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Dr_simon
Guitar Tricks Instructor
Joined: 07/06/02
Posts: 5,021
Dr_simon
Guitar Tricks Instructor
Joined: 07/06/02
Posts: 5,021
08/30/2004 12:30 pm
SM58s are generally thought of as vocal mics and 57s as instrument mics. The both have cardiod response patterns which means they pick up stuff in front of them and reject noise from other instruments behind and to either side. SM57s are great for guitar and toms however you may run into problems when miking the drum kit. (two 57s for the snare (one above one below) one 57 for each tom, two overheads for the cymbals (57s don't really have enough top end for this)and maybe a mic for the HH and another kick drum mic. There are lots of choices for the O/Hs and the KD mic, check out music123.com or similar. Shure do a drum package for fairly cheap (that is 5-8 of your inputs used up already).

The 57s and 58s are not the gold standards, studios will normally use a large diaphragm condenser for vocals, much more expensive and much more sensitive (and also much more fragile). They are however the staple of live musicians because they are very good bang for your buck and very hard wearing.

Personally I prefer a '57 for my voice, but that is just me !

To start with I'd stick to one mic per amp etc until you get your head round what is "should" sound like. The reason I say thins is that you can run into phase cancelation problems with two mics on the same source and that just means problems. By all means experiment once you have something you are happy with however you will also discover that mic placement vastly effects the sound you get going onto tape, and Id worry about that first. Besides if you have 2 or 3 guitarists and a bass that is another 5 inputs, you are up to 12 with out having any ambient mics.

One solution to the vast number of inputs required is to sub-mix the drums and mix them down to stereo L&R before sending then into your computer however with DrumsL&R, Guit1, Guit2, Bass, Bass DI, Vox1 & Vox2/Guit3) you are still looking at a desk and 8 simultaneous inputs and that is going to cost. Then you have to work out latency / configuration and monitoring. On the day you can use isolation headphones however when you mix for real, you are going to want monitors, plugins (Waves native gold comes in at 1K) etc.

This is why I bang on about a standalone DAWs being a god idea for people who are starting out. I'd think long and hard about a Korg D1600 mk II which (second hand) will cost less than the plugins for Sonar / Wavelab alone.
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