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What's a good mic when you just kinda scream & want to stand far away from the mic & have it pick up some room ambiance &c., both for live (into PA) & recording use? Useful if I can also get up close & sing when I want to too.

By "far away" I don't mean several metres, I mean less than half a metre—I wouldn't want it to exclusively pick up my guitar amp or the drumkit either...

I don't want a distorted sound, I want end results approximating the human-ear, or at least the human ears at our shows. I'd just like the human ears in the back of the show to hear the vocals too when playing larger venues, and also I want audible (although perhaps only barely so) vocals on record.

I read that Jeromes Dream recorded vocals with the mic laying on the floor, probably bent over in its general direction. I assume that was an SM58 or some similar knockoff. Live they didn't use one. SM7B is reportedly also great for screaming.

As a screamer myself I think it's best to have it in your hands and find the distance that works for you. If playing at the same time, experiment with placement in the room and relative to your head, away from amps and drums. I use an SM57 which is not ideal but whatever. It's never gonna be perfect, especially live or in a loud rehearsal enviro. A compressor/EQ or a great sound guy could help, if that's an option.

I guess I'm not entirely sure what you mean by human ears (those things that stick out the side of people's heads?) lol, but I assume a vocal sound that's not unpleasantly in-yr-face all the time. Sometimes that's unavoidable if your band is loud and you want to be heard. If that's not a priority then just put the mic wherever it's not feeding back and scream really loud in its vicinity. Technique and position is more important than brand.

For recording most mics would do, you might want a decent preamp with a hefty amount of gain so you can crank it up a bit. I would chose an omni mic in your case when recording if you want to pic up a lot of ambience. Live this is harder to do, like a lot harder, because you are not in an environment where sounds can be isolated. When recording you usually do sing like you describe because it sounds like garbage if you stand up close to the mic but live this is gonna be problematic because you need more gain which leads to more bleed and stuff becomes uncontrollable. A hypercardiod mic would help because the pattern is a lot more directional than an ordinary cardioid. Shure's beta 58 is a pretty affordable one, sennheiser e845 is a great option too, Audio technica probably has one, SE is supposed to make great mics too. If you wanna go crazy and spendy and build a decent mic locker you could get a beyer m88 or an electro voice re20 but it's not something I would bring to a shows.

You kinda don't need to get away from the mic live though to get ambience because you are projecting the mic signal into the room though the PA not to a set of earphones like when you are recording so chewing on an sm58 suffices and it wont sound like you are talking into the audience's ears. I personally would focus on getting a good recording mic that I could use on different sources like a large diaphragm condenser or one of the large diaphragm dynamics i mentioned above. Live I would just rely on the sound guy to do their thing. If you play a lot of shows where you gotta supply your own mic I would get a used 57/58 or steal it from somewhere, it is good enough and gets the job done although I would never use one for studio vocals

@frodog Yeah I know about the JD technique—I also prefer just not using a mic live. I've used a SM58 live, and found I had to stand real close... Anyway it's not going to be in my hands, and away from amps & drums i also a bit of a problem because I play with a lot of feedback, so placement is tricky. I usually get it placed rather sensibly in the end though. Between the amp and drumkit (sort of behind the amp) tends to work OK, as well as to the left of the amp (drumkit usually to the right), sort of behind it again—but if it's to the left it might fall prey to my guitar neck being thrown about. As for making suer it's not too loud/in-yr-face, that's usually solved by keeping it low in the mix. My general strategy is very much "put the mic wherever it's not feeding back and scream really loud in its vicinity».

@qersty The reason I stand far away from the mic isn't really to catch ambience as much as I need to be able to bend and stuff in order to scream with my stomach muscles, and also if I'm too near the mic it will 100% get knocked over by me flailing the guitar about. In the studio we'll probably use straight up room mics for ambiance. I definitely do not want to "go crazy and spendy", haha.

I guess I should specify that my emphasis is very much on live shows here. For in studio, I'm pretty sure I can borrow a mic someplace—and as you say, qersty, most mics will do.

Light flailing/skramzing here: https://www.facebook.com/galleriznedi/v ... =3&theater to illustrate the problem further.

Oh! I see your issue now. Have you tried getting a mic stand with a heavier foot?

Nah. That would fix the flailing, I suppose. But I find it hard to scream all I've got if I have to stand rigidly next to a mic. =/