condenser mics

i am looking for some good quality condenser mics for 200$ or less. suggestions?

  On 8/12/2009 at 1:03 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

i am looking for some good quality condenser mics for 200$ or less. suggestions?

there are endless varieties of cheap condensor mic, a lot of them pretty good, I used an nt1a for a long while and it was ok. Oktavia make some real gems and we often use them in the studio alongside mics costing 50 times as much (no kidding). They are so well known as cheap condensors for big studios there are quite a few companies that can mod them as well later for some serious improvements in sound.

but IMO at that price the smoothest, most natural and quality sounding mics you get are ribbon mics. Cheaper condensers often (very often) have harsh highs, it costs money to reproduce the highs like the expensive ones do! Ribbons on the other hand are super smooth by nature and even the cheap ones do't add unpleasantness to the sound, they just won't add magic like the expensive ones do.

Cascade fat heads are good and within your budget, and there are a few rebranded almost-identical versions around for even cheaper.

The only considerations are this -

1 - some ribbons will break with phantom power, most new ones are fine with it though, unless you use dodgy cables or send the power through a patchbay. Most mics come with instructions of what to be careful of, though.

2 - ribbons need a lot of gain, so you need a half decent preamp wit 50+ db of gain, most modern preamps can do this but it will say on your preamps specs.

3 - ribbons cant be used for kick drums, close micing bass cabs or anything where air will rush through the mic, the ribbons are VERY thin!

4 - they are a little more delicate for the above reason, and you have to treat them well.

they all seem to come with little protective bags so keep them on when not in use and use pop shields for anything even slightly 'windy' and you'll be fine, and you'll get a smoothness of sound you won't get from a condenser of many times the price!

what do you mainly want to record with it?

cool, thanks,

i'm interested in that nt1a, could you give me some more info on that? how is it, any problems with the sound or anything?