So I have this cooky idea that the reason I haven't been getting phenomenal mixes is I don't "get it at the source". The biggest reason I think this is because of what happened when I just took my condensor mic, put it in a shoe, placed it in front of my amp with no soundproofing or anything, re-recorded the bass and guitars for a song I couldn't do anything with and suddenly it was just like... there was information to work with, I had WIGGLE ROOM. It seemed like direct-in just had no girth in the sound, it was paper thin.
So this has me very curious, if that big of a difference was made sticking a vocal condensor mic in a shoe, how do I REALLY get it at the source? What is like... the sort of, bare bones DIY way to get a foundation going, should I get a shure SM57? Should I get a couple of different mics for variety? Is there some sort of box I should put around my amp? What about sound proofing, should I hang up some foam squares? If this has already been covered in detail just point me to the topic please, thanks