Spec please: microphone for son's singing

[strumpusplunket]

My son is taking singing and guitar lessons (rock singing, electric and classical guitar) and his singing teacher suggested it would help if he had a decent microphone for singing - for online lessons and recording/practising. Currently he's using the built-in microphone on my laptop for his remote lessons, which I can well imagine is less-than-ideal.

This is all a bit new but it makes sense that, as he's quite committed to it, it would be good to him to have the equipment he needs. I have no idea where to even start with this, though. What kind of thing should I even start looking for? Any must have features? What are the key specs to look for? Is this likely to be expensive?

Obviously, just searching for this returns a metric ton of results and products but without knowing where to start I don't even know how to narrow it down.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

[WYNIR0]

The Fifine 669B seems to be the very well thought of budget option. Just ordered myself one from China so cannot personally comment on it yet. They are available at the rain forest site.

 

[strumpusplunket]

The Fifine 669B seems to be the very well thought of budget option. Just ordered myself one from China so cannot personally comment on it yet. They are available at the rain forest site.

Cheers. I've bookmarked that one. Good to see it's not too expensive. I feared this might cost me a bit!

 

[Space Monkey]

Cheers. I've bookmarked that one. Good to see it's not too expensive. I feared this might cost me a bit!

I'm heavily looking at mics myself at the moment, have a look at the Uhuru UM-980, full kit of mic, arm, stand, shock mount and pop filter for £73, from the listening I've done it's better than the fifine mics.

If your budget is higher then have a look at the Samson G Track Pro, you can plug in a guitar and select record 2 tracks on the mic, so he'll get the instrument on one track and his voice on another, it'll make recording and editing so much easier plus the mic quality is fantastic

 

[Gray2233]

The G Track Pro is a fantastic piece of kit, you'd probably need to look into a decent xlr setup to get better and it'd ultimately set you back more.

 

[strumpusplunket]

I'm heavily looking at mics myself at the moment, have a look at the Uhuru UM-980, full kit of mic, arm, stand, shock mount and pop filter for £73, from the listening I've done it's better than the fifine mics.

If your budget is higher then have a look at the Samson G Track Pro, you can plug in a guitar and select record 2 tracks on the mic, so he'll get the instrument on one track and his voice on another, it'll make recording and editing so much easier plus the mic quality is fantastic

Cheers. I've added these as well. Will need to talk it over with my wife and son and see what we think is the best balance of price to features, but...

The G Track Pro is a fantastic piece of kit, you'd probably need to look into a decent xlr setup to get better and it'd ultimately set you back more.

This option, whilst looking pretty cool, does seem like it would get expensive. I didn't really have a budget in mind, but nearing £200 just form the mic with possibly more to come is a bit steeper than I thought it would go. Will think it over, though.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I've been a stage musician for 50 years and the industry standard is the Shure SM58.
I have around 6 of them, plus multiple SM57s and one that goes round my head called a SM35.

 

[southernorth]

Could take a look at the Samson Q2U - has both USB and XLR (if you upgrade to an audio interface later on) and gets very good reviews for the price.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Wow that's weird, I came here to reply to Space Monkey in my email and his post has gone.

 

[strumpusplunket]

Thanks for all the replies, guys. Appreciate the input here. I've been doing some reading based on searching for reviews of the models suggested and I'm picking up a few tidbits (I think...)

I hadn't considered whether or not I would need to think about phantom power or a pre-amp for instance. It looks like most of the models that aren't USB need phantom power, is that right? This would include the Shure model?

That would be another piece of kit I would need, which would inflate the price and also necessitate me learning something about what to look for in a pre-amp! BUT, it seems there would be more flexiblity in this setup, in that a USB-only mic that would only be good for connecting to the PC, but one with a standard connector he could then also take round to other places for rehearsal or performance. Am I off-base here?

The Q2U idea seems tempting since it looks like it would come ready-made for both uses without needing to buy a pre-amp for the PC.

Unless I'm just getting myself all confused?

 

[SexyGreyFox]

This would include the Shure model?

No, phantom power is basically for condensor microphones.
The Shure's will just plug into an XLR input.
If you want a cheap excellent audio interface to plug into a PC the Behringer Q502USB will do the job, in fact they do a smaller one but make sure it's USB.

Also if it's a one off buy then then most of the other mic's linked to won't be able to be used on stage if he wants to go in that direction..

 

[strumpusplunket]

No, phantom power is basically for condensor microphones.
The Shure's will just plug into an XLR input.
If you want a cheap excellent audio interface to plug into a PC the Behringer Q502USB will do the job, in fact they do a smaller one but make sure it's USB.

Also if it's a one off buy then then most of the other mic's linked to won't be able to be used on stage if he wants to go in that direction..

Great. Thanks for your input. This is really helpful.

So, just to clarify - with the Shure, would I need the audio interface just for him recording singing on the PC? Or could it just connect to the audio in on the onboard sound?

