Stragegy for selecting great budget gear . . .

[chessrock]

Look at what the best-sounding bands out there are using on their live shows.

Think about it -- in the studio, they want to pull out all the stops and use only the very best, most expensive stuff.

When preparing for their tours, their focus changes to: What can we plug in that won't cost a fortune, but will still allow us to sound our best? What's the most durable? Etc. We can't afford to risk the damage of outfitting every drum and voice with Neumanns and shit like that. And do we really want to bring along the TC's and distressors or lug the Neve board along for the ride?

[drstawl]

>And do we really want to bring along the TC's and distressors or lug the Neve board along for the ride?

If they're signed to a label and on tour- that's what roadies are for...

[Sennheiser]

The last Fleetwood Mac concert I attended ('98 I think) we sat near the FOH console area.

They were using a large SoundCraft console.

The outboards were on the other side of the area and I couldn't see what was in the rack.

I could tell by the sillhouette's that the tom mikes were 421's and the snare and the hat were '57's.

Nicks sang out of the 441, Buckingham a '57. Not sure about McVie, she was stage opposite of our seats.

We were in the 26th row on the floor. Not the greatest, but I got to watch the engineers work some.

[chessrock]

After a recent infatuation I've developed for the Shure KSM32 from an informal mic shootout . . .

I'm slowly discovering that these get used an awful lot for live shows by a lot of artists. Even Radiohead uses them for drum OH.

Then again, it's surprizing how many of them use Behringer stuff, too.