I would agree with West.
Besides. It’s not within my scope to get a really good mic. Just to be able to record with something that’s better than my built-in mic.
OK, fair points. I do know that at UK prices I could get an SE1 plus phantom power supply for around the same price as an SM57, since real SM57’s are about £75 here.
SM57 is a good choice nonetheless.
If you want to go slightly cheaper still, there are some good budget stereo mics which can be plugged straight into soundcard mic inputs - around £25, and can be extremely versatile. If you want respectable quality you may wish to consider this instead. Wouldn’t want you to spend £75 or so on an SM57 and get lots of hiss because you need to push the gain right up.
A couple of other points to consider on the dynamic vs. condenser debate:
-
Since a dynamic is less sensitive, it will have to be very close to get a good signal. This doesn’t always make for the best representation of an acoustic guitar sound, and can be extremely boomy.
-
If you decide a dynamic mic is not bright enough, you cannot easily accentuate high frequencies that are not actually present. You will just end up boosting the noise level even more.
-
The budget stereo mics mentioned above (i.e. small lavier/clip-on mics) tend to be omnidirectional. This means that they can be used close up without the boomy, pronounced bottom end you get from directional microphones. They can be clipped onto an instrument, placed on a stand, used in mono or stereo, and used with portable recording devices.
That’s lots of things to consider. 
But I believe I’ll get SM57 anyway, but your tips will certainly be useful in the future when I’m getting more mics.
Clip-on mics are interesting to me, I will probably get one too sometime.
I love this forum. Where else can I find cardiod patterns compared for better whistle recordings?