ADK A-51 or AT-3035 or something else?

[Hap]

I recently bought a small PA system, and would like to amplify an acoustic guitar and vocals in some small venues and, eventually, do some home recording. I know little about mics, other than that they generally sound better than most acoustic guitar pickups I have tried.

I'm thinking of getting either a pair of the ADK-A51 or the AT-3035, to be used as 2 mics on the acoustic guitar, or 1 on the guitar and 1 on vocals. Also considering a Shure Beta SM-58 just for vocals. Any comments on these mics would be much appreciated, and if there are others you would recommend at the entry level please feel free. I realize these are entry level mics, not Earthworks or Neumanns, but - hey, you need to start someplace! Any other mic recommendations you might care to make are also welcome. Thanks!

Hap

[hokypokynose]

Well, you cannot go wrong with a 58. But accoustic mics are such a hard choice. You might want to consider just putting in a nice L.R. Baggs pickup or something like that in your sound hole(unnless you have something like an Ovation, but then the electronics have already been taken care of for you;) ). If you don't have a standard soundhole(like if you have a Tacoma or something), I know of a well known guitarist(Phil Keaggy) who suspends a 57 in front of it and it sounds good. Accoustics are really hard to mike on stage. So I'd just suggest wireing them up.

Mike placement on an accoustic in the studio takes hours and hours and of course a pickup would fix that problem, and would sound very nice if you wire it up with a nice pickup system.

I hope I helped somehow.

[Hap]

My guitars already have pickups, but I'm not satisfied with the quality of the sound. One has the new Baggs I-Beam (pretty good sound, but feeds back way to much and at lower levels than I would like), the other has a Fishman Acoustic Matrix undersaddle (the typical piezo "quack", but lots of gain before feedback). Both of the acoustics are played through a Baggs Paracoustic DI box, direct into a mic pre on the mixer.

In my view, there is no pickup that sounds anywhere near as good as a properly mic'ed acoustic guitar. So, I'm still looking for advice/ comments on the best acoustic mics in the entry level.

Thanks.

[hokypokynose]

Okeedokee.

That was alot of time I wasted there. Oh well, it could have been worth it.

Unfortunately I cannot help you further(or at all).

Good luck.

[synesthesia]

i'd recomend looking into:

Beta 87A
AT 4054 (if you can afford it...)
AKG C535

(they're all condensers - that may be something worth taking note of - they're all excellent stage vocal mics, and may do an acoustic guitar justice)