Do Any Of You Cats Record With Cheap Microphones?

[Roy Brooks]

I've been playing guitar over thirty years but have only recently gotten into home recording. I have a Yamaha AW1600, a couple M Audio monitors, a Sterling Audio ST55, a Shure SM57, a couple stands, and a couple microphone cables. That stuff gets the job done.

 

Mostly I record guitar instrumentals with bass, baritone guitar and tic tac bass, and sometimes a little organ. When I want drums I usually call up one of my friends or I beat on suitcases or I use an Alesis drum machine.

 

When I want clean tones I plug my guitar, whichever one it might be, into a Tone King Meteor II amplifier. When I want dirty tones I plug into a Vibro Champ. Occasionally, when I want particularly funky tones, I will use a DOD Performer series Compressor Sustainer to overdrive the Vibro Champ.

 

But I got a Realistic cardioid microphone in the mail a couple days ago. It was made in the seventies and is really cheap. But it works. I recorded a track or two using the Realistic to mike my Vibro Champ. It sounded particularly nasty.

 

I was wondering if any of you cats do anything similar.

[Lee Knight]

I've got an old crytal mic that sounds awesomely horrid. I haven't tried it on guitar but on voice, sometimes it's just the ticket. It gets that trendy lo-fi sound but is so much better then just rolling out all the lows and highs via eq. There a cool distortion thing happening.

[Roy Brooks]

I didn't know low fidelity tones were trendy. Since they are I might as well get with it then.

[JohnnyX]

Sometimes i used a 59.00 audio spectrum dual imp mic and it sounds pretty good.... honestly it sounds as good as my EV-PL80's that were 285. each in the 80's and voted vocal mics of the 80's... so thats got to account for something

[UstadKhanAli]

I use SM 57s on guitar cabinets and sometimes on drums.

 

I use $15 contact mics on various items.

 

My stuff rests on an Ikea table with a broken leg.

[jgk62]

We used crappy Nady drum mics on most of the drums for our latest song 'Echoes of Yesterday' Link to song

 

We had to eq it to make it sound better.

Next time we're getting better mics!

[blue2blue]

Originally posted by Roy Brooks I didn't know low fidelity tones were trendy. Since they are I might as well get with it then.

 

Well... they've been trendy so long we might be coming back around, donchyaknow?

 

I hear a lot of people talking about capturing that paper-dry 70s studio sound nowadays... anything to drive us guys recording in small, relatively untreated rooms crazy.

 

 

But, me, I like lo fi stuff and I always have. From the folk revival of the early 60s through the first waves of punk in the mid 70s, winding through hill music and rural blues, I've always been drawn to the grittier side of things. (OK... I'll admit it... when I was studying recording back in the early 80s I actually bought ABC's Look of Love... just, you know... to see how they got it so clean... )

 

 

A cheap mic is like a distortion unit and a fixed EQ curve all rapped into one cheap package... but, of course, it's a good thing they're cheap, since there tend to be some practical limits to the range of their sounds. Still, because many cheap mics show radical differences at different points of their pickup pattern, you can move them around and get a fair amount of variation/prox effect, etc.

[UstadKhanAli]

A question for you now....out of curiosity, why are you interested in knowing whether people record with cheap microphones?

[C JoGo]

I have a early CONCORD from their 2trk tube Reel, I used in the 70's --and a 60's mic from a Danish cassette machine

[EngineGuitarist]

57's. after that the next cheapest thing would be a SM7 or SM81 (each around $300).

 

it depends on your definition of cheap. it can vary alot i've found.

 

if it works, use it.

 

if it doesn't, use something else.

[halljams]

Those old little radio shack mikes about the size of your index finger, with the on off switch, those rock!

The ones that used to come with the old portable cassete decks.

I love the sound of those mikes, especially through a rat pedal!

only 79 cents at your nearest garage sale.

[D Charles]

There's this 80's Rat Shack mic that I love. Cost around 49 smackers new but they were always on sale for 39.00. I found a thread talking about cheap or weird out there mics and this one was prominant in a lot of posts. They think it was made by Sony for Rat Shack. I've used it on my lead vox on a bunch of keeper takes. It's great on acoustic instruments too. A bunch of guys in the thread said it's very good on drums overhead as well.

