Cheap mics for recording

stickyfiddle

I don't know enough to be sure (no pun intended) but you'd be nuts to buy an SM58 or SM57 on eBay... 

Though you can't go wrong with those two for a home studio. They're not necessarily "the best" for every application, but they're industry standards for a reason.

drofluf

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

If you are not sure (scuse the pun) ask for a refund, but as I say, the one I got sent was the real deal. As an alternative to the SM58, the Peavey PVi is good too and I dare say nobody would fake on of those. They can be had for well under fifty quid.

Thanks @Musical_Mystery_Tour  

Hope you don't think my comments are directed at you? I'm sure you put the link up in good faith but after I hit buy I saw enough to give me concern

JohnS37

I have ten or so cheap mics, most of which I have used in recordings, and by far the best have been a Behringer B2 Pro, and one of my three vintage Beyer M61s.  These Beyers are ancient, and don’t look great on paper (only registers up to 12k), but they sound really crisp and clear.  The B2 gives a very true colour, sounds accurate and responds well to my Joe Meek outboard compressor.

Musical_Mystery_Tour

drofluf said:

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

If you are not sure (scuse the pun) ask for a refund, but as I say, the one I got sent was the real deal. As an alternative to the SM58, the Peavey PVi is good too and I dare say nobody would fake on of those. They can be had for well under fifty quid.

Thanks @Musical_Mystery_Tour  

Hope you don't think my comments are directed at you? I'm sure you put the link up in good faith but after I hit buy I saw enough to give me concern

Nah, no worries :-(

Winny_Pooh

digitalscream said:

Personally, I'd say you can't go wrong with an AKG C1000S. Usually available used for £50-60 on eBay.

Interesting mention. These are a hilariously hated and feted mic on gearslutz.

Winny_Pooh

I keep repeating this, don't buy an sm57, buy an Audix i5

digitalscream

Winny_Pooh said:

digitalscream said:

Personally, I'd say you can't go wrong with an AKG C1000S. Usually available used for £50-60 on eBay.

Interesting mention. These are a hilariously hated and feted mic on gearslutz.

Honestly, I've never had a situation where one of these wasn't a good enough answer - I've got two of them. You can get small plastic adapters to change the polar pattern too.

My favourite use was actually pointing them into the corners of a room to pick up natural reverb while recording guitars.

Musical_Mystery_Tour

If you can edge past the fifty quid barrier a bit, I can recommend the Purple Electrics 1974, which is designed to be an alternative to the AKG 414, but obviously for a lot less money than a 414. They also do a decent inexpensive alternative to the SM57 - their PE57, which only costs thirty quid. They are in the UK too, which is a plus.

digitalscream

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

If you can edge past the fifty quid barrier a bit, I can recommend the Purple Electrics 1974, which is designed to be an alternative to the AKG 414, but obviously for a lot less money than a 414. They also do a decent inexpensive alternative to the SM57 - their PE57, which only costs thirty quid. They are in the UK too, which is a plus.

Just as a point of order...wouldn't the 1974 be an alternative to the C214? I only mention it, because the C414 is - to my knowledge - two C214s back-to-back (so it can do cardioid or figure-of-eight), and the 1974 is cardioid only.

Very interesting, though, not seen them before. I'd be amazed if they can make a profit on those mics while being made in the UK, mind!

Winny_Pooh

digitalscream said:

Winny_Pooh said:

digitalscream said:

Personally, I'd say you can't go wrong with an AKG C1000S. Usually available used for £50-60 on eBay.

Interesting mention. These are a hilariously hated and feted mic on gearslutz.

Honestly, I've never had a situation where one of these wasn't a good enough answer - I've got two of them. You can get small plastic adapters to change the polar pattern too.

My favourite use was actually pointing them into the corners of a room to pick up natural reverb while recording guitars.

Exactly hardly an endorsement if you can't stand pointing it at the source hahaha

Winny_Pooh

digitalscream said:

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

If you can edge past the fifty quid barrier a bit, I can recommend the Purple Electrics 1974, which is designed to be an alternative to the AKG 414, but obviously for a lot less money than a 414. They also do a decent inexpensive alternative to the SM57 - their PE57, which only costs thirty quid. They are in the UK too, which is a plus.

Just as a point of order...wouldn't the 1974 be an alternative to the C214? I only mention it, because the C414 is - to my knowledge - two C214s back-to-back (so it can do cardioid or figure-of-eight), and the 1974 is cardioid only.

Very interesting, though, not seen them before. I'd be amazed if they can make a profit on those mics while being made in the UK, mind!

The C214 is a new thing. A cut down modern C414.
IIRC The original C414s used a dual membrane Ck12 capsule and were a solid state evolution of the classic valve C12. (Quite a different capsule from a dual backplate "doubled up" K87 as used on a U87 or U67.)

