RNC or Tube Mic?

[thomaswomas]

i've been looking to upgrade my gear and decided on buying a new compressor. i have a budget of £300 pounds so i'm not gonna be able to get the best. i've been recomended the RNC by a few people and i've read great reviews about it. however, i popped into a music shop yesterday and they were selling an se electronics tube mic on clearence for £300. now i'm thinking 'which would benifit my setup the most.'

my band recently had a demo mixed by a top engineer and he said everything was recorded well but the vocals were too thin and he recommened us buying a nice vocal mic when we can.we've already got a selection of mics (sm57, sm58, red5audio drum mic set, some budget condensers) and a berhinger dynamics composer for compression, but no decent vocal mic.

reading the specs of this mic, it seems to specialise in vocals so it would be ideal.

if you had the choice would you go for the mic or compresser

thanks

[Big Kenny]

get the mic first, use your compressor very sparingly (or not at all) til you get a nice one. Do youhave a nice preamp or even phantom power?

[thomaswomas]

to be honest, i vary rarely use the compressor. only sometimes as an insert when recording vocals but most of the tracks i record clean then add software compression during the mix. a don't have a quality preamp, i record everything through my alesis firewire multimix but i've been getting really good results with this since i bought it a few months ago.

would it be a waste of time buying this mic unless i had a quality mic pre. i have used a friends lower model se condenser mic a couple of times on guitars and the difference is very obvious. so considering this, i think the tube mic would be a massive difference to my recordings.

or am i wrong. do i need the preamp first?

[cusebassman]

What kind of tube mic is it? The quality of the mic may make the decision for you... have you tried it out? I'd recommend trying it in-store (the one you would be buying, specifically), before making the call. Just good to know if the good deal is going to benefit you in the long run. If you don't use much hardware compression anyway, the mic may very well be the way to go - just want to ensure you don't waste the money

[Big Kenny]

You need to do some research or buy a CAD M179 and DMP3, cheap solution, usable gear. Then save up for something you know you want, not something anybody tells you about.

[lapieuvre]

Hi,

Having 300 pounds as a budget I'd get a good microphone. That is the first thing I had before a preamp. My mackie does the job for now. I bought an audiotechnica at4040 which is very good, (for vocals I'd suggest at4033 better price and more suitable for vocals). The first link to the chain is the microphone... a Manley preamp (4000$) is useless if you don't have the mike with it!

Thierry

[giraffe]

get a mic, not a compressor.