What Budget Microphone have you been impressed with?

[phcorrigan]

Originally Posted by lkingston

Just be careful buying a Shure dynamic. There are a LOT of counterfeits. The counterfeits look identical but don’t sound nearly as good.

Agreed. Be careful buying on eBay and Amazon (the same with memory cards). If you're buying new, buy from a trusted source, such as all of the major music dealers.

If you're not sure, do an online search for "how to identify a counterfeit sm58" or "how to identify a counterfeit sm57."

[Knives&Guitars]

I have been hearing statements like this all my life:
"That guy could be a champion; with any rifle in his hands, With any bow in his hands, with any guitar in his hands."

I have had the great privilege of knowing a few champions in various fields.
Hmmm? Yes, there are some cases where the person performance outweighs anything else. It depends on the mode in which they may be competing.

However in general, from my experience, there are not too many cases where the equipment does not make a defining difference. Where the equipment does not help make the champion. Have you never seen a favorite artist perform with terrible setups, and they did not meet your expectation? I most certainly have. I have seen performances for all my favorite artist that in one session or another did not live up to what I had hoped.

For Guitar players who play lots of notes quickly, it may be true that for their style it may not make much of a difference what guitar they have. Their music is based on notes per second. But there are other players who's format is based on Tone. They are still talented guitarist, but there music is based on quality of tone. And that quality makes them. If you have a song with just a simple strum every 10 seconds.....the importance of that strum becomes paramount. As we are listening mostly to the tone. Richie Havens pounding away on his guitar....tone may not be as much of a criterion. We become involved in the the Rhythms.

The best archer I have ever known, 8 times national champion, used only one brand of archery gloves. He would use a special leather oil and oil it for 30 days straight before ever using that glove to loose an arrow. And I can tell you other stories of people who place great importance on the quality of their equipment.

In my humble opinion, for some people it makes a difference, for others not. There is no absolutes.

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Perhaps, but as inferred earlier the OP's question was "what budget mic have you been impressed with?" I kinda think that is a totally legit question in a "for every man" type forum. I'm also beyond convinced that many, if not in fact most here, don't have recording environments that would support higher-end mic choices. In the end, some of the advantages of a costly investment would get lost in the pitfalls and inaccuracies of the room.

I'd also guess many here are limited in ever advancing their rooms' sonics in any real significant manner. For a home enthusiast recording an acoustic guitar and with a challenging, noisy environment to deal with, I'd suggest a simple dynamic mic might, in the end, outperform a U-87, just because of the rejection alone. That of course not to suggest an SM-57 sounds better than even some mid-level condensers out there these days (let alone a U-87), but more a better tool for a particular job at hand.

Just my 2 cents

And those are all good points. A large diaphragm dynamic (Sm7b, RE-20 MD441/421), might very well be a better option. But then you get dozens of "how can I improve my sound" posts. So, I guess the problem really lies in expectations.


The fact remains that if you're going to buy a $100 LDC to record your $4k acoustic, you may as well buy a better LDC (and some stackable Gobos). But, if you are trying to optimize your recording chain for your environment, yeah you're absolutely correct.

[CASD57]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

I have been hearing statements like this all my life:
"That guy could be a champion; with any rifle in his hands, With any bow in his hands, with any guitar in his hands."

I have had the great privilege of knowing a few champions in various fields.
Hmmm? Yes, there are some cases where the person performance outweighs anything else. It depends on the mode in which they may be competing.

However in general, from my experience, there are not too many cases where the equipment does not make a defining difference. Where the equipment does not help make the champion. Have you never seen a favorite artist perform with terrible setups, and they did not meet your expectation? I most certainly have. I have seen performances for all my favorite artist that in one session or another did not live up to what I had hoped.

For Guitar players who play lots of notes quickly, it may be true that for their style it may not make much of a difference what guitar they have. Their music is based on notes per second. But there are other players who's format is based on Tone. They are still talented guitarist, but there music is based on quality of tone. And that quality makes them. If you have a song with just a simple strum every 10 seconds.....the importance of that strum becomes paramount. As we are listening mostly to the tone. Richie Havens pounding away on his guitar....tone may not be as much of a criterion. We become involved in the the Rhythms.

The best archer I have ever known, 8 times national champion, used only one brand of archery gloves. He would use a special leather oil and oil it for 30 days straight before ever using that glove to loose an arrow. And I can tell you other stories of people who place great importance on the quality of their equipment.

In my humble opinion, for some people it makes a difference, for others not. There is no absolutes.

Reminds of a story.....

One time we were looking for a lead player, We put and ad in the classifies and this kid called, I had to smile to myself and I remembered when I had my first shot... So I went to his house...or I should say his parents house, I went into into his bedroom after talking to his mother and this kid blew me away...He was 16 and was a gifted player...I know the difference between someone with a gift and a person who works hard..and this kid was gifted.
and he was playing a Walmart Strat wanna-be
Before I even left his house I was trying to figure out how I could get him into bars to play...lol
Well our bass player had a nice Fender Strat with a wireless system on it that he loaned the kid for a MISTY Cancer Fund drive we were playing at...
This kid was playing behind his back, over his head.....He jumped off the stage and was playing in the crowd of dancers.. I guess the moral of this story is... Sometimes its the equipment and sometimes it's the person....Sometimes your the windshield and sometimes your the bug...
but in the end It's your choice

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Yes often the reality is not as glamorous as the Legend . Like " The vocal mike on Thriller was a Shure SM7 B" !!!! yes, but vocalist was Micheal Jackson

A friend of mine has the mic that Nat King Cole sang into at his studio...it doesn't make him sound like Nat It does, however, help book his studio. And I'm sure none of the singers who book it to use that mic sound like Nat either.

[CASD57]

Went ahead and ordered a Audio Technica ATM710 handheld condenser, Should be an improvement in my live practices.. and a nice addition to my Mic locker

My main focus is a good mic for live use, and maybe sub for recording if I want something different.. and not too worried about the sensitivity Im sure the 710 is in the 21-23db area, Which should be fine live.

Plus doesn't clean preamp's fix the mic's noise?

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by CASD57

Plus doesn't clean preamp's fix the mic's noise?

No not really, a clean pre amp will cleanly render what the mic is giving it and ideally not add to the noise

[lkingston]

Originally Posted by KevWind

No not really, a clean pre amp will cleanly render what the mic is giving it and ideally not add to the noise

Exactly. Dynamic mics have no built in electronics, but they are low sensitivity and thus need a lot of pre-amplification.

The Zoom H4/5/6 for instance has relatively noisy preamps. It doesn’t matter so much if you are close miking with a condenser mic, but if you are distance miking (especially with a dynamic mic), the self noise can be atrocious. The noise is from the preamp, not the mic though.