Best condenser mic(s), for less than $300 total, to cover both acoustic guitar and vocals (regular and metal)

So I have a pretty decent home studio after years of putting it together piece by piece. I've made pretty decent quality stuff if it involves distorted guitars, bass, programmed drums, or synth. The two things I'm still not great at recording are acoustic guitars and vocals, mainly because I've been using DIs or the three mics I've been using forever: a Shure SM57, a Sennheisser e835, and a Joemeek JM27. I haven't had to deal with vocals and acoustic guitars much, because when it comes to those I'll go to a friend's studio and use their room/mics for a better sound, but the time has come for me to invest in my own decent condenser mic or mics to cover that ground, simply because it's always better to be able to do something yourself.

Now, for the most part, I do metal stuff, so the vocals I do are mostly screamed/yelled/growled, but there's normal singing for other projects too or metal where clean singing works. I've ALSO started to write and perform my own solo acoustic guitar material in the vein of Andy Mckee/Don Ross/Michael Hedges etc, so I'd like a mic that could do well with that kind of acoustic playing.

I can invest around $300 into this comfortably. If I can cover all this ground in one mic, cool, but I'm willing to buy two if it'll make a difference. Anyone got any tips? I'm looking at the Rode NT1A or NT2, or maybe an AT2020 + something else? I KNOW I'm not getting top tier stuff here, but I've always done OK with what I can get, so as long as it's not total garbage I'll probably figure it out

Posted Feb 17, 2017, 3:17 AM UTC

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