The First Three Microphones to Own

Reviewed September 2026.

You have money for one microphone and a list of things you want to record with it. The question usually answered is which microphone is best at a given price, as though you were buying one thing once. You are buying the first of three, over a year or two, and the order matters more than any pick in it, because the first one decides what the second has to be good at.

Three ordinary microphones cover more records than one expensive one, and it is not close. Here is what they are, what each is bad at, and the order.

The order, which is the actual argument

A dynamic first, a large diaphragm condenser second, a matched pair of small diaphragm condensers third. The reason is failure modes rather than sound quality. A dynamic close to a loud source is the hardest recording there is to get wrong: the source is loud, the microphone is inches away, and the room loses by simple arithmetic before you have thought about the room at all.

The condenser is second because it reaches what a dynamic cannot, a soft voice, a nylon string guitar, brushes, anything where the detail is quiet, and because it is the first microphone that reports your room back to you honestly. The pair is third because it is the only one with prerequisites: two preamp channels, two stands, and something worth capturing in stereo. Until those exist, a matched pair is two microphones you use one at a time.

In this order	What it reaches	Its fault
First. Shure SM57, $99	A guitar cabinet, a snare, a tom, a brass bell, a loud singer who works close	Hungry. A quiet source wants sixty decibels of clean gain
Second. Audio-Technica AT4040, $299	A soft voice, a nylon string guitar, brushes, anything where the detail is quiet	Unglamorous, and cardioid only. 12 dBA of self noise
Second, spending less. Audio-Technica AT2020, $99	The same job when the alternative is waiting six months to start	20 dBA. Audible on a quiet acoustic at two feet. No pad, no filter
Third. A matched pair, about $350	A kit in a room, a piano, a live take of two people	Prerequisites. Two preamp channels, two stands, and something worth capturing in stereo
Fourth, used. Sennheiser MD 421, around $300	Toms, a cabinet, brass, a loud singer the condenser is fighting	The clip. Budget thirty dollars for it

The one to start with

Shure SM57, $99

A guitar cabinet, a snare, a tom, a brass bell, a loud singer who works close. The capsule has been in production since 1965, and the thing survives being dropped, which matters more than it sounds: this is the only microphone here you can put somewhere stupid just to find out what happens. It is also the one to buy used without hesitating, at sixty or seventy dollars, for the reason the used section below gives: a dynamic either works or it does not, and you know inside ten seconds.

The faults, plainly. It is hungry: a quiet source wants sixty decibels of clean gain, and a cheap preamp will hiss before an SM57 gets loud, so the gain on your interface is part of this purchase, and where the noise in a recording actually comes from is worth reading before you blame the microphone. It has a lift around five kilohertz and very little above fifteen, which is why a solo acoustic guitar through one sounds like a recording of a guitar rather than a guitar.

The one to stretch for

Audio-Technica AT4040, $299

Quiet electronics, a pad and a high pass on the body, and a shock mount in the box that is not an afterthought. It does what the first microphone cannot, which is hear something delicate without adding noise to it. Its fault is that it is unglamorous. Cheaper condensers are voiced with a lift up top, and that lift flatters a thin voice and a hard room. The 4040 carries less of it, which the published curves show, so the fix has to happen upstream of the microphone rather than inside it. It is also cardioid only. The Rode NT1 5th Gen at about $259 is the other right answer at this money, and it is much quieter, 4 dBA against 12.

Spending less on the second one

Audio-Technica AT2020, $99

Same company, a third of the money, and the gap is noise: 20 dBA against the 4040's 12. Its own noise floor is inaudible on a singer at six inches and plainly audible on a quiet acoustic at two feet. No pad, no filter. It is the right buy when the alternative is waiting six months to start. What spending less does not save you is the stand and the cable, which cost the same whatever sits on top of them, so the two hundred dollars you did not spend belongs in the stand first and in the wall behind the singer second.

What the purchase actually costs

A boom stand that holds position is about $110 and will still be holding it in twenty years. A thirty dollar tripod boom creeps under anything heavier than an SM57, and creep is how the tone of a take changes between passes while you blame the performance. A cable at twenty feet is about $25, a pop filter about $25 and only the condenser needs one, and a shock mount is $40 to $100 bought separately, included with the AT4040, unwanted by the SM57.

So the first purchase is around $235, and the microphone is under half of it. That $135 of stand and cable does not get cheaper at $299 or at $2,000, which is why it belongs in the budget from the start rather than being found at the end of it. A microphone cable needs to be quiet, shielded and long enough, and what the shield is actually doing, along with the rest of how a room gets wired, is in how to wire a small studio without the hum.

