Which mic would you recommend for recording the sax? I'm using a shure sm58 at moment as it is the only type I have to hand. I've used the shure sm57 for guitars before, would this be suitable for sax or is there a better option? I am looking at spending around 150 quid. If you have one that would make me sound like lester young i'm willing to stretch the budget
El Robo
Hi El Robo,
The Shure SM57 will be fine for the sax, as to whether there are better options? Well, not necessarily better, just different. A condenser mic will generally be more detailed sounding and airy and hopefully have a certain quality to it but, it will also pick up all the imperfections of the room you are recording in like the computer fans and so on. Some condenser mics have switchable or variable polar patterns which adds a bit of the fun to the whole thing but generally a cardioid pick up pattern is the most common and probably the most useful.
What do you currently plug your mic into? The dynamic mic you have doesn't need phantom power but if you decided to go for a condenser mic then you will more than likely have to give it 48V phantom power for it to work.
Just a thought, but I'd say that the SM57 (or SM58) is a good solid dynamic mic, there may be some better dynamic mics out there but it's a good mic. So if you were thinking of spending some money, a condenser mic would be a good one to add to the collection as it would offer you something different.
Makes I have personally used are,
Shure,
Rode,
SE Electronics and
Audio Technica.
I'm also interested in an
Sontronics STC-2 but I've never tried one, if I win the lottery I'm getting one of these
Brauner
Best wishes,
Chris