Microphones on eBay

[nightmonkey48]

I don't know a whole lot about microphones, but I already made a very very bad decision buying this cheap mic.

I am planning on recording the Arcade Fire in San Francisco, and possibly The Mars Volta and System in Oakland. I have a Sony MZ-R700, and I need a good mic to go with it. I have been looking at these two mics on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/MINIDISC-or-DAT-mic-ST...1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/STEREO-Y-MICROPHONE-PA...1QQcmdZViewItem

Will either of these do a good job in recording loud loud rock concerts? If so, which one would you guys recommend? If not, what mics are in the 20-30$ range that are perfect for what I'm looking for? Thanks a lot for any help.

Edited September 7, 2005 by nightmonkey48

[A440]

http://cgi.ebay.com/MINIDISC-or-DAT-mic-ST...1QQcmdZViewItem

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Only your first listing came up. It looks decent, but with those clips emerging directly from the mic they will be much bigger than they have to be.

I strongly recommend these, although they'll add up to $50 (with the clips) plus shipping.

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-BMC-2

You do need the clips.

They're tiny, they're hi-fi and they have a 30-day guarantee. Sometimes Sound Pros puts a pair on Ebay for $29, but I don't see any there at the moment.

That little mic you got probably also uses the same basic capsules, but it's a one-point mic, so there's no stereo separation. The listing is so vague it might even be a mono mic. But what was your problem with it? If you got clipping with loud music--just a big blare every time the bass hit--then you need something you'll have to use anyway: the Radio Shack Headphone Volume Control ($7), which works as an attenuator. You'll need that with any mic you get because the MD's mic jack just can't handle loud music, particularly bass. Take a look at the pinned thread under Live Recording .

If you look in the Gallery under my album, you can hear some of the recordings I've made with BMC-2's. BMC-2-->Headphone Volume Control (turned up)---Mic-In, with Manual Volume set to, oh, 18/30 for something as loud as Mars Volta, should work for you. Please take the extra steps to use Manual Volume--it's worth it.

Arcade Fire, Mars Volta and SOAD are well worth recording.

[greenmachine]

You'll run into (distortion) problems if you plan to record loud music through the mic input, propably even with an attenuator, since the mz-r700 lacks a low sensitivity setting. You'll need either very low sensitive microphones and/or preferrably record through line-in at high SPLs.

[nightmonkey48]

Only your first listing came up. It looks decent, but with those clips emerging directly from the mic they will be much bigger than they have to be.

I strongly recommend these, although they'll add up to $50 (with the clips) plus shipping.

http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-BMC-2

You do need the clips.

They're tiny, they're hi-fi and they have a 30-day guarantee. Sometimes Sound Pros puts a pair on Ebay for $29, but I don't see any there at the moment.

That little mic you got probably also uses the same basic capsules, but it's a one-point mic, so there's no stereo separation. The listing is so vague it might even be a mono mic. But what was your problem with it? If you got clipping with loud music--just a big blare every time the bass hit--then you need something you'll have to use  anyway: the Radio Shack Headphone Volume Control ($7), which works as an attenuator. You'll need that with any mic you get because the MD's mic jack just can't handle loud music, particularly bass. Take a look at the pinned thread under Live Recording .

If you look in the Gallery under my album, you can hear some of the recordings I've made with BMC-2's.  BMC-2-->Headphone Volume Control (turned up)---Mic-In, with Manual Volume set to, oh, 18/30 for something as loud as Mars Volta, should work for you. Please take the extra steps to use Manual Volume--it's worth it.

Arcade Fire, Mars Volta and SOAD are well worth recording.

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Hey, thanks a lot for the advise! So, does that mean that my mic, on its own, has the same volume-recording capabilities as those other mics? That's the only problem with it. I tried recording loud volumes by playing an Arcade Fire bootleg at full volume through headphones, and recording that through the little one-point mic. I tried all kinds of recording volumes, and none of them sounded good. Is clipping where you set it to a recording level, so it won't allow the incoming sound to go any louder than that? Stereo separation is not important to me, but getting it to record really loud is. It would be helpfull if the volume controller is what I need. I've been looking at that for a while now.

[A440]

Clipping means overloading. When the peaks of the signal coming in are too high, all the unit can do is flatten out the whole sound--"clipping" off the peaks of the sound and producing that horrible distortion you hear.

The clips I was talking about are the little alligator clips to attach the mics to something.

If distortion is your only problem, try the attenuator first. I recorded a lot of loud music on my RZ-700 with an attenuator. If you're using it with the RZ-700, you can use it to change recording levels during the show, but you're better off just setting a manual level and leaving the attenuator all the way up.

It may look familiar....

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?cook...duct_id=42-2559

You recorded the sound of headphones with a mic? That might not sound so hot to begin with. How about playing the music through speakers?