 

[suenstar]

I started off with a CAD U1 USB for my audio setup whilst I was still getting used to recording and adapting my environment to better manage the sound, then I upgraded to a Floureon BM-800 XLR microphone with a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Solo interface when I started to get a bit more serious with recordings and started doing recordings for work.

I've since upgraded my regular microphone for the more basic recordings and for general chatting on my PC whilst I play games is a Rode NT1-A, then for the more serious vocal recordings for my work I have the Heil PR-40.

Great. Thanks for your input. This is really helpful.

So, just to clarify - with the Shure, would I need the audio interface just for him recording singing on the PC? Or could it just connect to the audio in on the onboard sound?

For an XLR microphone, you will need a dedicated XLR audio interface.
You can often get starter ones for around £60-70 which will have a single input, or ones with dual input for both a microphone and musical instrument at the same time which are usually around £100-110 for a good starting one.

 

[strumpusplunket]

I started off with a CAD U1 USB for my audio setup whilst I was still getting used to recording and adapting my environment to better manage the sound, then I upgraded to a Floureon BM-800 XLR microphone with a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Solo interface when I started to get a bit more serious with recordings and started doing recordings for work.

I've since upgraded my regular microphone for the more basic recordings and for general chatting on my PC whilst I play games is a Rode NT1-A, then for the more serious vocal recordings for my work I have the Heil PR-40.
For an XLR microphone, you will need a dedicated XLR audio interface.
You can often get starter ones for around £60-70 which will have a single input, or ones with dual input for both a microphone and musical instrument at the same time which are usually around £100-110 for a good starting one.

Ah, I see. Cheers.

So, it's looking like a couple of hundred quid for both mic and interface. Not too bad, I suppose. He'd better keep up the interest in singing once we get all this, though!

 

[suenstar]

Ah, I see. Cheers.

So, it's looking like a couple of hundred quid for both mic and interface. Not too bad, I suppose. He'd better keep up the interest in singing once we get all this, though!

Good thing with decent microphones is they tend to hold a good chunk of their value, so if he does lose interest you should be able to claw back an okay amount of the cost.

Also worth adding that the environment where you record your vocals is just as important as the equipment you use... a high quality microphone isn't going to make you sound as good as you might think if you're in an empty box room where the sound is just going to bounce off every surface.

Look into getting a few sound dampening foam panels that you can put in the room where your son records.
They're fairly cheap so won't add much to the cost of the microphone & interface.

 

[SonicSW20]

For your sons purposes, a relatively cheap USB condenser microphone will be absolutely fine and a huge upgrade over the built in mic. There is no sense in spending £200+ on an entry level sound card + microphone at this stage. The difference in quality between a laptop mic and a £50 USB condenser is much larger than the difference between a £50 USB condenser and a "cheap" ~£200 sound card + mic setup.

Don't forget to get a stand and a pop shield for it.

 

[strumpusplunket]

Yes, I must admit that I am a little bit torn. There's some attraction to the idea of a cheaper initial setup and then seeing how far he wants to take things. But then he has been taking singing lessons and singing with his band for a good while now so I'm fairly confident it's not a passing fad.

So that raises the possibility of buying cheaper meaning buying twice once he's able to pick up rehearsing and performing again (something we are keen to encourage, tbh). I think the Shure has a built-in pop shield, but I'd need to check. Doing some initial price scoping, it looks like a mic and interface could be had for around £150-160ish, which isn't too bad. If they do hold their value then that's a bonus too.

His bedroom is a decent sized room with loads of stuff on the walls already, so I wouldn't think sound reverberation would be a huge problem, but I'll bear the idea of wall panels in mind too.

 

[SonicSW20]

A mic and sound card at ~£160 total suggests you're probably buying very entry level stuff anyway, which if he gets into it proper you'll be replacing again. Makes more sense to get a cheap USB condenser for now as that is perfectly sufficient for the use cases described in the OP, and if he gets into it to the point where he wants to record vocals for a song he wants to release "officially", that is the point where spending money makes sense.

 

[strumpusplunket]

A mic and sound card at ~£160 total suggests you're probably buying very entry level stuff anyway, which if he gets into it proper you'll be replacing again. Makes more sense to get a cheap USB condenser for now as that is perfectly sufficient for the use cases described in the OP, and if he gets into it to the point where he wants to record vocals for a song he wants to release "officially", that is the point where spending money makes sense.

I was looking at the Shure SM58 and the Behringer interface mentioned above. It looks like I could get both for £150 if they come into stock at some of the cheaper places. I was hoping they were decent bets since they come well-recommended here.

 

[SonicSW20]

I was looking at the Shure SM58 and the Behringer interface mentioned above. It looks like I could get both for £150 if they come into stock at some of the cheaper places. I was hoping they were decent bets since they come well-recommended here.

The Behringer stuff is OK, but the build quality is poor and the preamps are not great. Its cheap though so what do you expect. The SM58 is a versatile microphone, relatively cheap and very rugged which makes it ideal for live vocal work, but for studio style vocal work a condenser will be a better choice.