Oktava 319 mod complete. A couple of questions

Shaka · audio school graduate Joined: 05 Dec 2005 Posts: 18

I purchased the Oktava 319 mod kit from Bill Sitler. The service was fast and the layout easy to understand. I broke the FET and Bill graciously shipped me a new one free of charge.

The mic is flatter with less high end sizzle. The mod is a wonderful thing for this mic.

I do have two questions.

1. I bought the mic used for $100. The previous owner is a heavy smoker and his living environment wasn't the cleanest. When I had the mic apart I noticed the diaphragm was a little mucked up. Is there a way to clean the thing without destroying it?

2. I noticed that I had to turn up my MBOX 2 Pro preamp's gain pretty high to get a usable signal. Is this common with these mics? Does the dirty capsule play a role in this?

TIA

jgimbel

I can't speak about the dirty capsule, but I know from a mic shootout I just did that the output of my 319 is similar, maybe even a little louder than a few of my other condensers (MXLs).

I'm curious about the mod you got, I'll have to look it up, you said it removed high-end sizzle. Did your mic have that before you did the mod? I got my mic specifically because of how dark I read that it was, and it definitely is. It's perfect for some sibilant singers I know just because of that. High end sizzle is the last thing I'd say mine has, so I'm curious as to the differences between ours.

Shaka · audio school graduate Joined: 05 Dec 2005 Posts: 18

Maybe sizzle isn't the right word. It flattened out the response of the mic. Mine definitely wasn't a dark mic. It had a little bit of presence in the high end. The mod tamed that and gave me more definition in the low end.

The mod is pretty much the Dorsey mod. Several other people do a variation of the same thing. I went with this one: http://www.billsrecording.com/BSRS/Mod319.html

simply because I could preform the mod myself. If you don't want to do it this guy can do it. Octavamod.com does something similar.