The new c414 and c214 capsules have no connection with the ck12 aside from visually being edge terminating.

digitalscream

Winny_Pooh said:

digitalscream said:

Winny_Pooh said:

digitalscream said:

Personally, I'd say you can't go wrong with an AKG C1000S. Usually available used for £50-60 on eBay.

Interesting mention. These are a hilariously hated and feted mic on gearslutz.

Honestly, I've never had a situation where one of these wasn't a good enough answer - I've got two of them. You can get small plastic adapters to change the polar pattern too.

My favourite use was actually pointing them into the corners of a room to pick up natural reverb while recording guitars.

Exactly hardly an endorsement if you can't stand pointing it at the source hahaha

Well, that'd be right if it's actually what I said :P I happen to think they sound great for vocals and electric guitar too, it just so happens that - of all the mics I tried - they were the best sounding ones in the reverb scenario.

Winny_Pooh

digitalscream said:

Winny_Pooh said:

digitalscream said:

Winny_Pooh said:

digitalscream said:

Personally, I'd say you can't go wrong with an AKG C1000S. Usually available used for £50-60 on eBay.

Interesting mention. These are a hilariously hated and feted mic on gearslutz.

Honestly, I've never had a situation where one of these wasn't a good enough answer - I've got two of them. You can get small plastic adapters to change the polar pattern too.

My favourite use was actually pointing them into the corners of a room to pick up natural reverb while recording guitars.

Exactly hardly an endorsement if you can't stand pointing it at the source hahaha

Well, that'd be right if it's actually what I said :P I happen to think they sound great for vocals and electric guitar too, it just so happens that - of all the mics I tried - they were the best sounding ones in the reverb scenario.

If it works it works. Ever tried a TLM102?

You might enjoy reading this:

https://www.mixonline.com/recording/gear-stories-sylvia-massy-366164

Lestratcaster

Everyone should have at least 1 SM57 lying around, you can literally record anything with it, guitar/drums/vocals etc. 
Bet there's loads selling for a good price on ebay and reverb etc. Also some of the replicas are decent, I think Stagg make a copy, and its only £20!

Also I picked up an AKG P170 condenser a couple of years back for £59. It's gone up to £77 now but a very nice mic for recording acoustic guitars, couldn't believe how nice it sounded.

Snags

On the SM58 issue, isn't the giveaway that it has an on/off switch on the body? None of the actual SM58s I've ever used have had a slider on them, I'm sure (no pun).

If you want a super cheap SM58 knock-off for vocals and similar, the Behringer XM8500 is pretty good and cheap as a cheap thing on cheap day.

stickyfiddle

Snags said:

On the SM58 issue, isn't the giveaway that it has an on/off switch on the body? None of the actual SM58s I've ever used have had a slider on them, I'm sure (no pun).

If you want a super cheap SM58 knock-off for vocals and similar, the Behringer XM8500 is pretty good and cheap as a cheap thing on cheap day.

They do make an SM58 with a switch - the SM58S. Used more for public speaking etc (anything “set& forget”) than live music where you have an engineer on the desk full time 

Snags

Ah, well, there's a new bit of into to file away. Thanks.

Although I still think mics with switches are Of Satan.

stickyfiddle

Snags said:

Ah, well, there's a new bit of into to file away. Thanks.

Although I still think mics with switches are Of Satan.

No argument from me. Ok for karaoke but don’t scream “I know what I’m doing”!!

drofluf

drofluf said:

Supportact said:

drofluf said:

I had a better look at the add, it’s called “For Shure” and later in the description it’s described as unbranded. 

They’ve also possibly obscured part of the Shure logo. 

I’ve requested a cancellation so we’ll see what happens. 

Moral, if it looks too good to be true then it probably is. 

Quite surprised that it’s worthwhile faking a relatively low value item, they seem to retail at around £100.

Yeah the add looks iffy for the reasons you mention. There have been a lot of fake sm58s on Ebay unfortunately. Also the price just doesn't make sense for a real one, even second hand. 

I'm not an expert but in the pictures you can also see the mic clips aren't the normal Shure ones (not like any of mine anyway). 

Let’s see how it plays out. They may accept my cancellation, I can probably raise a case with eBay if not. It may even turn out to be ok but that’s probably a little optimistic. 

Worse case is I’m down £20

Well, I just received a message from PayPal that they’ve issued a refund and confirmation from eBay that it’s been posted. 

So let’s see what happens next; oddly I’m slightly disappointed as I was curious to see what it was actually like. 

Supportact

That's good news @drofluf. But, yeah like you I was also a little bit interested to know what you'd actually get sent.