"David Looser" wrote in
message
"Iain Churches" wrote in message
...

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in
message ...
In article ,
Iain Churches wrote:
I would recommend the AKG C214, a large diaphram
cardioid pattern condenser mic

Head firmly in the clouds again, Iain?

No lie! This mic has a street price of almost $600 in the US. Just
looking at it, I can tell that it won't pass the critical-for-teenage-use
nail pounding test.

It's a very popular and ubiquitous medium-budget mic
Very good quality for the money.
Robust and reliable.

How does it pound nails? Any mic that can't sink any number of 6 penny
nails and still keep working will quickly be scattered broken parts in the
hands of your average 16 year old.

Did I tell you about the time I saw a SM58 used as a door stop by a teenage
band? BTW, this was no light residential door but a major entrance door with
a heavy hydraulic closer in a public venue.

It may, or may not meet Santa's budget criteria.
The OP did not specify a price range.

It was made clear that this was a first mic for a 16
year-old wanabee. That sounds far more like "low-budget"
than "medium-budget" to me.

For a 16-year-old, a SM58 or SM59 seems about right. Especially their
nail-pounding durability.

Someone before me bought a bunch of cheap Sennheiser dynamic mics for our
youth room sound system. This is a classic 14-16 year old usage situation.
The mics themselves have held up, but I had to replace every screw-on screen
ball because they fell apart.

I cannot imagine the kind of pudding a bunch of kids would make out of a mic
like the AKG C214. No matter, it would happen pretty quickly! For most of
us mortals who aren't million-dollar recording companies, $600 for this kind
of pudding is way beyond the pale.

"Iain Churches" wrote in message
...

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
My 16-yo budding rock guitar hero son is after a microphone. He and his
mates often record themselves jamming and don't have a suitable mike.
They
tend to record into PCs (or Macs) and I guess might want to bung it into
guitar amps or various bits of domestic audio kit they have around. Apart
from vocals I guess it might be used recording acoustic guitars.

It definitely needs to be robust and, having some idea what any sort of
serious mics can cost, priced at the Santa-friendly end of the range :-)

Apart from suggestions of what makes & models to go for (or avoid) can
folks guide me through the technology? I guess we're looking at 'dynamic'
(i.e. moving-coil?) with cardioid pattern and some sort of built-in or
add-on pop filters, but no doubt you can get kit with built-in preamps,
bluetooth and teasmades these days - I'm a bit out of touch ...

Hi John.

I would recommend the AKG C214, a large diaphram cardioid
pattern condenser mic, with a 20dB pad.

http://www.thomann.de/gb/akg_c214.htm

I don't know what is considered the "Santa-friendly end of the range"
any more, but Thomann have the AKG C214 as a bundle offer,
to include the mic, a padded alu case, a good quality K+M boom stand,
a 6m mic cable, and a pop shield for vocals, at GBP 333.
That's pretty amazing value, but I don't know what it might to
to Santa's blood pressure :-)

http://www.thomann.de/gb/akg_c214_set.htm

The mic needs a phantom supply.

Oh and I guess it needs to look cool too ;-)


Only an old valve Neumann looks cooler!

Avoid cheap Chinese copy mics, T-Bone etc.
They sound rough and are not reliable :-(

Cheers
Iain

I assume you are taking the **** here - a LDC mic within 2 m of an teenager
is asking for a short lifetime and a waste of money. There is also the
problem of proving a phantom supply and adding a matching transformer to
match the 50k ohm input impedance of a typical guitar/pc amp input.

Better a Sure mic- reasonable quality, street cred and robustness.

Mike

"fredbloggstwo" wrote


I assume you are taking the **** here - a LDC mic within 2 m of an
teenager is asking for a short lifetime and a waste of money. There is
also the problem of proving a phantom supply and adding a matching
transformer to match the 50k ohm input impedance of a typical guitar/pc
amp input.

Better a Sure mic- reasonable quality, street cred and robustness.


I still say a USB mic is the cleanest solution here if they are recording
straight to PC and the Samson mics I mentioned are very solidly built - any
teenage son of mine who couldn't use one without breaking it would get a
kicked arse....

On Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:51:11 +0000, Keith G wrote:

I still say a USB mic is the cleanest solution here if they are
recording straight to PC and the Samson mics I mentioned are very
solidly built - any teenage son of mine who couldn't use one without
breaking it would get a kicked arse....

Sounds like a good idea: any suggestion for specific makes models of USB
mics?

--
John Stumbles

Many hands make light work. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

"John Stumbles" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:51:11 +0000, Keith G wrote:

I still say a USB mic is the cleanest solution here if they are
recording straight to PC and the Samson mics I mentioned are very
solidly built - any teenage son of mine who couldn't use one without
breaking it would get a kicked arse....

Sounds like a good idea: any suggestion for specific makes models of USB
mics?


OK, I can only speak for the one I have which is a Samson C03U multi-pattern
and is a little bit more expensive than I thought:

http://www.dv247.com/microphones/sam...rophone--34214


Nice review with a brief mic swap/compare in it he

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6BGIBy3GAg&feature=fvw


No phantom power required - one cable straight from the mic to the computer
and they greet each other like old friends in XP and Vista!

