair of Neumann KM 184s in the first two channels.

I turned on Phantom Power for 1-4 and there was an AWFUL blast of noise through the control room. I killed power on the Hafler monitors first, then on the Octane.

I had recently rewired my patch bay and I must have misread the road map- plugged the overheads into what I thought was my stereo compressor, and holy shit, whatever it was, jesus... fuck. I just took the compressor out of the signal chain for the night, and have since gone back and double checked to make sure that everything is routed correctly on the back of the patch bay.

I don't know what the upshot of that was in terms of long-term damage to anything other than my pants.

Some time later, I went to audition the Fat Heads as room mics and they sound like people describe blown ribbons- thin, crappy.

This could be the result of my getting them too close to a Mesa Cahinet the other night, or someone could have bumped them, I have no idea. They could have also been hit with some unexpected 48v from whatever the fuck happened with the Octane.

Cascade offers a 1 year warranty against ribbon failure from normal use, but I don't think that any of the three or four things that might have happened constitute "normal" use.

I have also heard that they turn damaged mics around and just send you reconditioned ones for $75 per. I'd be happy with that. I just want my Fat Heads back. I love those things.

Cascade's customer service called me today and they're going to re-ribbon the mics for me for a ridiculously low price.

I am mailing the mics back tomorrow, and I will check back here and post what final costs are and how they sound when they get back.

They were really, really, really cool on the phone.


In other news, did anyone else know that the Olympia Beer brewery is now closed?