Thanks for the rep everyone!
I'm with Albini on the "Orwelian futurism" of a screenless SM7. I never use my SM7 with the screen, and sometimes I feel like I'm in the movie Brazil when I'm signing into it. :)
All the people that liked me posting this, give me some rep. Someone with a lot of rep gave me bad rep on my initial post, knocking me down from a 16 to a 15.
I agree that quality mics are much more important than quality preamps. However, I believe that the time to get a quality preamp is when you have 4 or 5 quality mics, since you can spend $500-$1000 and see an improvement with all of your microphones.
It's a tricky balance, deciding how to spend...
I think the RNP is great, but it's not quite the value that the RNC is. The RNP is as good as other things in its price range: GT Brick, Grace 101, Safe Sound P1, etc. The RNC blows away absolutely everything else in its price range by a mile, IMO.
Have you used the NTK? It's one of the brightest mics I've ever owned. Spitty and essy as hell. Nice on some stuff, but I didn't like it much on vocals.
With a total budget of $1200, I couldn't do it with just three mics, but this is what I'd do:
Pair of MC012s - ~$250
SM7 - ~$200 used
Audix D6 - $150 used
Blue Dragonfly - ~$600 used (if you can find one)
MC012s - OH, acoustic picked instruments, strings.
SM7 - amps, vocals, brass
Audix D6 -...
I'd get two Soundelux U195s (did you mean under $1200 total, or $1200 a piece?) and an SM7. For drums do a mono U195 overhead, U195 on front of kick (in fat mode), and SM7 on snare. For guitar amps, use the SM7 (except maybe on clean leads where it may make sense to use the U195). For vocals you...
I thought Micsales was pretty funny (at least the posts I saw) but that he gave out enough misinformation as to distract too much from the purpose of this forum.