Progger, yes I played clarinet and sax during school and for a bit after graduating, I love chamber music esp. string quartets but small ensembles with woodwinds, some brass bands, double reeds, all that sort of stuff is what I WANT to be doing, but I'm not there yet. I do get some of that stuff at certain venues, mostly horn sections with jazz groups, and a much larger section with a swing big band I only do occasionally. What I have could probably get me a nice result, and I know there's little point buying equipment to service a market I don't really have. But, part of the point is I just want a nice personal mic kit to record what I do find just for pleasure, even if I don't get to build a business around it yet. Simply not buying tobacco or cigarettes has funded most of my gear anyway. The stuff I'd love to be recording would be like the title music I hear on obscure old British TV shows, real boring history or fiction only a few people watch and they rarely even keep in the archives... I should probably be over there, because at least I know that's where they're playing it. I know that sort of musician here, but how would they get hired to play this stuff? It's not exactly trending on Spotify if you get my drift.

I don't believe I need expensive, fancy exotics like high-end LDC's and the finest ribbon mics. I think what would count for more would be to record this material in the right room with the right players, with what I've got. And I want to hone my chops, whatever equipment is available, I should be able to at least get the best it CAN do. I've come a long way with my mic techniques since I decided to do more than just go to work and operate house gear. But this is all OT.

I could get a good deal on a pair of MC930's. I'm still wishing I could hear a comparison of the 930 and 950, because all my mics have to do multiple duty to earn their keep and supercardioid is better for me on most of the commercial jobs that justify buying them (I make a good income from end-of-year school events, Xmas carols and stuff, so I need to do choirs and big bands over a PA and avoid feedback). For similar money I could get Austrian Audio CC8 as a stereo set with accessories, I'm sure they're nice too but I know little about them and what applications they do best on. I am currently in love with my Oktava MK-102's, I just put them over a drummer last night for this quirky, arty, clever arty duo thing and could not believe the sound I got with a light-playing drummer, like it was the natural acoustic sound only louder, very realistic. I use them in X-Y on one stand, I bet I could do those little ensembles nicely with that pair too.

I despair over all the classic dynamics that are no longer in production and have mostly been snapped up on the used market, those golden days of getting great gear for next to nothing are over. So what mics of today will people save to keep using in 30 years time? Not endless budget C414 clones I'm sure.

Pre-amp and outboard-wise I don't care about character, flavour and special-purpose saturation simulators, I just want clean. Accurate, bland, boring, call it what you will, but I just want to *record*, not affect. For my current needs I'm starting with a Clarett+ 8Pre, seems about right for me. I would like to be using ISA 4 or 8 ch. pre's, if I really need to juice up a singer or something I'll get a channel of API or something and select one of the mics I've got, but I don't think this will be a big part of my business.

I think I really need a broader knowledge of what mics working engineers and producers consider part of their toolkit. I know they consider mics and pre's as part of a package but that's not where I am, all my stuff has to serve live production to earn its keep first. Of course I do know all the common ones, but in different parts of the world they are different too, because here it mostly depends on what the big distributors import. For example, I don't know anybody else with an M201 here at all, and I consider it essential now. M88's are rare, they used to be commonplace but now everybody's buying much more modern designs. I'd prefer to buy new, but I want a broader experience.

Sorry once again I've written a 3-page post to try and explain a simple idea, and failed But I'd welcome any waffle about mics, anything, just talk about what you're using, or used to use, or would like to. For live, location, theatre, corporate, whatever, but esoteric studio stuff I don't think I can use.