Oh man. Assuming that's USD, that's actually a good bit of money.
For a grand, get you the interface that someone upthread mentioned. There are tons in the $150 range that will do two channels. I have never used one, but folks seem to like the Focusrite. At that price point, I think they're all pretty similar in terms of the preamps (I could be wrong; I don't know).
That leaves you $850 for mics, and there are a lot of good options that will just depend on your own personal preference. That's kind of the problem with mics; you never know what's going to work on THAT application on THAT guitar in THAT room on THAT song until you try it.
Most of the cheap mics are very, very bright. You can work with them, but they're very bright. My advice is simply this:
don't cheap out on mics, no matter what your application is. You wind up spending a lot of time correcting the deficiencies of the mic and it's very frustrating. A good instrument, played well, into a good mic, means you have to do very little in terms of editing/EQ/etc. My recordings got MUCH easier and sounded VASTLY better when I ditched the cheap mics I was using.
So.
Here are some thoughts:
A pair of Little Blondies. $150 each. (I have a pair and use them from time to time. They're neat. I didn't like them for recording my guitar, but that's just personal preference at this point). They got recommended to me by an engineer friend;
this is the video that convinced me to get a pair of them.
Lately, I've been using my
Warm Audio WA-14 on just about everything. $500ish. It was
used to record everything on this except the keyboard. (Not a guitar song, but you get the idea. I can send PM you partly-finished guitar recordings with it, if you like).
And seriously, you can find
used Neumann KM184s for $600ish. They're great on just about anything. I have one that I used a lot when I first got it, but, as I said, lately I've been using that WA14 on everything.
Fellow AGFer Rockabilly69 is nuts for the
MXL Revelation. $400ish. He and I haven't had a chance to nerd out in his studio with it, but if he says it's good, I trust him.
Edit: I should also recommend some of the nicer Røde mics (my music partner has an NT1 that sounds great) and older Blue mics. I don't have any Blues (although I have a Violet designed by their former mic guy), but I've used them and heard them and they can be affordable and sound great.
Finally, you could still have enough left over to grab a couple of SM57s. $60ish used. They're cheap, but they're a) bulletproof and 2) sound pretty good! When I was trying to decide on a mic for my instruments, I shot out about 10 at Rockabilly's studio—ranging from 57s to my blondies to nice Neumanns. The 57s fared
quite well, to my ears. They sound like every acoustic guitar recorded in the early 70s.
Don't be afraid of "professional grade" equipment. Future you will thank past you for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scoobtay
Wow, thank you everyone for your words of advise. In terms of budget, I have no desire to monetize my recordings, just more of a hobbyist level interest at this point, so I want to steer clear of full, “professional grade” equipment. I’d like to stay under 1000.00 for the mics and Interface if possible.
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