I suspect I may delay getting a pair of high-end MD441, but thought that I might get another SM58 to make a stereo pair. Here's where I'll get pelted with tomatoes. Apparently Daniel Lanois uses either the SM58 or the Beta 58A when recording Bono. Obviously if these Shure mics are good enough for Len Cohen, and Meat Loaf, you're reaching for the top if you add Bono to the list.

Bear in mind that Lanois has access to great mic preamps, and the 58 and 57 do benefit from a mic pre which gives a proper load to the mic. Great River used to advertise the original MP-2 by telling you you'd rediscover all your old dynamics. Cheap preamps and you'd never know. Under a grand, RNP and Grace come to mind. If you need cheaper, I think Chris Del Faro is happy with the current JoeMeek ThreeQ for use with a lot of dynamics, but I haven't given one a go.

Bear

So sayeth the Bear sayeth Wireline: dynamics really benefit from the 1st thing they see, IE Preamp...

Remember that arguably the greatest voice in rock music, Paul Rogers, used a 57 straight into a console's pre (MCI I think) to record most of the album "Bad Company:)

545, 58s, 57, etc, as well as their Beta counterparts will sound a universe better thru ADesigns, Great River, etc, than they will thru Mackie, B**********, or other lower end mics - some would argue the difference is more than running higher end mics thru the same pres....

All THAT said - remember that un until a few years ago, MCI, Altec, Universal, Decca, and EMI were pretty much the only pres in town, and the rooms they were in played (arguably) more into the overall finished product than the tools of the time.

Well, there's always a few folks who sit out in left field with their Swedish Line Audio mic preamps. Me at least. My preamp is not bad-company-worthy...too bad.

My main problem with my audio chain is that I probably need to get a limiter or perhaps a compressor; or else deeply study the instruction manual for my Konnekt 24d audio interface and figure out how to work the electronic effects and compressors so the sound doesn't sound cheesey and weird.

Without knowing your specifics, here's a few things to try:

- make sure the gain structure for the Konnect is proper. There are several ways to do this, but you want to set it so it has the most signal and least noise possible...this will get as many bits to your DAW as possible.

- Every preamp has a sweet spot. Sometimes that sweet spot is below the ideal gain setting for your AD, so you need to boost it somewhere (compressors do well, sometimes just tweaking the input on the AD will work)....sometimes the sweet spot is too hot the the AD, so a pad of some sort (either the output of a limiter or even just a passive box like the ATTY will do the trick) is needed.

How hot are you tracking?

I'm not sure how hot I'm running in terms of a db measurement; but I basically had two configurations: the first without preamp, just using the Konnekt's builtin preamp I would point the knob to the 12 oclock or mark 5 position; using the line level gain on the konnekt, I would run the Line Audio unit with the pad on and the volume knobs at 9 oclock or perhaps a a mark 3 position.

In conclusion, I was never too hot.

It might also be mic technique. I was generally 9 inches to a foot away; not close-miked at all.