Condensors and me (a couple of different questions)

[TK Sunglasses]

Hey everybody, if you'll allow it, a couple of questions to the experts:

I'm thinking about getting my first condensor mic for the purpose of recording my stuff at home. I'm using my PC, and the limited recordings I have made in the past have just been by plugging my guitar into the line in port and my mic into the microphone jack. The one I have is just your standard stage mic (I'm not actually sure what type, but it hasn't mattered in the past.)

One option I've stumbled upon is a pre-owned condensor set of one for instruments and one large diaphragm for vocals. The set is being sold for about 80 bucks.

Now, here's my first concern: My sound card isn't going to supply phantom power to this thing, right? So I'd have to put it through something. My question is basically, what do you recommend? Since I'd be getting the mic for such a good price, I could spring for a decent preamp or mixer or something of the sort, but do you think it would be good to spring for the cheapest thing available? What are the benefits of a mic preamp, while I'm at it? I'm pretty new to this stuff.

My other concern: Is it a good idea to buy used condensors in the first place? They've been thoroughly tested, but I just want to be sure that they aren't going to fizzle out on me after a few months or something. Do they generally have a pretty long lifetime?

[crazydoc]

If they work now and you treat them right and store them out of humid conditions, they should last a lifetime.

Mic preamps match the mic level output to the line level input to your sound card or other line level equipment. There's really no way to make a decent recording without one. Mixers have their own built in preamps, which in the cheap mixers are generally of inferior quality to outboard preamps.

Decent, relatively low cost preamps would include the M-Audio DMP3, which is two channel (you could plug both mics in at once):
http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp...dio_Processors
and the Studio Projects VTB1, single channel, but has a few bells and whistles like choice of input impedance and tube drive:
http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp...dio_Processors
Either of these should be fine to get your feet wet, and are good enough in quality to be useful even after you graduate to something better.

For something cheaper try the M-Audio Audiobuddy - two pretty clean channels, but a little shy in the phantom power department, which doesn't seem to make any difference with most mics:
http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp...dio_Processors

I've posted 8th Street links here as they've always provided me with excellent, fast service, and their prices are down there with the best of them.

Musician's Friend has been good too.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/

[masterofpuppets]

I'll be careful from now on buying anything off the internet. I bought a mic of this forum and its a bust. Dosent work, in fact the little punk who I bought it from said he was going to send the stand and pop-stopper and didnt. So I suggest being careful of buying off the internet.

[scrubs]

Originally Posted by masterofpuppets

I'll be careful from now on buying anything off the internet. I bought a mic of this forum and its a bust. Dosent work, in fact the little punk who I bought it from said he was going to send the stand and pop-stopper and didnt. So I suggest being careful of buying off the internet.

I think that is a pretty broad statement. To suggest that buying "anything off the internet" is a bad idea, based on one bad experience, is largely unfounded. Certainly buying a used product from an individual seller carries a certain amount of risk, which is why sites like e-bay are so popular. They put buyers and sellers together in a common forum where they can gather information about prior buying and selling practices. There is also a "good guys" post in the "musical equipment for sale" forum on this site where people comment on transactions they have had with members of this board.

In addition, there are a number of excellent online retailers that provide top-notch products, excellent service, great prices, and generous return policies. Sorry you got burned, dude, but please don't generalize your experience to the entire internet.

[JKestle]

Originally Posted by TK Sunglasses

Hey everybody, if you'll allow it, a couple of questions to the experts:

I'm thinking about getting my first condensor mic for the purpose of recording my stuff at home. I'm using my PC, and the limited recordings I have made in the past have just been by plugging my guitar into the line in port and my mic into the microphone jack. The one I have is just your standard stage mic (I'm not actually sure what type, but it hasn't mattered in the past.)

One option I've stumbled upon is a pre-owned condensor set of one for instruments and one large diaphragm for vocals. The set is being sold for about 80 bucks.

Now, here's my first concern: My sound card isn't going to supply phantom power to this thing, right? So I'd have to put it through something. My question is basically, what do you recommend? Since I'd be getting the mic for such a good price, I could spring for a decent preamp or mixer or something of the sort, but do you think it would be good to spring for the cheapest thing available? What are the benefits of a mic preamp, while I'm at it? I'm pretty new to this stuff.

My other concern: Is it a good idea to buy used condensors in the first place? They've been thoroughly tested, but I just want to be sure that they aren't going to fizzle out on me after a few months or something. Do they generally have a pretty long lifetime?

Look into some small mixers as well. Something with 12-16 tracks and at leats 4 busses. The Yamaha MG16/4 gets a lot of praise around here. It may cost $100 more than say a DMP3, but the pres are decent and you can get much more use out of a mixer than a stand alone pre (monitoring, effects routing, expirimentation).

[TK Sunglasses]

Hey, thanks for the tips everybody. I think for now I'm going with a preamp, as I'm not doing anything I need a mixer for yet.