Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Best vocals mic for home music studio?

I have a Zoom R24 digital recorder and I don't even come close to using all the options. It makes great recordings. My wife could not hardly tell the difference from live.

I am thinking that the ticket is to get the best vocal mic I can afford. Do the vocals at home and work with the guy down the road with the professional studio once I have something worthwile to work with...

Any suggestions on a really good vocals mic?? and p-popper?

Got one or two here that you can have gratis
if
� I can find 'em
and
� you'll come get 'em.

I own a Zoom HD16.

PZM - Pressure Zone Mics - are great for recording conferences and speakers. They are great a capturing the realism of "being there".

If you want to record something like you reading a book, a large condenser is the way to go. Either a tube mic or a condenser through a tube mic preamp. Mounted on a stand, you can use a clip on pop filter screen. This is what I used to record singers for my CD.

What exactly are you trying to do?

Mics vary from a $100 SM 58 to insane. What's your budget?

A 58 works just fine and a Heil PR-40 is a hell of a deal at just under $300.

SM58's suck for recording. Fine for live situations with a band but awful for recording. A SM57 is better but is still overshadowed by condensers and tube mics for quality. Ribbon mics are great... but fragile.

http://audio.tutsplus.com/tutorials...crophones-ever-how-and-when-to-use-them/

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/microphones

Agreed. You need a true cardioid condenser studio Mic. I just bought a Sterling ST55 today for $60 (used) and it gets good ratings. If you want a great microphone that also looks really cool, get one of these:

I've had good experience with the 2 AKG C1000s cardioid mics I use for recording voice-overs. They've nearly doubled in price since I purchased mine for about $100 each.

AKG C1000s

Ribbon mic's aren't all fragile. I'll put my 77DX's in front of anything. Use a pop screen to catch actual "wind" and they can take astounding SPL's. I use them in front of brutally loud amp stack, for instance.

Ribbons sound incredible, very buttery and textured, but one real issue with most ribbons in a home studio is that they are very low output and therefore, require a lot of gain from your mic preamp. A preamp that gets noisy at high gain will render a ribbon useless fast. Most cheaper mic amps get noisy at high gain.

Anyways... to the OP... matching a mic to a voice is an art in itself and can't be done over the Internet. With that said, an AT 4050 is a very neutral sounding, quiet, and versatile multipattern mic that can be had fairly cheap. The multipattern thing is cool- sometimes omni or figure-8 are better, depending on a million factors. I sold most of my high-end mic's but kept my 4050 for personal use, if that makes the point. And I kept a 77 DX, too... grin...

I don't care much for C1000's.

Off topic just a little, but I thoguht I would throw out a gem for you other singers/musicians.

I have been singing in Southern Style gospel Quartets for decades (Think Oak Ridge Boys, Statler Brothers for a tip on what style that is) and have used microphones from Shure, Electro Voice and with my group before the one I am in now the best stuff that Audio Technica had to offer. All good, the Audio Tecnica pretty excelent but for the GLORY ROAD! Quartet we really wanted to go wireless, and were on a budget having just shot our cashwad on a new Bose L-1 with subs plus a good 16 channel mixer etc. etc. so took a chance on a set of Vocal Pro wireless microphones. All I and we can say is WOW! Over and over again we are completely impressed with how fantastic these microhpnes are. We love them so much that when we sing the NAtional Anthem at Baseball stadiums I go to the stadium early and hook them into the stadiums PA system. One of the biggest challenges for some vocal microphones is picking up my lowest notes (A flat below Low C) clearly and without having to make the gain knob squeal. These do this with aplomb. All four mic's WITH the receiver and carry case etc. for about $350.00 at Musicians freind! If you are a vocalist or have on in your band give one of these a try. You will be most pleasantly surprised.

Interesting to me that this thread is here this morning, the group I am singing with now is recording at Rainmaker studios this Saturday. I am excited to hear what we sound like in the booth and on a CD.

Hey y'all...

Thanks for all the feedback (!) HA

I was willing to spend up to 500 US dollars. OH MY!

I am trying to record some blues songs that I wrote and I find that when I get to the garage studio down the road I am not as relaxed as I am at home for some dumb reason. So I thought I would do the vocals a million times at home and then work with it from there with the other musicians in the studio. Then again sometimes blues songs sound best one and done without over-massaging them.

Thanks again for the advice. I'm gonna print this out and do my homework and check out all the links.