I need help with my mic quality...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cut Dogg
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Cut Dogg

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aight...all I have at the moment is a stage mic I copped from radio shack a while back...I've been using it...but without a mic stand an shit like that I'm not able to get the quality I want...

if anybody has any home techniques they use that they could pass along it would be much appreciated...

I'm strait out of high school...so I can't afford to spend a lotta money...
 
What do you plug it in to? What else do you have? What do you want to do with it?
 
it says its a unidirectional dynamic stage mic...(wide 80-14,000Hz frequency response)...whatever that means...

its just plugged strait into my soundcard on the back of my comp...I don't have any mixers or anything like that...

I just want to make my vocal presents clearer...
 
How much money can you spend for improvements? I think at a minimum you're going to need a preamplifier to plug the mic into, and then plug the preamp into the line input of your soundcard. This will set you back $50 - $100 depending on quality, new or used. This will probably make your mic sound a lot better. Then you can start thinking about new mic, soundcard, etc.
 
aight...yeah...I'm strait out of high school...just got a job...I can probably afford around $50 to $100...but it might take a little while for me to get on my feet as far as equiptment is concerned...but I'll look into the preamp...

thanks dogg...

if anybody else has anything they could suggest I'd appreciate it...
 
At a better store he would have been caught. At RS it's "well that's one less I have to count for inventory"
 
Ya, part of the problem is the mike I am sure. Poke around the boards here and you will rarely see anyone use the words "Radio Shack" and "quality" in the same sentance (unless it is followed with the word "shit").

That being said, when you are going into your computer's soundcard, what program are you recording on?

One of the big things in getting decent sound is experiment, experiment, experiment. The other is that the more you do it the more you learn. Once in a while I pull out old 4 track tapes and listen to them (while I shed an "analog" tear :) ) and even though I was using the same equipment for most of the tapes the quality went from weak and crappy in the beginning to ones that sounded pretty darn sweet and strong by the end.

Lastly, read as much as you can here. There are some really knowledgable people that post on this site.
 
Sorry, you're asking one of those unanswerable questions- "How do I make my YUGO go faster? I want to be a race car driver but I can't afford to spend a lot of money." Unfortunately, recording costs money. Now as many people have pointed out here, you can spend lots of money and still sound awful, and some very successful recordings have been made with gear that was quite modest in price (read that as under $1000). The more you study, the more you'll be able to get out of whatever money you do have. At your level, I can only suggest this. As soon as you have $80 to spare, buy a Shure SM57,and find anybody who'll pay you $20 for that Radio Shack mic to cut your losses. Best of luck- Richie
P.S.- You're already sitting in front of a pretty good digital recorder. With the right sound card and the right software, you can use the money you've already spent to make perfectly good recordings. Unfortunately, it will still take money.
 
Cut Dogg said:
if anybody else has anything they could suggest I'd appreciate it...
Click to expand...

Yea. Deaden your accoustics a bit. Hang up some sleeping bags on the walls. Build a pyramid with your couch cushions. Sing in your closet with a bunch of old clothes hanging around it it. Whatever it takes.
 
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