CAD GXL1200

Over 20yrs experience as a guitarist/bass player/keyboardist/drummer. At least 10 yrs recording demos. Recording to Adat hard disk recorders. Monitoring thru Alesis monitor ones. These probably will not be found in a pro studio in La but for us basement hacks these are some really good cheap mics. I have only used mainly as over heads and I find they work much better than some of the other(MXL, Nady) cheap pencil condensers. Another really good way I used these mics were to do a quick band rehearsal recording. I put them about 7 feet in the air and about 6 feet away from the drums and they captured the whole band very well and surprisingly captured alot of the bottom end too. Do that with some sm57's and you'll be disappointed.

I'll keep these mics. I own a bunch of Cad mics. These are some of the cheapest but definitely a good bang for the buck.

Been recording for 1 1/2 - 2 years.
Recorded a couple rough EP's, and lots of my own demo's.
I record to a Yamaha AW16G, as well as I do some mastering on my PC with the Pro Tools 'demo version'.
I monitor through KRK RP 5's, as well as a few 'cheaper' speaker systems.

Cardioid condenser microphone.
I have been using it for anything acoustic, ..., acoustic guitars and overheads on drums mainly.
For acoustic guitar I have used a couple different micing techniques, I have put it at about the 15th fret facing inward towards the soundhole and got very good results that way, another very fine technique which worked out quite well was the 'over-the-shoulder' technique, I have also tried with placing it about two feet out in front of the guitar so it's out of the near-field and found that quite tasty as well.
I'm sure a pair of these on a piano would work quite well too, they're pretty flexible.
I have used just one of them on a stand-up piano before, put it on the back soundboard, about a 3rd of the way down, about a 3rd of the way into the soundboard. This was for live purposes, so it worked pretty cleanly. Sounded crisp.

The price is very good for this mic, it has alot of value.
It's created with a purpose, and that's to mic acoustic instruments, that's what it is best at..

If you are looking for a good cheap solid instrument mic, this would be a good choice.

experience:
12 years musician
6-7 years home recording

equipment:
Alesis ADAT XT20
Mackie 1604VLZ Pro
Shure SM57,SM8,Beta52
CAD 1200GXL,2200GXL

I use these mics for overhead drums. They are very sensitive so they work well for dynamic drummers. I am not sure how well they would work for a lars ulrich wannabe. Their small size (half the size of a sm81) and weight allows them to be easily mounted on a double mic addaptor and set up on a single mic stand. Also works well for accoustic guitar.

The 2200GXL edges out the 1200GXL in upper freq responce, but the small size make them an ideal overhead mic. And the price is phenominal.

Been playing folk/old-time music for 8 yrs, recording for 2. Our recorder is a Roland VS-880. We use inexpensive Edirol as mixing monitors.

I bought this mic new on EBay for $59.95 inculding a stand clip, a foam windscreen, a genu-wine imitation leatherette baggie carrying case, a free 20 ft mic cable and free shipping.

This is a 20 mm "pencil" shaped cardiod condenser mic. My other condenser mics are MXL 2001 and MXL 603S. I just got the CAD GXL1200 and have only begun to play with it. The MXL 603S is my normal go-to instrument mic, but I needed a second instrument mic, so I looked at the specs and decided to give this one a try.

I like it. It is very quiet (even more so that the MXL 603S, which is relatively quite among cheap mics), seems reasonably sensitive, not too harsh on higher stuff (a generic problem for cheap condenser mics). We test recorded a close-miked pennywhistle track with it and it sounds like the whistle is right there in front of you on playback. For a lowly $60 mic, it sounded VERY GOOD. On par with the MXL 603S, which typically goes for about $90-100 new.

While there are certainly better mics than the CAD 1200 (and the MXL 603S), you'd be hard pressed to find a better one for the money. (60 bucks, delivered to your house!) These two mics are hard to beat for folks trying to stay within a budget.

As I get more track time done with the CAD 1200, I'll try and report here again.

Right now, I'd say it is recommendable as a first entry into the instrument condenser mic world for home recordists.