 

I've also got a couple of old short wave radio talkback mics. They are little, gold and square and have a very telephone response (500 Hz to 5K I guesstomate). Really cool for an effect vocal etc.

 

There were a bunch of little known but cool mics in that thread. I'll tell you about the one's I'm not looking for...

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'll use the most expensive microphone in the locker - or the cheapest, trashiest one I can cobble together from parts - if it gives me a sound I like.

 

I'm not normally someone who is into lo-fi for lo-fi's sake (I've always been more interested in improving my recordings than in trashing them up), or as an excuse for trashy sounding recordings and sloppy engineering craft, but OTOH, there are times when something trashy, cheap and awful can sound absolutely "perfect" and "right", if you know what I mean.

 

IMHO, you can never have too many microphones - of all sorts.

[GZsound]

I still have and use a couple of Radio Shacks boundary mics PZM's.

 

I read years and years ago that Crown had licensed their PZM technology to Radio Shack.. They actually work great for a number of things.

 

In a small room, I can throw one on the floor under the drummers throne facing the bass drum and pick up all the drums.

 

I have made some great stereo recordings with them.. I think they were like thirty bucks or so whenever.

 

And cheap mics? Yeah.. I have and use cheap mics all the time. I have an SM 81 I bought for $60. I have an RE 20 I got for an hours worth of studio time. I have two Audix OM 5 mics I paid $20 each for, I have ten Samson S11's I paid $22 each for and use all the time live, I have three CAD GXL 2400 LD mics I bought for $70 each that get used live all the time, I have a couple MXL 991's I got for free, I have ten SM57's and ten SM 58's I believe I paid around $45 each for...and I have two CLS 57 and CLS 58 mics that were given to me.

 

Yeah.. I got cheap mics!! I love cheap mics.. I sing into a $22 microphone nearly every weekend in my show band. It simply kills an SM57/58.

 

"Cheap" is meaningless anymore.

 

Find a musician who can't make his rent and buy something from him.

[Lee Knight]

Originally posted by halljams Those old little radio shack mikes about the size of your index finger, with the on off switch, those rock! The ones that used to come with the old portable cassete decks. I love the sound of those mikes, especially through a rat pedal! only 79 cents at your nearest garage sale.

 

I've got a recording of my old high school rock band we did in the late 70's recorded with 4 of those little guys. I'm serious. We miced the bass and guitar cabs, kick and overhead with them, then 58s on the 2 vocals all through a Tapco 6 channel into a cassette deck. It sounds great. GREAT! The room was fantastic, an old theatre, but the mics did remarkably well...

 

Edit: I forgot to mention, we also used the old (new at the time) Tapco outboard spring verb with the graphic eq on vocals.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Anyone got a model number on those Radio Shack mikes?

 

I've got a few el cheapo mikes in my collection. I've got one old CAD crystal mic that is absolutely dreadful in a very cool sort of way that I've been known to use on occasion. I do own an old Radio Shack PZM (and IIRC, they DID license those from Crown) that I also break out occasionally, but to be honest, not very often. I've also got a inexpensive Audio Technica dynamic I got from my wife. I don't recall the model number, but it's long and shaped almost like a pencil condenser and has an on / off switch on it. I'll get the model number and post it later... it can sound really good for "intentionally distressed" parts too.

 

Probably the worst sounding condenser I own is an old Altec. It's horrible, and the batteries (no phantom) are expensive and have to be special ordered. I almost never use it because it's ugly in a pretty uncool way.

[Lee Knight]

 

Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe I do own an old Radio Shack PZM (and IIRC, they DID license those from Crown)

 

 

When Radio Shack first introduced those many moons ago I went to NAMM that year and asked the Crown rep what the difference was...

 

...the element is the same. It's a Crown. The electronics a not. Evidently, with various mods out there, you've got yourself a Crown. I lost my 2 a long time ago. (Stolen?)

[Phil O'Keefe]

Well, one of the mods concerns the output - they're all 1/4" outputs on the Rat Shack PZM's, but can be converted to XLR. IIRC, there's also a phantom powering mod floating around someplace too. The single AA sized battery powering it is a bottleneck too. I've never bothered with either mod, but again, I don't use PZM's very often these days.

