AKG P420

Good, solid feeling, multi-pattern microphone - very nice on electric guitar cabinets (particularly for rock, metal and blues).

I've tried this on a few things (recorded through focusrite RedNet 4 preamps - which can be a bit too clean and slightly clinical sounding) including male/female vocals, violin, banjo, acousic/electric guitar, bass, kick drum and piano.

I find that it over-emphasises the high-mids on most acoustic instuments (banjo is very difficult to record, as it's rather middly and harsh no matter what you do - I prefer ribbons for banjo), acoustic guitar sounds a little thin and lacks bass and mid depth - this can be easily improved with a small amount of EQ at around 2.5kHz.

I recorded a singer playing acoustic guitar, with the mic set to cardiod, and placed about 12" from the singer, aiming about halfway between his mouth and the sound hole (maybe slightly more towards his mouth) - this gave a reasonbly good sound, and was exactly what he wanted, although I thought is was still slightly thin and quite harsh sounding...although again, only a little EQ was needed to bring a bit of life into it.

Although it's not great for deep voices, or acoustic instruments (violin is especially unforgiving), I'd still reather have this than a Rode NT1a, not least because of the versatility that comes with having a switchable polar pattern. It does have a more pronounced bass responce than the NT1a, and is just as clean. The -20dB pad is also useful (especially as it can be used to bring out some clarity in heavy metal tracks).