Check out the Audix Fusion series. They aren't the greatest mics in the world, but they are pretty impressive for the price. You could probably find some used on E-bay. Good Luck!

Wes

If you allready have decent overheads, concentrate on a good snare ande kickmic. A used sm57 and AKG D112 would do the trick. For toms and floor buy old cheap Shure Unidyne (515), good on guitarcabs as well, and upgrade if you'll have the money.

TheAngryFedora wrote: How is the Shure PG kit? The four piece, I've already got a pair of decent overheards.

I've only ever used the PG mics for live sound.. they're ok, but not great IMO. My advice would be: spend most of your budget on a [[url=http://[/URL]="http://cgi.ebay.co…"]good kick mic[/]="http://cgi.ebay.co…"]good kick mic[/] as (assuming the kit itself is reasonably good and properly tuned) you can often get a good kit sound with just kick and overheads. Then, when the budget allows, you can add close mics for the snare and toms.. these days you could probably pick up 3 or 4 cheap LDCs for the toms for less money than the same number of 57s!

go to your local guitarcenter, or even samash, and look at their used mics, every now and then they have a steal, i've picked up there a beta52 for only 90 bucks and i use it all the time, i like it better than my audix d6, and i also found a beta56 for 60 bucks, and i picked up an ev handheld mic (i forget the model number) that originally sold for 130 bucks, i got it used for 40 bucks.

so i'd go there first

RENT!

Good mics will last you forever. They're something that's worth investing in, IF YOU HAVE THE $$. If you don't, you can rent SM57s, Beta52s, etc... from any local production company at a fraction of the cost of buying a cheap kit like the PG one. Put the money you saved away and save up for the real thing.

If renting is not feasible, then the key is to buy USED. A used set of decent mics is almost sure to be better than new crappy mics. They may smell a little funky or be a little scratched, but like you say, you are 16 and aren't looking to impress anyone with your shiny stuff. As long as they work OK.

Go and buy a Radio Shaft boundary condenser microphone. Put that in your bass drum and smoke it! You'll be amazed! It's cheap. I've also had great results with SM57 for anything on the drums! You can't go wrong!

Remy Ann David