Vocal Microphones, what are you using?

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

The only word of warning is that for people playing instruments a super-cardioid like the AKG's demands really good discipline on the mic. Even slightly off axis and the sound fades away quite dramatically and you really need to 'eat the mic'

 

I had a TcHelicon MP85, which I thought went with my voice better than anything, but watching videos, I move my head slightly and it goes completely, so now I just use a behringer copy of something.

[Stub Mandrel]

7 hours ago, Al Krow said:

 

We've just sacked SM58s from our band!

 

Had a couple of gigs recently where we struggled with taming feedback during the first set but switching over from SM58s to the more directional AKG D7 eliminated the issue and we had a much better band performance in the second set when we and the audience weren't on edge because of feedback creeping in. A fellow bass-player & BL I know well has said he's recently done the same thing in getting rid of SM58s in favour of sE V7s in his band, which while not quite matching the D7 for overall quality, come in at half the price at £75 and also provide a big improvement over the SM58 in terms of feedback performance.

 

I did a quick test of the difference the mics made at the break and the AKG D7 gave us an additional +6dB headroom before feedback kicked in! The two singers in our line-up with SM58s are swapping over to either the AKG D7 or sE V7 depending on their budget.

 

 

 

One band the vocalist (who has a huge complex pa) is paranoid about drum spill and says the sm58 isn't directional enough to set a noise gate low enough. But he'll provide a supercardiod in future.

 

Other band, main vocalist uses a Senheisser but the rest of uscare fine with SM58s. I suspect their reputation is somewhat soiled by poor copies.  

 

[Phil Starr]

On 29/10/2025 at 18:32, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Other band, main vocalist uses a Senheisser but the rest of uscare fine with SM58s. I suspect their reputation is somewhat soiled by poor copies.

 

Their reputation is justified by direct experience. They didn't suddenly become bad mics they just got superceded by 60 years of development, including by Shure. Materials technology has just moved on and. They are still incredibly reliable mics and sound just the way they did back in the 60's. You can still even buy the old 'Elvis' mic. They are still gloriously easy to sing with and for anyone with a strong voice they don't give too many feedback problems. Their soft focus sound will sometimes veil a few wrinkles in the voices of poor singers like me. Mainly though people like them because they are familiar. Using a mic is a very personal thing, probably more so than using the same bass and experience lets you use the mic to do things vocally you would need to re-learn if you change. The SM58's colour your vocals, they aren't flat response lose some of the highs and quite a lot of midrange detail.

 

The first time I got a direct test of this was years ago when a singers SM58 went down mid song when I was mixing for her band. I swapped it for an AKG D5 sitting unused on a stand. It was like the sun had come out all the details in her voice revealed. In several bands now I've had singers borrow my Senny 935 to 'try out' and had to crowbar it out of their hands at the end of rehearsals. All of them went out and eventually bought new mics. To be fair to the original SM58 it was the lead that was faulty

 

I've got friends who drive around in VW Beetles and one who drives a Hillman Imp and sometimes a vintage 2CV. They absolutely love them and I'm tempted by a Morris Traveller whenever I see one in good condition. Shure will go on making SM58's so long as people buy them but there's a reason why they make the Beta58. I don't think anyone 'has it in' for the 58 or is fooled by the clones, we just don't want people spending that much money on a mic when they can get better for less.

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

we just don't want people spending that much money on a mic when they can get better for less.

 

I got an SM57 off Temu for £8.50 🤣 just to see what you get. Arrived yesterday.

 

Looks right, but no Shure branding.  Clearly less well made than a real one, but does appear to have rubber suspension (a bit firmer than the real one). Awful clip, decent bag. A xlr to unbalanced jack lead that looks like it's 1970s.

 

The connector was wired unbalanced, so corrected that and it works.

 

I have a big collection of cheap & mid price microphones. I'm thinking of a way to test them, and bexdure which are worth keeping. Possibly a cheap spectrum analyser and put them in front of a white noise source as a rough and ready approach.

 

Would be fun to do a Microphone Shootout.

[Rosie C]

42 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I have a big collection of cheap & mid price microphones. I'm thinking of a way to test them, and bexdure which are worth keeping. Possibly a cheap spectrum analyser and put them in front of a white noise source as a rough and ready approach.

 

Would be fun to do a Microphone Shootout.

 

Now, that gives me an idea. We've been using "Sonic Visualiser" the last few weeks at uni - it's free and strangely addictive.

 

The first 3/4 of the image is my octave mandolin with lovely stacked harmonics. The last quarter is me speaking. This was a recording using the built-in XY mic on a Zoom H8.

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Rosie C

[tauzero]

On 29/10/2025 at 11:31, Al Krow said:

We've just sacked SM58s from our band!

 

Had a couple of gigs recently where we struggled with taming feedback during the first set but switching over from SM58s to the more directional AKG D7 eliminated the issue and we had a much better band performance in the second set when we and the audience weren't on edge because of feedback creeping in. A fellow bass-player & BL I know well has said he's recently done the same thing in getting rid of SM58s in favour of sE V7s in his band, which while not quite matching the D7 for overall quality, come in at half the price at £75 and also provide a big improvement over the SM58 in terms of feedback performance.

 

I did a quick test of the difference the mics made at the break and the AKG D7 gave us an additional +6dB headroom before feedback kicked in! The two singers in our line-up with SM58s are swapping over to either the AKG D7 or sE V7 depending on their budget.

 

I was in an originals band (now in hiatus) where the drummer was also a sound engineer, and he went with the sE V7. I decided to indulge myself a few months ago and went for an sE V7 myself. Very happy with it.

[Al Krow]

46 minutes ago, tauzero said:

 

I was in an originals band (now in hiatus) where the drummer was also a sound engineer, and he went with the sE V7. I decided to indulge myself a few months ago and went for an sE V7 myself. Very happy with it.

 

Very tempted to get a sE V7 and Lekato 5.8GHz wireless combo, as a back up.

 

SM58s are now officially banned from our gigs: I'm done with needing to sort out unwanted feedback from non-directional mics!

[Phil Starr]

Very few mics are flat and the mics in those Zooms are better than many. Most vocal mics have restricted frequency responses (no point in frequencies absent from human voices anyway) but most have some lift in the upper end to bring in some brightness. The result is that not all mics suit the same person and it's probably even more personal than your choice of bass. My duo partner and I have tries swapping his Shure Beta for my Sennheiser, we swapped back after one song. They are similar prices and both from good makers but wow do I prefer mine. It might be familiarity of course but if you can borrow other peoples mics it's really worth experimenting before you buy.

[Rosie C]

45 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

Very few mics are flat and the mics in those Zooms are better than many. Most vocal mics have restricted frequency responses (no point in frequencies absent from human voices anyway) but most have some lift in the upper end to bring in some brightness. The result is that not all mics suit the same person and it's probably even more personal than your choice of bass. My duo partner and I have tries swapping his Shure Beta for my Sennheiser, we swapped back after one song. They are similar prices and both from good makers but wow do I prefer mine. It might be familiarity of course but if you can borrow other peoples mics it's really worth experimenting before you buy.

 

Yes, I've been pleased with the mic quality on both my Zoom H8 and the Tascam DR-40X I bought previously. 

I bought my Sennheiser e385 online, purely from on reading reviews, but I liked it. Lately I've been using a Sennheiser ME3 headset, like an aerobics instructor. It's great for keeping a set distance, but does seem to suffer more from feedback. Being condenser I suppose that's unavoidable.

Oh for a music shop locally where I could go and try a half dozen mics before buying!