A choice between Shure, Sennheiser and Heil.

[TBBassist2011]

Hi everyone,

I've just come back from recording, which has fuelled me wanting to get my home recording act together and purchase a microphone for my bass cab, and maybe a multi-purpose mic.

I've narrowed it down to three, the Shure SM7B, Sennheiser MD421 and the Heil PR40. Personally, I'm leaning towards the Heil PR40 and the MD421, but there are little to no sound clips of these microphones recording bass - so I was looking for personal experiences with these microphones. I'm looking for something that simply replicates and captures exactly what is coming out of the speaker/s. Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers!

[RockfordStone]

shure mics tend to be rugged and do their job well over various instruments.

an sm7b would cover a lot of ground, it can be used on all instruments but is widely used on vocals as well, so would be a good versatile addition

i havent used one, but would get one if i could afford it

[51m0n]

Heil PR40 every time for me if it's for fairly general use.

It has the widest frequency range of all three and sounds fantastic on a lot of different sources.

IME it trumps tge other two as a bass cab Mic!

Edited August 24, 2014 by 51m0n

[jensenmann]

If you need ONE mike which is good on bass cab AND on vocals then check out Beyerdynamic M88 and EV RE20.

[lowlandtrees]

I always record bass directly into the Focusrite work station. The pre amps on the Focusrite are very good and the software takes care of the rest. You also by- pass the enemy of recording......your room sound....you also avoid experimenting with mic placement and of course avoid the cost a good mic.

[EBS_freak]

PR40. All day.

[The Badderer]

i use a Shure SM7B for recording vocals... never tried it on anything else yet. It is top notch high end quality. if i get a chance i'll have a go at recording my bass cab with it. It's an excellent Mic. I also have an Avalon U5 as my instrument preamp for Bass and Guitar as you get a really transparent high quality bass tone through it and don't need to use one of your Mic preamps on your focusrite if you're trying to record instrument and vocals at the same time.