stefkeB

With the Sales day of our local music shop (Leo Caerts in Leuven), I went to buy a decent microphone. The one I have, the Sure SM58 is fine, but is more meant for live-work or for harsh sounds (e.g. drums). They suggested an MXL and I went with the Desktop Recording Kit (http://www.mxlmics.com/Comp_Recording/comprecord_index.html). It was about €100 and included the microphone, the cables, a small microphone stand and a carrier box.I did a short test and noticed a world of difference:

• with the Sure SM58 most background noise is not recorded. This makes for clean recordings (would be good for podcasts), but it lacks the warmth and ambience of the recording environment. It does work fine to filter out the children, cars or the washing machine.
• the MXL is cardioid condenser mic, which implies that it records everything. This gives warmth to a classical guitar or a voice, but you have to take care to remove everything that makes noise.

So what do you need? Actually, both are compatible, so I did not waste money on either of them.