SM 57 or 58. The industry standard - any sound man worth his salt will know how to set you up. Not necessarily so with anything else! Live or studio, it'll get the job done.

I'm assuming you're asking about for live purposes . . . The SM-57 is a good warhorse, can take a beating, and is inexpensive . . . if choices are limited, I generally default to an SM-57. My personal choice when dealing with sound people in the industry is a Sennheiser 421--most good sound people will carry those with them. HOWEVER, my preference for live if playing with a mic on a stand is a Sennheiser 441 . . . I'd buy one for myself, but I use a clip-on mic for live work when I have to provide my own equipment. I carry an AKG D-409 in my bag (I have an old Shure SM-98 as a backup) which is a dynamic mic and does not require phantom power. I have previously owned its condenser counterpart, the C-409, and have also played through the current C-419, and for my money, the dynamic version of the AKG is superior to the condenser version--much fatter and warmer (the D-409 is actually a little less expensive than the C-419 too). Other clip-on options include what AudioTechnica has--they have a variety of clip-on mics built off of their 35 capsule. I've played on a number of them, and they've worked fine, but I wasn't necessarily impressed. I talked to Tom Scott a couple of weeks back (he's a former AKG user), and he swears by the AMT Roam system . . . it's wireless, but the mic capsule is rumored to be the best one out there . . . a number of sound engineer friends have been encouraging me to move in this direction for wireless . . . Hope this helps. Good luck!

on these same lines. im looking for a very inexpensive way to record myself for practice purposes. preferably i would i really like to record it on my laptop, any reccomendations on software and hardware?