Is this a good microphone for vocal recordings? What do you recommend?

Hi, I am looking to record some vocals soon and I am in need of a good microphone.  While I am tight on budget, I am considering purchasing this one:

Samson C01U
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WNMCME/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&m=A28AVD11IOJY61


What do you think about this microphone and have any of you used this one?  And, do you recommend any other microphones that are in a good price range but produce professional results?

Thanks for your help. :)

Is this a good microphone for vocal recordings?

That would not be my first choice, no.

Actually, it wouldn't even be my 100th choice. Throw a few more bucks into the pot and get a Shure SM58. Still the best bang for the buck after 50 years.

I recommend the one and the only rode NT1-A, I have one and it's really great for studio vocals or acoustic guitars.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2k6ktj83Tw&feature=related

StarTekh


kc2ine: While I am tight on budget.. did you miss that >? 70.00

You can cheat with many things in music recording but you cannot cheat with mikes for vocal...
You'll regret it very soon. 0% credit card will do for 6 months.  
Besides how much you charge for an hour in you recording studio?
150$ or so? you'll get money back quickly.

Thanks guys for the help.

The Shure microphone looks like a good price...however, I'm not sure how to plug it into my soundcard.  Do you just plug it straight into the line-in jack of your soundcard (mine says 1/2 input)?  I have an M-Audio soundcard btw.

Thanks for the help...as you can see, I am new to this.

_ComposerRyan


Thanks guys for the help.

The Shure microphone looks like a good price...however, I'm not sure how to plug it into my soundcard.  Do you just plug it straight into the line-in jack of your soundcard (mine says 1/2 input)?  I have an M-Audio soundcard btw.

 Thanks for the help...as you can see, I am new to this.

Well - I don't know what soundcard you have. There are a lot of types - even from M-Audio..

In general you need a condensor mic. I should not bother with dynamic micrphones.

Using a condensor microphone means you have to have a thing called phantom power. This is needed to feed the internal electronics of the microphone. This is provided by a lot of modern sound cards (especially USB/Firewire cards, altough the ESI Maya PCI card has this on board too). If you have a M-Audio USB card (like the Fast-track series) the XLR connection has a switchable phantom power. If you have a 24/96 PCI internal card you have to buy a microphone pre-amplifier or something, because this card has only a line-in without any phantom power.

So - before we can give some good advise we have to know if your budget is enough. If you have a really low budget and a card without phantom power, you can try a "starters kit" with a cheap Behringer C1 microphone and Mic 200 pre-amp. This is really not the highest quality by any means, but it is cheap and just decent enough to get you started. But believe me - you will soon be on the hunt for better gear ;-).

AT2035 very good mic I had a Samson mic before sounded ok had a full sound but the difference is huge and quality of the recording is more profesional therefore I would not suggest the Samson CO1 but I would suggest the AT series AT2035 or AT2020.

jonathan1967


Does anyone have any experience with the Mojave Audio MA-200?
It's a large diaphragm condenser that costs about a thousand bucks.

I wonder how much better it would sound than the Rode NT 1-A that was just mentioned, and whether or not it's worth the extra cash.

WOW 1000$ bucks, who you gonna be recording on, Britney Spears? 

kc2ine

jonathan1967


Does anyone have any experience with the Mojave Audio MA-200?
It's a large diaphragm condenser that costs about a thousand bucks.

I wonder how much better it would sound than the Rode NT 1-A that was just mentioned, and whether or not it's worth the extra cash.

WOW 1000$ bucks, who you gonna be recording on, Britney Spears? 

I only record myself, and I only need two mics (guitar and vocal), so why not get the best you can afford? :)
I'm just wondering how much of a discernible difference there would be.

jonathan1967

kc2ine

jonathan1967


Does anyone have any experience with the Mojave Audio MA-200?
It's a large diaphragm condenser that costs about a thousand bucks.

I wonder how much better it would sound than the Rode NT 1-A that was just mentioned, and whether or not it's worth the extra cash.

WOW 1000$ bucks, who you gonna be recording on, Britney Spears? 

I only record myself, and I only need two mics (guitar and vocal), so why not get the best you can afford? :)
I'm just wondering how much of a discernible difference there would be.

I doubt if we can hear any noticeable differences between NT1-A and MA-200 in home studio conditions, that would have to go in pair with 
same price range audio interfaces, but who knows? maybe someone here has experience with such expensive mikes? anybody?

Every little bit helps, KC2.  But a lot of the extra bit more expensive stuff is lost if your listening enviornment isn't up to snuff - your room and monitors.  And your ears - they need to be trained, too, to discern the smallish differences in quality.  But they do add up.  People are always asking why doesn't my stuff sound like the pros.  Experience and tools mean as much as talent.