Sound quality is perfectly standard with no shortfalls that I am aware of
but, like I said earlier, explore the cable length limitations with USB - I
actually bought a 5m USB extension with 'relay station' in it (or whatever
it is) to give me 10m overall but it got hijacked for the Toppy TV recorder
and I never got round to trying it on the mic!!

Just for ****s and giggles, here's a 10 second byte of my mate Shiny Nigel
on my copy a few years ago:

http://www.moirac.adsl24.co.uk/showntell/Samson.mp3


(Just ****ing about and ignore any background noise, we were less than a
metre from a very noisy computer! :-)

In article ,
John Stumbles wrote:
I still say a USB mic is the cleanest solution here if they are
recording straight to PC and the Samson mics I mentioned are very
solidly built - any teenage son of mine who couldn't use one without
breaking it would get a kicked arse....

Sounds like a good idea: any suggestion for specific makes models of USB
mics?

Not if they intend buying a mixer later on.

--
*Snowmen fall from Heaven unassembled*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Keith G wrote:
I still say a USB mic is the cleanest solution here if they are
recording straight to PC

So you'd recommend a USB turntable too for making CD copies of vinyl?

and the Samson mics I mentioned are very
solidly built - any teenage son of mine who couldn't use one without
breaking it would get a kicked arse....

No surprise there.

--
*Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"Keith G" wrote in message


"fredbloggstwo"
wrote

I assume you are taking the **** here - a LDC mic within
2 m of an teenager is asking for a short lifetime and a
waste of money. There is also the problem of proving a
phantom supply and adding a matching transformer to
match the 50k ohm input impedance of a typical guitar/pc
amp input.

Better a Sure mic- reasonable quality, street cred and
robustness.

I still say a USB mic is the cleanest solution here if
they are recording straight to PC and the Samson mics I
mentioned are very solidly built - any teenage son of
mine who couldn't use one without breaking it would get a
kicked arse....

USB mics are very interesting products. Putting my cynical had on, I could
say that they are a good way to sell the same basic mic twice. First you
sell the mic to a beginner with the USB interface built in, and then you
sell the same basic mic to them again sans USB interface for use with the
mixer that they will eventually grow into.

Three other alternatives exist:

There is a class of product which is a mic preamp and USB interface in a
package that simply plugs into a usual kind of mic. MXL and a number of
others have them, and they don't cost a lot more than the normal price
premium for a mic with a built-in USB interface.

There are a number of inexpensive mixers that have built-in USB interfaces.
If you ever hope to record more than 2 instruments at the same time, then
they have their moments.

There are a number of very inexpensive USB interfaces that can be used with
just about any mixer (any standard kind of mic).

Any of the 3 alternatives are a tad more bulky and may take a little more
time and expertise to set up. Use of none of them are IME outside the mental
capabilities of a bright 16-year-old.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Keith G" wrote in message


"fredbloggstwo"
wrote

I assume you are taking the **** here - a LDC mic within
2 m of an teenager is asking for a short lifetime and a
waste of money. There is also the problem of proving a
phantom supply and adding a matching transformer to
match the 50k ohm input impedance of a typical guitar/pc
amp input.

Better a Sure mic- reasonable quality, street cred and
robustness.

I still say a USB mic is the cleanest solution here if
they are recording straight to PC and the Samson mics I
mentioned are very solidly built - any teenage son of
mine who couldn't use one without breaking it would get a
kicked arse....

USB mics are very interesting products. Putting my cynical had on, I
could say that they are a good way to sell the same basic mic twice. First
you sell the mic to a beginner with the USB interface built in, and then
you sell the same basic mic to them again sans USB interface for use with
the mixer that they will eventually grow into.


So where's the harm in that - they get to learn on a perfectly serviceable
and robust mic then buy summat a little more flash when they know better
what they are doing.

I would have thought that this possible/likely ploy would ensure that the
'VFM USB' mics are sufficiently good (which I suspect they are) to ensure a
little brand loyalty later on - in much the same way the best optics on the
planet were (still are) the 'standard 50mm' lenses for 35mm SLR cameras.




Three other alternatives exist:

Any of the 3 alternatives are a tad more bulky and may take a little more
time and expertise to set up.



You are not thinking garage band here - if they don't have a microphone
geek, they will be stuffed....



Use of none of them are IME outside the mental
capabilities of a bright 16-year-old.


No argument here provided they are at least a bit geeky and not just *death
metal guitar warriors*....

On 3 Dec 2009 02:18:51 GMT, John Stumbles
wrote:

My 16-yo budding rock guitar hero son is after a microphone. He and his
mates often record themselves jamming and don't have a suitable mike. They
tend to record into PCs (or Macs) and I guess might want to bung it into
guitar amps or various bits of domestic audio kit they have around. Apart
from vocals I guess it might be used recording acoustic guitars.

You're asking for a vocal mic. Presumably they want to record the
whole band, not just vocals? How are the other instruments getting
into the computer?