Re: microphones - headset mics?

[Richard Sales <richard@glasswing.com>]

You know, I don't think I'd buy a mic off Ebay.  Mic's are very fragile and are so easily ruined.  Well, not SM 57s.  They can double as ball peen hammers when needed.  Good workhorse mic's, though.  But I think I'd go to a store that has a ton of mic's and try them out.  There are some very affordable new mic's from China that are pretty amazing.  And if you're moving around a headset might be the ticket.  Never used one myself because of the Buck Rogers effect but they make really great sense.  

SOME stores will let you pick a few and take them home.  You might have to PAY for all of them but get a refund on the rejects after you've taken them home and tried them.  I did that with some of my higher ticket mic's and it's a cool way to do it because in the store it's so hard to tell really.  

There's a CD from 3D Audio I think it is where they've carefully recorded material with most of the different mic's (same placement, instrument, vox etc)  and you can hear for yourself which works best.  Haven't heard the CD myself, but I've heard from golden eared studio folks that it's incredibly useful.  And (I've heard) some of the cheaper mic's stand up VERY WELL to mic's costing thirty times as much.   You can find 3D Audio online I believe. If you can't and want to, let me know and I'll suss it out. 

A great mic pre will help any mic sound great.  The Chameleon is really sweet and not too god awful expensive.  Like a Neve.  Around $600 USD.  I got mine from Pacific Pro Audio in Seattle, Washington.  Sweet EQ too! Talk to Brian Cornfield if you call or email and tell him I sent ya.  He's a good and honest guy.  It makes a WORLD of difference on any mic from 100-10,000 dollars.  Really. 

I don't know how the Chameleon will hold up if you're taking it to gigs, though.  Ask Brain if you talk to him.  It doesn't have tubes which makes it a little less susceptible to gig carnage.

Happy hunting

richard sales
glassWing farm and studio
vancouver island, b.c.
800.545.6846
250.752.4816
www.glassWing.com
www.richardsales.com
www.hayleysales.com
www.blueberryfieldsfarm.com
On 12-May-07, at 10:09 AM, lifeisgood wrote:

> I probably should have mentioned that I will be looping mostly acoustic instruments, strings, wind, found objects and percussion will be the loudest thing. If I use a guitar amp that wont need micing up, unless in-house.
> Its quite confusing, some people just say the bog-standard sm57 over everything, including the beta57.
> Wouldnt a condenser mic be better overall? It would need to be good for vocals as well though. My budget is around £100 for something off ebay.