Hey all,
After a bit of research, I am down to the following two microphones, both condenser mikes that connect to a powered usb port, containing onboard preamp and A/D converters:
Samson CO3 (list price ~$200, $70 on Sweetwater.com):
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/C03usb/
Blue Snowball (list price ~$160, $80 (after $20 discount) at Guitar Center):
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Snowball/
Both of these seem to be well reviewed, though. Before I make my purchase, I was wondering if anyone had opinions on either of these, and I also had a few questions about condenser mikes in general.
1) Is a shock mount necessary?
2) Can one place the mic approximately equidistant from one's mouth and the neck joint of one's guitar to record both guitar and vocals simultaneously?
3) Is the omnidirectional pattern going to pick up a lot of unwanted noise in a room with no particularly audible air conditioning or anything?
Thank you all for your help. I'm looking forward to the point where I can spend even more of my free time doing music stuff.
~Sam
Hi
"2) Can one place the mic approximately equidistant from one's mouth and the neck joint of one's guitar to record both guitar and vocals simultaneously?"
I would not recommend this,as you will get to much unwanted noise/sounds especially if you are recording at home or in a non-studio environment.
The vocal mic should be max 4-6 inches from the mouth and the guitar (acoustic) mic should be about the same distance from the guitar neck.
The mic types used for vocal and and acoustic guitar recording are normally directional of some sort.
/kalle
Tanglewood TW28STE (Shadow P7 EQ) acoustic
Yamaha RGX 320FZ electric guitar/Egnater Tweaker 15 amp.
Yamaha RBX 270 bass/Laney DB 150 amp.
http://www.soundclick.com/kalleinsweden
With a condenser it's not uncommon to have the mic betwee 6-10" away from your mouth but at any rate. I agree with Kalle to an extent. It's not a bad Idea necessarily but not a real good one either. You won't get much of one or the other. Either you get more guitar than vox or more vox than guitar. What I would do is record a "scratch track in the manner that you mentioned, one mic on both guitar and vox. After you've done that you can overdub your guitar and vox seperately, accompanying your scratch track.
AS regards the other questions: A shock mount isn't necessary but is a good idea to eliminate other potential noise. Omnidirectional setting will pick up every other noise in the room with you, which is fine if you're in a quiet room but if you're like most of us who do this in our livingroom, you'll hear the dishwasher, cars outside the window, the hamster running in his exercise wheel etc.
