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Ok, not only am I a newbie, I'm a dumbass. I posted this in the microphone forum when I intended to post it here. I'll try again.

I'm 41 and I'm a newbie. (Crowd) HELLO NEWBIE!

Yea I'm a digital recording newbie anyway. The last time I recorded anything(1977) we hung two mikes by some wires from the roof into a small mixer and then into a 1 track stereo reel-2-reel. Did it sound good? No. Did it work? yes.

Well now I'm back and am recording some live bluegrass and blues at different locations around Mississippi. I have 0 microphones or preamps. All I have purchased so far is a Tascam 788 and an extension cord. I plan on getting a Mackie mixer and a couple of AudioBuddys to get the sound from the Mics to the 788. What I truly need advice on is the mics. The guys I'll be recording might have a PA and they might not. Most will, but there are a few groups that are acoustic only. Could anyone please give me a good place to start? My budget for mics is about 500-600 bucks. I can spend more in the late summer, but right now it's all I have.

Thanks In Advance
Rusty

Comments

harveygerst Mon, 03/04/2002 - 14:42

Rusty,

Doing things for cheap is my specialty. Here are the best of the low cost mics:

Small Omni Condensers: Behringer ECM8000 ($30 each at GC)
Small Cardioid Condensers: MArshall MXL-603S (about $69 each)
Large diaphragm Condenser: Marshall MXL-V67 ($99 at Mars Music)

If you need to mic drums, use the two ECM8000s as overhead mics, add some Radio Shack 33-3020 drum mics ($50) for toms, and for the snare. Get an AT PRO25 ($69) for kick drum.

Finally, pick up a few used Shure SM-57s, but don't pay more than $50 each for them.

That will cover just about every situation you're likely to get into.