i'm looking to buy a invest in a new, solid vocal mic. my singing consists primarily of rnb and soothing acoustic style, and i'm planning to record acoustic guitar/piano(maybe) as well. my friend currently runs sterling's st69 and the sound is pretty clear/solid and good for my tastes and it goes for about $600

What's better? A $500 mic and a $100 preamp, or a $100 mic and a $500 preamp? What I'm wondering is what's more important to get a decent sound? The mic or the preamp? Is the overall equipment more dependent on one over the other? Thanks for the help. If this topic has already been discussed, please point me to the thread.

I'm in the middle of ribbon microphone gas and doing my due diligence before purchase.

So I contacted Doug Fearn to see if he felt my VT1 would have enough juice for a passive ribbon mic - I did not ask about active ribbons.

Okay, I've got G.A.S. (gear acquisition syndrome) again.

My U87 doesn't thrill me in the 4x4 booth and the 416 is just marginally okay, but interestingly the old AKG street reporter mic I carried as a newsguy doesn't sound BAD in the booth. (DW Fearn VT1 & Daking to RME FF400)

I'm looking to kit it out my music studio with a good "all-round" mic. .ok. I know there is no such thing as an "all round mic" that will do everything, however to put this into some context we used to have a couple of SM81's which seem to have gone missing which were used for all sorts. Particularly I guess I want to use this for stuff like:

• Vocal overdubs (singing and speech)

so my crappy firepod finally bit the dust so i'm in the new market for a recording interface. I run logic pro 9 on my macbook pro and record mostly garage rock and jazz so i need something with 8 inputs. The interfaces i was looking at where

Echo Audiofire Pre8 - $699
Mackie Blackbird - $499
Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 - $399

Hello everyone,
found this beautiful forum (and neverending source of knowledge) thanks to a friend of mine.
Time has come for me to start buying mics for my home-studio set up.
I have an acoustic piano I'd love to record in a decent way, and also a classical guitar (and I'm going to buy a mandolin too... eheheheh).

For 30 years I have been using the half wrap (end to end) where you put one end together with the other end, halving the length each time, but less 6" so the ends don't get into the last half. Repeat until the cable bundle is between two and three feet long and tie the whole thing into a simple yet loose knot. Put them all in a road case and done.

I am getting a new Neumann U87ai and was wondering what the differences were between the original U87 and and the ai.

If I was to connect a Neumann TLM 102 Condenser Microphone into a more affordable USB audio interface such as: