Best (budget) overhead mic

[gordholio]

Hi again guys and gals:

Okay, you gave me such sage advice for my last question that I have one more. I am looking for a single overhead mic for recording our full three-piece band in scratch sessions and also for doubling as a decent drum overhead when we lay down a final product. We play rock and roll, with heavy drums, distorted guitars, etc. We record in my garage, which is the very antithesis of a sonically perfect room (although we may enhance the acoustics in the future). Our budget is limited to under $150 US. FYI, we'll also be using SM57s and a Sennheiser e602 on the drums for our final recordings. We're running through a Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro mixer to a Delta 44 sound card.

What sayest thou? Thanks in advance!

gordo

 

[chessrock]

I would look at either the Marshall mxl 603, or better yet the v93 or 2003.

 

[Gidge]

Id say a pair of MXL603's....if your in a nice sounding room you can go with the Behringer ECM8000's.............

 

[B3Nut]

Another vote for the MXL-603S's.

Used my pair as OH on a recent live recording at a friend's church. The church's snare 57 and kick AT Pro25 also went to ADAT. The kick and OH mikes got 98% of the kit sound, only used the snare mic to add beef to the snare. The attack of the snare was clear in the 603's, as were the tom fills. I'll have a mix of this to post soon....

TP

 

[Speeddemon]

B3Nut, how do you like the AT Pro 25 as a kick mic? Does it compete with, say D112, Beta 52, Sennh. e602?

 

[zbert]

Second question first. I like the pro 25. For me it does the job but the 112 is better IMHO. As for cheap overheads check out on Samash.com the MCA SP1 at 59.99. (I think it's the same thing as a MXL 2001)I got two and was really surprise how well they did so far.

 

[B3Nut]

The Pro25 was surprisingly good. Funny thing, this particular kick was also used during the studio sessions for the church's CD, and the studio's kick mic was a D112. The Pro25 got a much more usable raw track than the D112 on that particular kick. I was surprised.

TP