[D Charles]

Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe Anyone got a model number on those Radio Shack mikes?

 

Hey there Phil,

 

I'm not sure if the Rat Shack mic I like is the same one you're refering to, but here's what it is:

 

Realistic ELECTRET CARDIOID MICROPHONE 33-1080 Pro XLR

 

It runs on an AA battery (no phantom). It has a 'M/V' switch for music or voice (voice has a roll off). Here's a post from that thread I was talkin' about:

 

 

 

 

Yup, it was made by Sony for Radio Shack (I was working for Tandy at the time). Stuff a 12 volt cigarette lighter battery in there and it kicks serious butt.

__________________

Harvey Gerst

Recording Engineer

ITRstudio

[tamoore]

I recorded my whole album with the cheapest condenser mic I could find. Actually, all of the recording gear I used to make my album cost a total of 350 dollars, so I did it totally on the cheap....

 

The problem I had with the cheap mic is that it took a long time to process the vocals (the only thing I used the mic on) to sound halfway decent, and even then here 2 months later, I really am not at all pleased with the sound I got. - It's decidedly harsh in many areas.

 

So, while I was happy with my cheap microphone when I got it, due to the fact that I could 'work with it', I am becoming less and less enamored with it as time goes on.....

 

 

Just my 2 cents.....

[Majoria]

Apparently, for some of us home recording non-professional types, 'cheap' takes on a different meaning. To me, cheap is anything under $40 and costly is anything over $100. My 'high end' condensors are the Marshall 990/991 pair, I also use a SM57 and EV408B for drums. I used a Samson S11 for vocals for a long time with great results.

 

For the most part, the recordings sound decent. Biggest drawback is that I can't get that really concussive low end, where you can feel the pressure so to speak, even on my car stereo. But that is at least partly due to me being a novice. Of course, the mastering in general is also where I lack.

[UstadKhanAli]

I'd say 57s and $15 contact mics are cheap. Even when I was working at Taco Bell in high school, I thought 57s were cheap. I bought my first one used for $15, the other three for $50 each.

 

I forgot to mention that I sometimes record tambourines with an old Shure Unidyne that I got for free.

 

Cheap mics are great, and exist happily alongside my nicer, more expensive mics.

[GZsound]

 

Originally posted by Majoria Apparently, for some of us home recording non-professional types, 'cheap' takes on a different meaning. To me, cheap is anything under $40 and costly is anything over $100. My 'high end' condensors are the Marshall 990/991 pair, I also use a SM57 and EV408B for drums. I used a Samson S11 for vocals for a long time with great results. For the most part, the recordings sound decent. Biggest drawback is that I can't get that really concussive low end, where you can feel the pressure so to speak, even on my car stereo. But that is at least partly due to me being a novice. Of course, the mastering in general is also where I lack.

 

 

I personally think the Samson S11 is one of the great sleeper microphone secrets of today. For only $22 each, they are amazing vocal microphones. I replaced my five SM 58 vocal mics in my show band two years ago with S11's and couldn't be happier. Never had one fail and they get used nearly every single weekend.

 

It's like the Samson C02 matched pair. Another sleeper microphone that out performs it's price by a huge margin.

 

I think a lot of the "professional" studio guys just don't bother checking out inexpensive mics because they have no need.

 

I rent small PA systems, so I'm always checking out "budget" equipment.

[UstadKhanAli]

There's never been a better time to buy decent-sounding mics that cost very little.

 

Professionals often use more expensive mics because, in addition to sounding better and being less prone to resonance, poor off-axis sound, they also last longer and are more reliable in general. When someone is paying sickening gobs of money to record their music, they don't want to see some engineer constantly fiddling with broken gear.

 

That said, you'll find a LOT of engineers over on the TapeOp forums (or in the TapeOp articles) using cheaper mics, like the Shinybox or Avenson stuff that is made well and sounds good. I know that some of you may define a cheap mic as being under $40 and an expensive mic as over $100, but if you consider how much ribbons used to cost until recently, I think we can all agree that a $150-400 ribbon is ridiculously cheap (for a ribbon).