Best Budget Microphones

by Dan
(Chicago)

I will be needing some microphones soon for a project I will be doing involving both home recording and field recording. I assume the condenser is best for the home recording and that I will need a dynamic or something else for field recording. I plan on interviewing people about their lives like "This American Life" does on NPR and then mixing the stories together creatively. I may add some music at some point also.

I have heard good things about Apex as a budget condenser. The Samson CO1UCW is supposed to work with USB, and so I guess I could go that route. I have a G4 Mac but no DAW yet. Was thinking about Logic.

The Rode NT-1a ( for $200 ) is supposed to do the job of a $1500 mike, I read somewhere.

Maybe get one of those little Edirol mini-mixers to supply phantom power etc.

I still have yet to buy a digital recorder. My eyes aren't so good at reading tiny displays and text and so I really dislike the user interfaces on the little digital recorders I've seen. They run about $350 or so, besides, and the next grade up seems to be a jump to $1000 units. Yikes! Hello Craigslist, I guess.