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RE: help finding best mics in the $50 range

For under $100, a used SM57 is hard to beat. Actually, impossible to beat - they withstand anything. (Find the youtube vid of someone running over an SM57 with an 18-wheeler, and showing the mic almost still worked afterward. In a full-day mic shootout at a studio with all the big guns (U47, U67, AKG C12/24, etc) we always put up a 57 at the end. It wasn't as good as the $10k stuff, but surprisingly close, and certainly not embarrassed by the comparison. 57's are very tolerant of high SPLs. (The SM58 is the same mic with a pop filter built in.)

Another option is the AKG D200E. Find it used (long out of production.) Very flexible due to having 2 capsules - mids/highs, and lows. The mids/highs are top-addressed, and have no proximity effect. Lows are bottom-addressed. With this, you can vary the freq response by the angle of the mic. Straight-on for mids/highs; 45-degrees for balanced, and; 90-180 degrees for lows only. Decent vocal mic, and very handy for guitar cabinets, as you can vary the tonal balance by tipping the mic.

Audio Technica also have a great range of very affordable vocal mics. One of the mics Tony Bennett used for his Duets sessions was an AE5400, which retails for under $400.

The first place to put money in your vocal chain is mic preamps. Differences there are not subtle.

WW
"Put on your high heeled sneakers. Baby, we''re goin'' out tonight.

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