a solid, decent and relatively enexpensive instrument mic

[clanner]

my band is searching for some good instrument mics that won't kill our collective wallet. under one hundred dollars would be great, we would be buying atleast 3, and need something that has clarity and is relatively flexable,

thnx, sorry if this has been brought up before but i couldn't find quite what i was looking for using the search function.

[hyperlitem]

recording or live?? Either way your answer is probably an Shure SM57. Im not a big fan of these but if i had 3 mics to do pretty much everything itd probably be one of those. I dont think they do any one thing really really well but they do do everything. They are the most used snare and guitar cab mic probably ever though. IF your talking about recording ive heard really good things about the Audio Technica AT2020, but its a condensor so you could not use this live.

[clanner]

recording mainly since all of our gigs have had an inhouse pa

[Turock]

Shure SM57

[seanm]

I bought a used Shure SM58 as a good all around mic. I have used it for vocals and for sax. Really, I don't think you could go wrong with an SM57 or an SM58. And they are easy to find used.

[WalterBush]

I'm gonna break from the pack and suggest the Audix i5. It's an updated version of the SM57, for about the same price. Extended higher and lower range, and the grill is metal, not plastic, so if your drummer wacks it or someone drops it the mic remains intact, instead of a broken piece of junk waiting on a $14 replacement part from Shure.


Not that the SM57 is a bad choice, just that the i5 is the same concept, but better. If you're used to the SM57 high mid bump, you might miss it on the i5 since the bump is less pronounced, but it's a small price to pay for extended frequency response and durability, IMO.

[chips]

57 or 58. cant go wrong

[Rick Brienzo]

The Sm-57 is the swiss army knife of microphones.