I know so little about gear. I've never been a guy who cared about music gear outside of whatever I needed. Microphones are certainly a blind spot for me in that regard. So all I can comment on gear is with my own experience.
A guy named Doug from RODE Microphones recently reached out to us. He said he saw Drive. Play. Sleep., loved it, and wanted to support us by having the company he works for send us free microphones. He gave us a blank check, basically. He, and the good folks at RODE, are very, very nice.
This has never happened to us, and we find it incredibly strange. For someone to just give you very expensive things for something you did over a year ago is an odd experience for anyone, I'd imagine. We got the mics the other day, and made this unboxing video about it:
What a great company.
All they asked in return is that we just talk about how they gave them to us on our website and socials. Perhaps we're selling out, but hey, that seems more than fair in our book.
If you need some microphones, I recommend you start a piano/painting band, tour your butts off, make a movie about it, and have them randomly see it and reach out to you. Or you can take the shortcut and just buy them, which I think you'll agree is easier.