What the first purchase is	Cost	Note
Shure SM57	$99
A boom stand that holds position	about $110	A thirty dollar tripod boom creeps under anything heavier than an SM57
A cable at twenty feet	about $25
A pop filter	about $25	Only the condenser needs one
A shock mount	$40 to $100 bought separately	Included with the AT4040, unwanted by the SM57
The first purchase	around $235

The third one, and why it is third

A matched pair, about $350

The Line Audio CM4 is about $175 each, made in Sweden, and its virtue is measurable rather than a matter of taste: Line Audio publishes the off axis curves, and the response away from the front stays close to the response on it. That is the property that matters most in a pair, because everything a pair picks up that is not the source arrives off axis. Its self noise is low enough to sit three feet from a quiet acoustic. It has no pad, no filter, it looks like a pen, and you usually order and wait. A matched pair of Rode NT5s at about $429 is easier to find.

What a pair buys is a drum kit that sounds like a kit in a room rather than four close microphones argued into agreement, a piano, a live take of two people, the second position on an acoustic guitar. It stops being about the source and starts being about the room, which is why it rewards a room somebody has dealt with.

The one we would buy used

Sennheiser MD 421, around $300

The rule first, because it is worth more than the pick: buy dynamics used, and buy condensers new or from someone who will let you plug the thing in. A dynamic is a coil, a magnet, a diaphragm and a transformer. It works or it does not, and you know inside ten seconds. A condenser hides its history: capsule contamination arrives as a slow loss of the top end and a slow rise in noise, and neither is visible in a photograph of a clean grille.

The 421 is the fourth microphone most people end up wanting, and it lands on toms, a cabinet, brass, and a loud singer the condenser is fighting. Its famous fault is the clip: the sliding plastic latch is the worst designed part in professional audio, and a used one has a broken one, a replacement, or an owner about to find out. Budget thirty dollars and do not let it talk you out of the microphone.

What a used microphone listing should say

Four things, and a listing that leaves any out is asking you to guess. What it is and roughly when it was built, from the serial. Whether the capsule has been opened, cleaned or replaced, and by whom. What it has lived through, because a microphone that spent five years in front of singers without a pop filter has taken a great deal of moisture, and one that wintered in an unheated garage has taken worse. And for a condenser, what the noise floor sounds like, which thirty seconds of a quiet room demonstrates and nobody can argue with afterwards.

Got a microphone you are done with? We take consignment, or you trade it against something here, any brand.

If you already own an SM58

You own the first slot. The 57 and the 58 are different cartridges built on one design, and the grille is most of the difference: on the 57 it's part of the cartridge. Shure sells the 57 for instruments and the 58 for vocals, and I wouldn't hesitate to use either one on a voice or an instrument. The ball on the 58 is a pop screen that also holds the capsule further off the source, which softens the top and makes it harder to overload the low end by crowding it. The 57's smaller grille is why it fits under a hi-hat and against a speaker cone. For most of what happens in a house the 58 does both jobs, and the $99 belongs in the second microphone or the stand. The exception is electric guitar: record it regularly and you want the 57 on the cabinet permanently.

Who should buy something else

If everything you make is written in the box, a microphone is not your next purchase. Monitoring is, or the room the monitoring sits in. And if you can hear the refrigerator from where the microphone would stand, three hundred dollars of absorption will do more than three hundred dollars of microphone. That is the higher return, and the microphone will still be there in a month.

If this is for talking, a podcast or a stream, skip the locker. You want one dynamic on an arm that reaches you, and you want to know before you buy that the Shure SM7B at about $399 needs roughly sixty five decibels of quiet gain, which many interfaces do not have without a small inline preamp behind it. A locker is for sources that differ, and your voice is one source.

The short version

Buy the Shure SM57 and a stand that holds position. Six months later, the AT4040. The matched pair third, and not until you have two preamp channels and something worth recording in stereo. If you already own an SM58, start at the condenser. If you want a fourth, a used MD 421, and budget for the clip. And spend the stretch money on the stand before the microphone, every time.

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Come and put something in front of one

The room is at Free River Studios, 215 E. Lewis St #301 in Livingston, third floor, free and by appointment. It is a working studio, so bring the guitar or the voice you are actually trying to record. Say what you want to record when you book, and we will tell you what is here to put in front of it.