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Best Vocal Condenser under $150?

ThirdBird 24 February 2009

I was looking at the MXL 990 and ruled that out (with your guys help!) And am thinking about the AT2020.

I could find that for $70 at a shady website, or for $100 at musiciansfriend or sweetwater.

Are there any option major options I should be considering?

I understand that they are all cheap, but my mortgage isn't

Thanks for the help!

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Comments

anonymous Thu, 02/26/2009 - 14:07

I really would recommend staying away from anything cheap that comes with tubes, because they never sound good. And by cheap I mean under $500.

I guess I have a higher standard of "good" than other people. I guess I should say great or fantastic instead of good. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. You, however, have done nothing but insult me in rather childish ways, so I guess your posts speak for themselves. Why did I bother typing this?

Jeremy Thu, 02/26/2009 - 14:30

Jeremy wrote: Dan we are ALL arguing that. There are FANTASTIC condensers under $500. What is normal in recording? You need to be thinking outside the box at all times...don't go into projects with a cookie cutter approach. Self noise from the Rode's listed are not terrible, and neither is the bluebird. Dan quit while you are ahead and we only think you are retarded.

Dan I already even said there are fantastic condenser mics in this range.

We all can be thickheaded at times, but when a horde of people tell you otherwise I would reevaluate my stance on the particular topic. Someone please insert an emoticon of beating a dead horse.

Davedog Thu, 02/26/2009 - 14:57

No more name calling.

Agree to disagree.

No trashing.

Dan you're not very clear with your statements but I know what you are saying.

Jeremy, make your points without the use of name calling. You are completely correct that each tool has a function that it is better for due to design rather than price-point.

Dan is trying to say that the level of quality of a dynamic at this price-point ($150) is more than likely MUCH better than a similarly priced condenser. On average.

This would be true up to $500 as far as I can tell. Past this point, the dynamics are few and far between anyway. The technology required to build a dynamic sort of peaks out around this point. I would have no problem putting an RE-20 up as a room mic....you'd just need a really good preamp without a lot of noise at the level it would take to make it effective. But as far as the sound of it in a room, it would be very good.

Thanks Monkey.

soapfloats Thu, 02/26/2009 - 23:00

I've had a lot of experiences w/ MXL mics and budget gear.

I started recording, decided I needed some better stuff, and have been constantly upgrading a piece at a time.

I still use some of my MXL mics -
3000 I like on male vox w/ right preamp (in this case, another cheap one, TubePre),
603s are nice as overheads and on acoustic guitar (or a single one on a hihat or other percussion instrument),
990 (not Mogami-ed) I used on 2 projects, mostly for vocals. Ehhh. I have better choices now.

I also have some cheap Nady ribbon mics (~$70 each). They did the job for awhile. Now I have some Fatheads, and prefer those. Not to say the Nady's can't make a rare appearance.

Point being, there is value in cheaper gear. Sometimes. I use the MXL 3000 over my AKG 414s. Sometimes.
Be aware of how committed you are to this - you might find you're more committed than you realized.
Eventually, you'll wish you hadn't bought a lot of cheap stuff. Hopefully the learning experience will have been worth it. It was for me.

anonymous Sun, 04/19/2009 - 19:44

The least expensive condenser that I've personally worked with and got a good product out of was a Shure KSM-27. I also did extensive work with an AT4040 though in retrospect I wish I'd have used something different. I've heard wonderful things about the Studio Project C1 -- one review went so far as to say that when you found its sweet spot that it gave the U87 a run for its money. That's heavy, though I personally can't vouch for the validity of this statement.

And of course, there are tremendous variables that will affect your mic recording, which could have an impact on how well you perceive a mic to be. What your preamp is, how good is your audio interface, which DAW are you running, room acoustics -- on and on, what ends up coming out of your speakers (and speakers are another variable!!!) is variant on many different factors.

In short, I'm saying that locating the mic that sounds good to you -- not Jeremy, NCDan, Code, DaveDog but yourself -- can be a real crap-shoot. In my personal opinion and experience, evaluating a mic is similar to evaluating a mix, it needs to be heard in different settings and different sources to understand how close you are to your mental fixation. My love for the mics in my own collection each rise and fall in accordance with what preamp I've used, where and how I've recorded and what I'm listening to the final product on. Some mics sound better with different preamps. Some sound better when the general dynamics of the track you're working on are different than the last project you tried a mic on and didn't like what you heard.

I personally feel that the recommendations of buying a dynamic mic are sound, if you don't have a lot of money to spend. The reason that I stand behind this is because of one thing and one thing only -- most music stores don't charge a restock fee on dynamic mics. Apparently singing into a condenser mic gives them major cooties and apparently people don't sing into dynamic mics, so it's much easier to buy a dynamic, take it home and experiment and then take it back if you don't like it. You don't have the luxury of doing this with a condensor, you'll lose 15% of the sticker price every time you go for a refund, and this is generally prohibitive for most money-conscious, laymen musicians.

Dynamics are safe and versatile. If you don't have a lot of money to spend, you can at least buy an SMx or equivalent and use it for vocals, then turn around and use it for amps and other apps. Condensers are also fairly versatile but I wouldn't use one on a screeching loud amp or sound source, unless you've got money to burn. You can burn out the diaphragm by overloading them, whereas dynamics can generally handle a higher load. But none-the-less, there are many stories about Henry Rollins and Chris Cornell chewing through virtually any mic they get their hands on after only a few sessions or gigs.

Last thing and then I'll shut up -- ad hominem arguments on the internet are sad and generally come from sad people. I believe that just because you're behind a computer screen, that doesn't give you the right to talk to people like garbage because believe it or not, the person that has to read that is real. Surprise!

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