Rode NT1-A condenser microphone

Artwork Works in Progress
,
1

There are plenty of different microphones out there. A lot of them having a mesh which protect microphone capsule from mechanical damage. Its those thing from metal mesh which for “generic” microphone would have like a half sphere shape.
But intheresting fact about this specific RODE microphone is that it have the most complicated mesh in terms of modeling. Meshes bended to cylinders - ez-pz. Spherical meshes, box like meshes with rounded edges - also not complicated at all.
But this RODE have the most complicated mesh.
Cant say i saw all the microphones in the world, but it the past i was a sound engineer and saw a lot of them.

So because microphone body are not complicated at all, and shock-mounting also are relatively simple for modeling i was decided to start from most complicated part - the mesh.

It will requare i bit more tuning for side area, but in general its not a bad result at all.

rode_nt1a_body
rode_nt1a_body922×1327 177 KB

rode_nt1a_grill_real
rode_nt1a_grill_real922×1327 925 KB

rode_nt1a_grill_model
rode_nt1a_grill_model922×1327 620 KB

rode_nt1a_grill_2_real
rode_nt1a_grill_2_real922×1327 521 KB

rode_nt1a_grill_2_model
rode_nt1a_grill_2_model922×1327 437 KB

5 Likes
2

[sound engineer here too] Very nice work on that mesh and up to references.
What modeling methods did you use here?

BTW - there’s also that tiny dense mesh inside the bigger one

1 Like
3

Classic technique with dynamically unfolded base shape mesh as a target for Surface Deform.

Yup, but they are more simple to model, so i left them for later.
Also im not sure would it be worth it to model them, or just use a textures.

4

Microphone mesh - my workflow:

  1. create base shape - boxoidal or similar:
    a) unwrap it
    b) using TexTools create mesh from this unwrappin’ - this step also creates shape-key, which is crucial in this whole process
    c) now you need to modify this mesh into disc and make it more dense [similarly dense as final microphone mesh]
  • you must do it in ‘shape-key edit mode’
  • now when you slide shape-key this flat disc will transform into base microphone shape

  1. create one cell of microphone mesh:
    a) multiply it via Array modifier, join overlapping vertices
    b) convert to curve
    c) set spline type to bezier
    d) select all control points and set them to automatic
    e) give thickness to this curve
    f) convert it to mesh

  2. position microphone mesh into the same place as flat base shape:
    a) add Surface Deform modifier
    b) bind’em all!

  3. get back with base shape shape-key and microphone mesh will deform with it - job done:

microphone mesh
microphone mesh1000×1000 289 KB

1 Like
5

Yup, its those exact old trick to make such models.
But i use geonodes for “mesh from unwrap” part, since it provide just a bit more control at one place.
And for this particular grill it was required to pretty brutally distort UV to match mesh distortion on reference.

And also use geonodes for microphone mesh where i convert mesh to curves, make all necessary subdivisions and convert to curves with thickness. It makes process of removing unnecessary extra splines at the bottom more easy.

1 Like