Grateful Dead Music Forum

I play record all my stuff live and am starting to record other bands in my area. I am going for a live sound recording and I want to capture the room sound and not mic each instrument. I have done this before with good success but have always used 2 Audix F15 condensers. Not the best but they do job fairly well.

I recently got some SM57's for a gift and was wondering if I would better off using those for a Field recording rather then the Audix F15. I know neither are the best for this but considering my budget and what I have I cannot go out and buy new mics for this.

I know one is a condenser and the other is not. Just need some advice! I will not have time to compare before hand as I have to record This weekend. I will be recording into a Zoom R16 which works surprisingly well.

I have always used SM57's for close mic'ing - not so sure about using them to capture ' room ' sound though ....

I would always go with a condenser for recording anything especially if there's some distance between the source and the mic. The Audix mics seem like they're reasonable. Is the Zoom recorder the one with the built-in coincident pair mics? If so that's probably a good choice too. Dynamic mics are far less sensitive (and more durable) due to the fact that the diaphragm is attached to a coil that vibrates in a magnet to generate electric current. That makes them much heavier and a lot less sensitive to vibrations.

If it's something you want to invest some money in, I use the Rode NT4 and it works great - I think it's around $400 new.

I have the Zoom with the two condensers like above, it works great for AUD recordings. You can get into audacity and finagle what you want too when you master it...

Yep It has the mics built in. Works great at practice but using the audix's at live events works better because I can get the mics up higher. Tried using the built in mics at a show once and could hear people talking as much as the music.