[Scott Dorsey]

In article .com,
mcnews wrote:
i'd like a pros opinion with much experience with many mics to off er
their opinion on the best all purpose mic in the $400-900 range. i
will be using it mostly for vocals, acoustic guitar and upright bass.
my preamps are humble and will remain so for a while. please try to
stay on topic with your reply and please do not answer my question with
more questions. i am not a pro and have no aspirations to become one.
just want to make decent recordings.
how about the ev re-20 for example?

Are you going to be spotmiking things, or mostly recording rooms?

The RE-20 is a good choice. It's okay on any vocal, on acoustic guitar,
and on upright bass. It's useless as a room mike, but that might be okay
for you. It's sufficiently uncolored that you can use it on all tracks
without the coloration building up.

I might be more apt to recommend a small diaphragm condenser mike like
the Josephson C4 or the Audio-Technica AT4051. It'll sound more detailed
and etched on acoustic guitar and it's a great mike on bass, but you might
find it a real pain to get good vocals with. The good news is that it will
be much better for room miking.

Although, for $900 you can probably pick up a C4 and a used RE-20 and still
not break your budget.

You should also have an EV 635A and an SM-57 in the closet somewhere. Both
are very highly colored, but they are useful colorations and they don't cost
much money. Don't spend more than $50 for a used 635A.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."