i'm looking at a shure sm57 for recording mini amps with, an top of the condenser, which...i like bright, sparkly guitars. i like my acoustics bright and sparkly, i like my rhythm parts bright and sparkly and i like my lead parts bright and sparkly, too. i'm really not interested in this dirty, chunky metal sound. gross. give me floaty and airy, not mean and dumb. i don't want my guitar to sound like it's going to steal your lunch money, or something, and i don't really know why so many people do, other than that it's some kind of compensation for being uncomfortable with their masculinity.

.....which is why i want to amp the parts in the first place. if i just wanted that chuggy sound, i could get it from an amp sim and an eq. i want to capture the sound of waves vibrating in space, which is mostly a high end thing. putting a mic a foot from a guitar amp and then cranking the lows doesn't even make any sense, physically - you want to put that mic on the other side of the room, so the bass can expand. and you want a few of them. if you're going to put the mic a foot from the amp, you want to crank the highs, not the lows.

but, the only guitarist i know of with a physics degree is brian may, and i suspect most of the ones responsible for defining famous guitar tones didn't do so well in high school....

so, frankly, i'm finding all of the demos i'm hearing of the shure to sound rather dead - there's no presence. ever. at all. it's easy to grasp when you think it through, as it's probably not what most of these people want, but is definitely not at all what i'm seeking out.

so, should i just put a condenser on there and that's it? should i do away with doubling via dynamic microphone at all? how can i test it?

see, i have a secret weapon, when it comes to mics. i have an altec 683b, which may have been one of the first cardioid mics ever made. i've generally found it sounds pretty good, and used it for micing everything from the time i got it for pennies at a garage sale (2000ish) to when i stopped micing things, up until about 2007. but, i've never actually compared it to other mics - i've never really understood what i'm actually using.

these are the specs, which are....the same as a shure sm57. almost exactly.... 

http://www.lansingheritage.org/html/altec/specs/mics/681a-682b-683b.htm

and, listen to this, which has the shure on the left and the altec on the right:

http://www.preservationsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/SM57L_683R.wav

that's about what the altec's always sounded like, and the best shure demo i've heard, yet.

so, if they're the same mic, why have i never found the altec to be bassy or lacking in high-end response? are all these guitarists (some of them fairly pro) on youtube just rolling their treble off, on purpose? are they that clueless about physics? stop doing that - you don't hear that on good recordings, and it doesn't sound good live, at all. the guitar is a mid range instrument and should be miced like one. if you want to play bass, then buy a fucking bass.

so, i don't think i need a shure sm57.

i think i've been using one for years, without realizing it.

so, let's start with that as a double then - marantz condenser + altec 783b dynamic. and, if i think i need something better, i'll take it from there.

i'm still down here, i've just been hacking through the retard upstairs all weekend, and looking at filling out options for recording. 

so, it's been a slow posting weekend, but i've got a stack of gear decisions being made regarding things like amps, mics and extra guitars, and i'm working on a post that walks through that.

i've been looking at alternative mini tube amp options, 21 fret piezo-equipped classical guitar workarounds for cheap, ways to get access to single coil pickups, potential alternative tuning guitars, mics, 12-strings, electric mandolins, mini ukes, replacement organs and even a few drum machine and synthesizer choices.

the decisions i've made are only that 

- i have purchased a second-hand 61-key behringer control surface (which is something i skipped in 2008 because i couldn't find something that made sense to me, for the price), which will be the third keyboard in the apartment (after the dx100 and the broken jx-8p). i'm finally going to need a more tactile synthesis option when going towards the end of period 3, specifically the cycles/second project, and the intended heavy use of programs like audiomulch and reaktor. if this works as intended, it could render the dx100 obsolete, but i don't like to sell gear...

- i have purchased a marantz condenser mic to record acoustic guitar parts with, as i will be recording acoustic guitar parts this month. i've never had one before.

there will be many more decisions coming in the next few days, but i'm still working things out.