What microphones sound good for what purposes? I have four different ones, but I didn't have a good sense of what the differences in their sound quality are or which ones I should use for which instruments. So I did a set of blind [1] tests to learn more about them.

The mics in question were, from left to right, AKG d707e, Shure sm57, Shure bg4.1, and Griffin i58:

The bg4.1 is a condenser microphone while the other three are dynamic. I believe all four are cardioid pattern, but I'm not sure about the d707e. Left three are low end professional mics while the i58 is a cheap sm58 clone.

The main things I find myself micing are mandolin and voice (caller) because the other two people in my band don't need mics (fiddle with pickup, keyboard). So I decided to test three setups: mandolin chords, mandolin melody, and calling. [2] I recorded them, then before listening to any of them scrambled their names automatically so I wouldn't know which was which. I level-matched them with sox [4] and then listened to them, rating them and figuring out which ones I liked. I also got two other people [5] to rate them.

I'd encourage you to listen for yourself and rate; these are the samples in random order:

Mandolin Melody	1320	1469	1902	1920
Mandolin Chords	1149	1415	1505	1774
Caller	1085	1191	1734	1861

(The key.)

Impressions:

Mandolin Chords

d707e

Jeff: good

Rick: fine; good fidelity

Danner: good

sm57

Jeff: muted, ok

Rick: ok not great; too sharp; very real; not ideal for chords

Danner: fine

bg41

Jeff: muted, bad

Rick: muddy

Danner: wider range; sounds feedback prone

i58

Jeff: good

Rick: maybe too bright; find for chords

Danner: not as good on percussion, slight dislike

Preference

Jeff: all good; d707e, i58, sm57, bg41

Rick: all good except the bg41

Danner: all good; slight dislike of i58

Mandolin Melody

d707e

Jeff: ok

Rick: more alive, high fidelity, clear

Danner: meh

sm57

Jeff: ok

Rick: quite nice

Danner: less meh

bg41

Jeff: ok

Rick: ok, not that good

Danner: noisy; clear which note is playing

i58

Jeff: brighter

Rick: better in the high register

Danner: best of the four for studio recording; favorite

Preference

Jeff: d707e, sm57, i58, bg41

Rick: d707e, sm57, i58, bg41

Danner: i58, bg41 or sm57, d707e

Caller

d707e

Jeff: eh

Rick: muddy, bad for calling

Danner: clear, bassy

sm57

Jeff: nice

Rick: better than the others

Danner: best

bg41

Jeff: breath ugh, too variable

Rick: not great

Danner: bad, don't like it at all

i58

Jeff: ok

Rick: ok; still not great

Danner: higher, might be better with bass eq'd off

Preference

Jeff: none ideal; sm57, i58, d707e, bg41

Rick: none great; sm57, i58, bg41, d707e

Danner: sm57, i58, d707e, bg41

In retrospect this would have been a better test if I had eq'd each mic-instrument combination some: proximity effect is strong for some and the vocals especially could have done with less bass. I'm inclined to look for another mic to use for callers. I might start using the d707e for my mandolin instead of the sm57. I was surprised how well the i58 did: I had gotten it as a cheap spare.

[1] Really mostly blind. I did know which mic I was using when I recorded each sample, but everything after that is blind. (I could conceivably remembered which mic I was using when I recorded each track, but I left enough time between recording and listening that I completely forgot.)

[2] Recording: mic to phantom power box [3] to mixer to usb audio input to computer. Playback: computer to QSC K10. For calling the mic was very close (1/4") from my mouth, for mandolin it was pointed at around the 15th fret (the best spot in my earlier test, though this favors them sm57 because that's what I did that test with.). No eq on anything.

[3] Only the bg4.1 needed power but I wanted to keep this constant for all the tests because I was afraid its small amount of hum would unblind me otherwise.

[4] sox --norm=-6 foo.wav foo-normalized.wav

[5] Thanks Rick and Danner!