A typical chain places the room in first place.  If it is a boomy, uneven and crappy room you are going to record a boomy, uneven and crappy sound.  A great mic will only present the flaws in all their unglory.  As has been said in other threads, it ain't that hard to get an acceptable room sound.  You can do it for a few bucks, or a few thousand.  But the minimum will will help - alot.

Your mic will pick up this better sound.  The better the room, the better the sound and the more you can use the air of the room to help your recordings.

Most cheaper interfaces and boards share a standard transformerless design.  It is good for capturing sound.  Better preamps usually are transformer-balanced, and this design by the nature of a transformer "round off"  the edges of the sound some and at higher levels do a kind of natural compression via saturation.  This is very helpful in the digital age, since the recording medium itself tends to be sharp.  In the old days tape and the machines used also did some of this rounding off.  More expensive preamps usually have a higher gain, which let's you back a source away from the mic, let's in more air and also helps even out a sound and allows you to use a mic's proximity effect as an effect, not given.  This is good for vocalist, who can stand a foot or more away from the mic so little turns of their head or rocking back and forth don't change the timbre of the voice because of the proximity effect.  You'll notice that when mixing and trying to float the voice, in all its permuations, over the song.  And it is another reason your room should sound decent.  Large, studio tuned rooms are excellent for this, but you can also use it at home.

All these little things add up.  Granted, you can get a good electric guitar sound in a bad room by jamming a 57 up to the grill.  but vocals, acoustic instruments and drums will all be helped by a modestly shaped room, good mics and preamps.  It makes mixing less of a syssyphean task and phun.  And the end product will be better - more open sounding, more separation between instruments and more even.  Like a wine connoisseur, you can taste all the different elements that make a superior wine - that is where the experience comes in.  And while your public won't know what makes it sound better and mainly listens to the song (which is the whole purpose), it will make it easier when it does go down.  Easier than some mad dog 20/20, anyway.

@

Before I got a good mike, I used to use Antares Microphone Modler VST plug in. It emulates most studio microphones, and does a really good job. I still use it on occasion for different sounds. You can check it out at http://www.antarestech.co...ucts/mic_mod_efx.shtml

 
Just a FWIW:
This is fine for changing the character of the original performance... but it's not going to add nuance/detail that the original source mic didn't capture.
IOW, If you record with a cheap dynamic mic... then apply a model of a $5000 AKG C12, it's not really going to produce a result that sounds like a track recorded with a C12.
 
The better the original source mic (track), the more accurate the modeled mic can sound.  This assumes you're using a source mic that closely matches the response of one of the source mics in Mic Modeler.

Marshall MXL mics are a pretty good value and lately there have been some used MXLs showing up on EBAY.
The Chinese are making better and better mics. Just like Guitars. With guitars it was the Japanese and the South Koreans who first got it right. The the Chinese then got into the guitar market several years ago and produced some junk BUT they learned, they learned to install a good nut, they learned to use better pot and pickups, they learned to use better tuners, they learned to dress the frets, they learned to do a factory setup and now you can get a darn good Chinese guitar. The same thing is happening with mics. They are copying the  capsules, they are making tube condensers and they are getting good and they are really cheap for the quality... of course when you pay no attention to copyright law and pay your workers nothing.. you can make cheap stuff.

J

I would actually get an SM57 if that's all you have $ wise......you can always use a mike like that.....Steven Tyler has used them on vocals, they're usually the number one choice for electric guitar amp miking, and..........I just heard a recording by a friend of mine who has a Taylor acoustic...he said he miked it with an SM57....he may have eq'd it, but the articulation was stunning....I thought it sounded like a condenser, for sure

I'm posting this because I used a few of these mics in this tune...

The verse after the first chorus is an MCA SP1 and an SM57...the first verse uses an AKG C4000B, the last verse is using an AT4050. The acoustic was mic'd with the AKG C4000B, electrics were mic'd with an SM57.

http://www.ourstage.com/t/JHLPXVIXWFCL?u=45fe49


The SP1 is really the best value for the money, a bit better would be an MXL V67G...if you can save a few more bucks try and get in on the Audio Technica 40xx series mics.

If you can get enough gain from a decent preamp you could do a pretty decent recording with just an SM57 and 58.




The thing is though...the further you get into recording, the better you will understand mic's...there is a reason that good ones aren't cheap...mic's are also like crayons, pic's are much more interesting in color than black and white if that makes any sense. Also, don't think of mic's as disposable, good mics hold their resale value...the cheap chinese ones don't.