I like the Rode NT1A - it seems pretty versatile, and for its price it seems pretty good. I'm probably going to grab myself a pair (perhaps the NT2A/NT2000 though) in a while.

My 1616M just broke, I'm getting an RMA though.

My sifu uses an alesis. But still costs around 1.5k. As for me, i cukai my church's one. Neumann KMS 105 (or 150??) . But it's more for live usage

Hehe. Yeah, that definitely looks like it's more suited to live usage, but if it works well in the studio, why not? It looks pretty decent..

Obviously for a good vocal mic.. Neumann U87, you probably can't go wrong with that...

I'm not so familiar with vocal mics. But the mics I would get would be AKG C414B-XLS and Neumann M150, if I had the money.

It would be great if you could list down prices for some of the more "consumer-affordable" Condenser mikes......

Hehe.. for some reason I'm reluctant to mention anything about consumers & condensers - since having a condenser assumes that you already have a phantom power supply, which means you already have a mixer/interface, which is not what most consumers have in general...

Even the 'consumer behringer' costs USD100 for its condenser...

Okay, I guess if this is around that price range I can't really say much as I don't monitor that range.

I still think the Rode NT1A (USD230) is *probably* an awesome buy...

Dynamics are another issue. You can get decent dynamics for a lower price than condensers.

I don't think you can get decent condensers for under 2k. Maybe some china made ones for about 1.5k (which are surprisingly pretty good, but i have to check the brand again with my friend), but if your budget is 1k maybe it will be better to invest in an SM58 for vocals or an SM57 for instruments. Mick Jagger uses an SM58 for some of his recordings too.

I probably beg to differ - I've done quite some decent recordings with my condensers (which cost RM1.2k each in UK , although for some reason in the US they cost RM2.1k each)

Obviously they're not the greatest mics, but I do think they sound decent.

Well here's excerpts of a recording I've done with them (just one pair of mics):
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hoongng...tf-excerpts.mp3

The room which I recorded in wasn't that great actually.. it was a little dry and boxy.. And I didn't have an optimum recording position.
And obviously it's an mp3, although I tried to put some decent quality on it. (The reverb sounds a bit odd, if you notice - I don't have any good reverb modules, and I'm not sure whether there is a little bit too much high-end, as I just tweaked it a bit on my headphones - my studio monitors aren't connected at the moment. But generally that's the sound)
If your budget is <1k and you don't already have good preamps/ADCs, then yeah, probably just forget it. But do give some of the cheap ones a chance as well

I think you probably meant Apex mics when referring to the cheap stuff...

This post has been edited by hoongern: Mar 15 2007, 11:42 AM

Hmmmmm.... Ok... how about this....

I will have to record some environmental sound effects for my Audio Design class.....
I have a budget of BELOW RM1k.....

I DO have a Line6 UX2 (with Phantom) and a tiny Behringer mixer hooked up to my PC.....

Any recommendations? The lecturer recommends an Omni-Directional mic.

Remember..... this is really amature, non-pro stuff we're talking here.

blacktrix, how about the studio B1 mic?

Sounds tempting..... Where can I get it?
Also, someone mentioned about Sari something mikes.... is there a link you can lead me to?

hoongern: What mics were those? 1.2k sounds like an attractive price.

blacktrix: If it's not for pro use, then a behringer B or C series would do the job. I bought a 7 piece drum mic kit for about 800. House brand of thomann (europe online music store). They do the job. You need to mix them really well but they work. So if quality is not a top priority, then behringer is probably an ok buy. Just make sure you don't test out high end mics and get jealous after that

i thought blacktrix already own some pretty good dynamic mics (sennheiser right?).

blacktrix, u mean the taming sari?
http://www.my-mic.com
can get from sujesh, but i dont know where i can test them. sounds pretty good.

i would rather recommend the studio B1 mics or so rather than behringer C series(never tried the B). theyre alot better.

m-audio do make some award winning mics under 1k. wanna go smx to test them tomorrow?

They were a pair of AKG C451B small-diaphragm condenser mics. In England (say, dv247.com) they cost GBP170 ~ RM1157 each. However, I don't know why, in the US they cost $570 ~ RM2k each.

What matters a lot is also mic placement and mic setup - well in my case I use a easy-to-set-up, hard-to-go-wrong ORTF stereo setup.

I'm not actually sure whether I'd recommend these mics - they're very specialized - they will not work for vocals, and they have very high transient response (which is good, but which means you end up picking up sounds like fingernails on the piano, or people pressing keys on their instruments, slight buzzings, everything). Probably because they're small-diaphragm. I like them though, and they also excel when it comes to percussion/drum overheads/guitars.

Regarding the Studio B1, I have not tried it (it looks decent for its price though), but just note that it is a cardiod, not an omni, if that's what you're looking for.

This post has been edited by hoongern: Mar 15 2007, 09:39 PM

Hmmmm. Will be looking out for a few mics then.
Thanks for all the suggestions.....

The Taming Sari sounds interesting AND within my budget range....
Also, will have to check out the M-Audio Nova mic and see how good it is..... If I'm not mistaken, only costs a little more then the Taming Sari.

Do you happen to have a raw recording? Quite curious how the natural characteristics of the mic is. Would be nice if you could post some. If it's not too troublesome.

Here's some:

http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~hoongng/c451b/

1&2 are some parts of the same recording I posted earlier.

3 is a bit of a guitar (which wasn't a great guitar anyway) in a tiny room.

4 is a bit of drum overhead usage (JUST these two mics which were the overheads, no others). They were a bit aligned to the edges of the crashes which is why the crashes sound a bit 'phasey'. I didn't have that much time to set up... oh well..

I have a lot more of course. But anyway, that's a bit of it.

thanks.

The drums for the marching band piece sounded abit boomy. Do the mics have a slight bit of bass/low end boost? Although... the rest sound great, very linear.

I was thinking of getting 2 CK94 capsules (or was it 93....the spherical characteristic) for drum overheads. But they cost just as much as the C451Bs. Plus i also have to get a pair of SE300B housing for the capsules which would cost me all together....close to 5k. The C451B pair would come up to 3k here...

I think the boominess may have been the cause of the room - and bass drums do sound a bit like that as well. The C451B is ruler flat from 200Hz - 5kHz, rising to +4dB at 10-15kHz (this boost is purposely put there). On the low end, it drops off linearly, -2dB@100Hz, -4dB@40Hz, -5dB@25Hz (where the graph ends). You can check out the general graph available at akg's website.

I like the C451B, but there are also a lot of choices around that range, lots which I too don't really know about... so I do suggest you try whatever you can (if you're able to, hehe)

i'm a lazy person. Although i always preach about testing as many equips as possible, i almost never find time to do so . Most of the time i only test stuff out when i need them and grab whatever that does the job good enough.

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Added on March 22, 2007, 8:47 pmLooking for some guides to recording choirs.

Mic types, mic placements, mixing. Would be good if you all could share some information on this. Thanks!

This post has been edited by Bassix: Mar 22 2007, 08:47 PM

Ok a completely noob question here, I plan to start recording stuff on my computer.

Can I connect a cable from the line/phone from my amp to this ? http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FastTrackUSB-main.html

I read the manual and it said that I can connect to a recording hardware. Just wanna confirm because there's one on sale.

Or should I get a mic instead?