I'm thinking about buying a microphone set-up pretty soon. Don't know anything about them though. Mainly looking for something to pick up vocals and/or acoustic guitar. Just trying to get an idea of what all I will need to pick up and how much it will cost.


From what I can figure out I need:

a microphone

a microphone cable

an amp and a speaker (or a combo with the two built together)


For microphones I was looking at these three:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Sennheiser-e822-Dynamic-Mic-with-Stand-and-Cable?sku=270872

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Shure-SM58-Mic?sku=270101

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Shure-SM57-InstrumentVocal-Mic?sku=270102


Leaning toward the Shure SM57.


Any comments? Any suggestions or pointers on amps and speakers? I don't need a very powerful speaker. I think a monitor one will actually suit my needs. Honestly at this point I could do without my own speaker; headphones would be fine. Anyway to get headphones running without a speaker?

 

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If you're planning on doing recording you'd want to go with a Condenser mic. Dynamic mics are more for live performance. Cheap solutions for Condenser Mics i'd suggest would be the ST55 or the AKG Perception 200. If you wanted to step your game up a little bit I'd definetly go with the Rode NTK, but thats jumping to $500... although it's an incredibly nice mic for the price. I've been using the ST55 for all my work (Mostly EBM vocal type stuff) and it's worked wonderfully. Try to steer away from package deals (mic, cable, stand, etc) because generally you get a crappy mic. This is all coming from a Pro-Audio salespersons point of view though.


If you don't want to record, and just want to listen to yourself play, I would reccomend the N/D767a by EV. Great mic, cheap price. All of the customers I've sold these to have loved them, and they generally fly off the shelves pretty quick. Shure SM and Beta's are also nice mics, but they are overrated compared to the actual quality of mic you get. It's mostly in the name, since Shure is a very well trusted brand. Not a bad choice by any means, but I'd choose the EV mics over those. It's all about what you prefer though.. see if you can demo some at a local music store to get your own opinions on them.

 

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