Zerex71 wrote:

Greetings,

I'm fleshing out an eventual home studio, and one thing I'm not so sure
of is what kind of microphone I would like to get for my application.
For now, assume that I will only need it for the occasional vocal but
will much more than anything use it for my own sax work. (I'm not
planning on miking my Vetta II amp to get it into my recording
hardware, but rather, am going to use one of its outputs instead for my
guitar.)

I strongly suggest having a mic (SM57 or 635A)
available for micing the amp.
Been there, done that ...
'57's are cheap enough and plentiful used.

About five years ago or so, I diddled around with a guy doing his own
little home demos and we used a CAD 100 mic. I remember the thing
being very sweet and capturing the sound of my intermediate-level alto
sax very very nicely. He said it was relatively inexpensive, and, all
things being equal, if someone (i.e. me) said, "You can't spend any
more money on a mic than what you would spend on that now", I don't
think I'd be going wrong to get one.

However, it pays to research, and there's TONS of mics out there. So
what I'm looking for some guidance on from the group is:

(a) I'm not an audiophile per se, and as long as the sound I can get
from a nice mic is impressive to me, then I'll be happy with it
(b) Money's no object in the sense that up to a couple hundred is fine
to pay, but even that still sticker-shocks me a bit

A couple hundred bucks is still a cheap mic,
but nowadays you can get real decent quality
in this range (I have a lot of cheap mics!)

(c) I am not going to be buying any Blue Bottle $3k mics
(d) Where would I go to be able to test a mic like I would test
headphones?

Where are you ?
Are you shopping used or new-only ?
Try the local studios, or
Sam Ash, Guitar Center, and so forth.
I'm not saying you should buy from these guys
but you can get to hear what they have in stock.

(e) What style/type of mic do I want -- ribbon, cardiod, condenser,
diagphragm, etc.?

One of each! ;-
Really - trust you own judgement.
The CAD mics are good quality and you could do
a whole lot worse. The CM400 model is a nice
older model - I think the newer version is the
M177 or M179. CAD also markets the GXL imports
and I'm not familiar with these and I would say
stay in the main product line.
The RE20 works great on the bigger saxes
but that's getting out of your range.

good luck
rd