No mic knowledge. Working from ground up...

[dgatwood]

Part of the problem here is that you are asking for a single mic that will sound good on both vocals AND acoustic guitar, and this is something that is very, very hard to achieve at ANY price. Even at the very cheapest level of home recording, people will often choose TWO different mics to cover these two bases. A mic that sounds good for guitar usually won't sound good on vocals. And vice versa.

Agreed, but not for the same reason.

For vocals, I'm kind of partial to ribbons like the Nady RSM-2 (or any of the other 20 companies that sell that mic). That said, I also like my Studio Projects B3 after adding a little bit of high cut EQ.

For acoustic guitar, I've also had good luck using that same pair of mics, using the ribbon for more of the body sound and the B3 higher up the neck to capture fret noise, etc. And, of course, they're panned differently in the mix.

That said, SDCs are probably a safe bet for acoustic guitar, and LDCs are probably a safe bet for voice, but I would definitely recommend trying out some different mics if you can to see what works best for your voice. My gut says you'll really like a ribbon sound.

If you had to choose just one, though, and your budget is in the under-$100 range, yeah, the AT2020 would probably be pretty decent. My tests of it thus far have been cello (with a B3 in front and the 2020 in back) and bongos (with a B3 in figure-8 mode and a software M-S stereo decoder). Seems like a pretty decent mic.... Still an early mix, but it sounds good so far.

In fact, the two things that impressed me most about this mic is that it has incredibly smooth highs (for such a cheap mic) and seems to be able to actually be useable for both instruments and vocals. As I mentioned, this is a trick that very few mics can actually pull off.

That's why I like ribbons.

 

[trillbee]

Hey Tony,
I apologize for the rather - um - "intense" nature of my reply. I certainly don't want to scare you away from the board by stirring up old battles...
Brad

Oh Brad, please! That's absolutely fine and there's no need to apologise. You're worried about scaring me off when I'm worried everyone's wishing I'd shut up. I find so many questions to ask when I'm about to invest money in things- I have to go through a frantic second guessing question frenzy before I can summon up the courage to just buy the thing!! Saying that though, there are so many things to know.

For vocals, I'm kind of partial to ribbons like the Nady RSM-2 (or any of the other 20 companies that sell that mic).

Thanks for the suggestion dude. I have heard said that ribbon mics are really sensitive to air movement, to the point that you can't close the lid of the case too quickly! I expect this is a slight exaggeration but I think I'll steer clear of them at this early stage of the game.

I nearly bought the Rode NT1-A today, along with AKG k 141 Monitor headphones and a £30 mic stand all for £207- but I backed down as I'm in no desperate hurry and want to make sure I know my stuff before I blow my last straggly ends of capital.

The Rode NT1-A is reputedly a warm, high quality and popular mic with nice lows and highs. Good for vocals and guitar and a cut above a lot of the other lower priced LDCs. One of the things I'd like to clear up before the big spend though is exaclty the value of a switched mic. Omnidirectional, wide cardioid, cardioid, hypercardioid, figure eight- I know the theory behing these. Also bass cut filters and pre-attenuation pads- I know something about what these do. The former alter the polarity of the mic, making it suitable to record in a variety of different environments. The second allows the mic to filter certain undesirable frequencies during recording- for instance base roll off to stop 'boominess'.

The Rode NT1-A has none of these features, it is just fixed cardiod. Rode says no frills is good because with frills comes a cost and that cost is surely, ultimately, performance quality.

Is this ability to switch the microphone into diferent modes a great loss? I have no experience of it's practical application. Regardless of a mics raw quality, is the ability to shift polarity and add filters necessary to make it at all versatile? I will only be using the one mic for all my needs so I think it should as all-purpose as can be.

Then again I'd surely have to settle for a lower quality mic to get a switched model without blowing my budget.

Any suggestions?

Also, someone out there's gotta have a mic locker that contains a Rode NT1-A and be able to sing the mic's praises- or not- in comparison to some other mics. I'd be most grateful for any info.

Thanks so much,
Tony

 

[Bassman Brad]

One of the things I'd like to clear up before the big spend though is exaclty the value of a switched mic. Omnidirectional, wide cardioid, cardioid, hypercardioid, figure eight- I know the theory behing these. Also bass cut filters and pre-attenuation pads- I know something about what these do. The former alter the polarity of the mic, making it suitable to record in a variety of different environments. The second allows the mic to filter certain undesirable frequencies during recording- for instance base roll off to stop 'boominess'. . . .

Is this ability to switch the microphone into diferent modes a great loss? I have no experience of it's practical application. Regardless of a mics raw quality, is the ability to shift polarity and add filters necessary to make it at all versatile? I will only be using the one mic for all my needs so I think it should as all-purpose as can be.

Then again I'd surely have to settle for a lower quality mic to get a switched model without blowing my budget.

Well, the ability to shift polarity and add filters is NICE, but you can usually do that elsewhere - either on the preamp or recording interface that you're using, or within the software that you've using to record the mic. Not really necessary for what you're doing, just a nice little convenience factor.

I would say the same applies for having a multi-pattern mic. Again, a multi-pattern mic is nice, but you'd probably be just fine with a basic, cardioid-only mic.

Bassman

 

[dgatwood]

Thanks for the suggestion dude. I have heard said that ribbon mics are really sensitive to air movement, to the point that you can't close the lid of the case too quickly! I expect this is a slight exaggeration but I think I'll steer clear of them at this early stage of the game.

Gross exaggeration. You don't want to blow straight into the things, mind you, but the Nady has a dense enough metal grille on it that it probably isn't worth worrying about as long as you don't utterly abuse it.