Submitted by anonymous on Sun, 01/03/2010 - 20:07

Hello all,

I have no experience with recording at all beyond Audacity and a computer microphone, which yields these results - http://profile.ultimate-guitar.com/beachboy4231/

I'm still in high school... and looking to spend a small amount of money on a microphone to improve recording quality... to get rid of some of that background hiss.

A quick look online and seems a USB mic designed with recording in mind might work, but is that a waste of money? Something like this - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B001AIQGUO/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=A2IFYT7JVWTGRN&v=glance

I will be using the mic basically just for recording acoustic/electric songs for the memory/sharing with a few friends, nothing serious.

Any suggestions or thoughts are welcome.

Thanks!

Comments

Yes USB for recording music is a waste of money...if you want to podcast or YouTube or audio for videos from your iPhone fine....but not for recording guitars and/or vocals.
Do you have an interface for your computer into audacity or are you going into a mic connector on a computer sound card?
A small 2-4 channel computer interface with balanced mic inputs works the best.....and BTW makes a great high quality sound card replacement for all your MP3's and music playback than most of the stuff sold for computers on a card...
$95-$99 will get you either a Shure SM57 (best bet) great for all sorts of stuff or a Shure SM58 which is also good for all sorts of things and vocals. It is a real microphone, made by a real microphone company....

Adding to the already good advice -
yes, get the Shure SM57 or 58
Also, consider a good, cheap external interface. M-Audio, Presonus and Focusrite and a few others make great, inexpensive interface/soundcards that will help. Sadly, for all practical purposes, you can't just plug a good mic into your existing sound card.
Cheers-
J.

You are definitely going to want to look into an interface as mentioned twice before in this very thread. I have made some comparison clips comparing internal soundcard quality audio with the audio quality of an entry-level interface. I believe the results are self explanatory. A little bit of money goes a long way. Don't trust me though, see for yourself.

http://recording.org/threads/39380-Why-You-NEED-a-Digital-Audio-Interface!!-%28with-clips%29

As for a mic for recording electric guitar its a toss up between an SM57 and an Audix i5. I own them both and use them both for different reasons. Both great mics.