What is a good (but reasonably cheap) studio microphone for the metal genre?
Hmm. Can’t say I’d really ever thought of metal as sensitive in the first place, but what do I know? =) Shure SM58 for vocals, SM57 for mic’ing instruments. These are standard for both live and studio. Being dynamic mics, they work well for live applications, since you don’t need phantom power and they don’t have the sensitivity of a condenser or the fragility of a ribbon mic. They are going to cost about a $100 each. You will probably never find them on sale…. I never have. These two mics are really industry standard – they hold up under a lot of abuse and still sound good. Condenser mics work very well for studio applications. I’ve used the Samson CO1 for a while, for good results. It’s also around 100$, but there are better mics out there for more money. I actually have gotten some fantastic results by mic’ing a guitar amp with both the CO1 and an SM57 simultaneously, and blending the result. A condenser mic will pick up more treble, while a dynamic mic will pick up more bass… s
