Originally Posted By: Guitarhacker
Back in my early days in the cakewalk forums a lot of guys were using the first mic listed (or similar) due to it's super low price. They got really good results.

All of the mics sounded good to me with sometimes subtle differences and other times very distinct differences.

A number of the low end mics sounded nice.

Years ago at a Taxi road rally I had the opportunity while browsing the vendors, to compare Gauge mics, which were inexpensive, side by side in A/B with mics which were 5 to 10 times or more as expensive. Given that the headphones were the same, it was really difficult to determine the more expensive mic by listening.

Does that mean the expensive mics are a waste of money? Oh absolutely not. But for the average person that has a bedroom or basement studio, there's better things that one should be spending hard to come by dollars on to get the biggest bang for the buck.

I use the Rode NT2A for everything audio. I have a Shure SM58 and a few other mics which are rarely pulled out to use. The 58 was the first good mic I bought. $99 at the local music store. It's a road hammer for Shure. Still sounds good.

Anyway.... My 2¢


Nothing like noisy rooms at NAMM to hear mic comparisons—yet manufacturers still set them up. Ridiculous.

I still have some Radio Shack mics and battery powered SONYs that I bought in the early '70s plus EV and Shure mics from the '60s. What to use depends on context and your mic locker. I recently used a $20 Realistic stereo mic as a drum overhead—guy thought I was nuts till he heard his kit in the mix. That gave the exact lo-fi sound the producer was looking for.

I keep planning to thin my locker out while many of them are still worth some big $$$. I find myself using the same 5 or 6 mics or mic arrays these days.

Quote:
many hit vocs have been done with a sm 57.


Yes they have but in the '60s and '70s, the tube preamps found in studios made them sound a lot better. No, it wasn't the tubes but it was the 600Ω Bell telephone spec input impedance that those normally had and that Shure dynamics were designed for. Here is a great article on that and an inexpensive way to recreate that environment.

Shure SM57 high fidelity


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