So indicating you have some crappy Beringer stuff, Beringer makes numerous mixers from 2 input to 32 input. That's right, he has ifa bad reputation but, you indicate you are making crappy recordings. You're making crappy recordings not because of the crappy equipment. What you have is a lack of knowledge and engineering experience.

How many inputs is your Beringer? Does it double as your PA mixer? Or is it just for recording purposes? Those Beringer microphones are quite usable that you own. Sure, they're not great but they work, they pickup sound, they are condenser microphones. I.e., no matter how horrible, they are only as portable as your technique in the usage of them.

You mentioned the Shure SM58. Yes yes yes! Purchase yourself a few SM57's, which are slightly less expensive than the SM58 but is the identical capsule without the big metal ball. Those are the ones that you want to use on the guitar cabinets, drums, vocals with a foam pop filter and just about anything and everything else. The SM 56/57/58's are marvelous microphones and people rarely realize that most of their beloved rock-and-roll recordings are mostly recorded with those microphones! For those that believe that only condenser microphones can yield good studio recordings. YOU'RE ALL WRONG! Microphones are like guitars and other instruments. Their only as good as the person playing them. The same can be said for mixers.

Now if what you're doing is setting up a pair of microphones in front of your band to make recording, that's fine for your own reference purposes. But that's not the way to make a recording of your band to yield something that sounds professional. For that, you need to put microphones on everything. That's a lot of microphones but then you didn't specify what your instrumentation was for your band? Maybe it's just you playing acoustic guitar along with a friend and singing? That's much simpler to deal with. Some more information so that we can help you better, would be good.

It hurts when I do this! So I don't do this. Whatever this is?
Ms. Remy Ann David

What is your budget? What kind of material do you perform? There are a lot of variables that will determine how good a sound you're going to achieve. You have to start off with a decent house mix from the PA (and stage volume). Please forgive the cliche, but it's really hard to polih a turd.
When I go with a mic-to-mixer-to-recorder, the mics are:
A) Live rock band: Audix i5s (2). Used to be Shure 57s and before that Unidyne III's. Dynamics are much less apt to distort under high-SPL situations, and the Audix have a better top end and are much smoother-sounding than the Shures. I've also used E-V RE16's with good results.
B) Live jazz or folk: A pair of Rode NT5's. These SDCs sound pretty damned good for less than $500. I bought mine to replace a pair of AKG C452EBs (stolen many years ago :cry: ) A bargain today.
In both cases, I use a Mackie 1202VLZ mixer that isn't perfect, but you'll definitely hear better detail and headroom over the Bear-Ringer. You can also mix in a bit of the line level feed from the house PA if you're careful with the mic placements. This can add a bit of clarity, but is tricky to do with just 2 tracks to record with.

Well, first off under $500 on budget would be nice.

Here is my current home set-up.

PC > Firepod >

e609 guitar
sm58 vocal
3 x sm57s snare, guitar, overhead
beta52 (awesome drum package by shure by the way)
direct bass
drum overhead (behr c2)

and this is the setup I use for doing a full band practice down for later listening. This does yield results that are 10x nicer to listen to than the Behr recordings. But its also a ton of setup.

I'm really talking about recording concerts when you have like no access to the stage or PA mix. Just straight in the crowd with 2 mics recording, in the bar, etc, etc. I've heard Nuemans referenced as "the" mic before, but hardly know why.

Sorry about the beginner nature of the question. But live recording is really what I'm asking about.

Then what you need is this amazing little device made by ZOOM, the model H4. I believe it's under $300 at Banjo Box (Guitar Center) or, Musicians Friend (mail order Guitar Center), Sweetwater, etc.. This little gizmo uses inexpensive flash memory and has the capability of being used standalone or in combination with a laptop/desktop machine as a USB audio interface. I have seen flash memory in the 2GB size for as little as $16! That's nearly 3 hours of recording at 16-bit 44.1kHz! Totally amazing and capable of 24-bit 96kHz if you should so desire in .wav or MP3 format. It has a built-in pair of XY condenser microphones and looks just like the $1900 Sony device! It sounds rather amazing and my friend uses it to record his band live and his practices. So quite versatile and doubles as both a computer audio interface and portable, self-contained, 2 track recorder that can also be conveniently mounted on top of a tripod or Mike stand. It has both its own built-in microphones and combo 1/4"/XLR inputs with available phantom power. So you could also feed other microphones into it or take and record your guitar DI'd or take a stereo output from the soundboard! Great Bang for the buck and makes total sense for you.

Zooming out the door to record a party.
Ms. Remy Ann David