Choosing a live vocal mic

[Art]

What are the best mics for use on male or female, thanks

[ziegenh5]

I'm pretty old school when it comes to stage mics, but I think if you can't make it happen with an sm58, you can't make it happen period. I had a Neumann KSM105 for a while and it sounded great but I dropped it a couple times and now it is in about 100 pieces.....a total waste of money. I'm 'Shure' the sm58 will probably outlast all of us.
Sean

[Andrew B.]

Originally Posted by Art

What are the best mics for use on male or female, thanks

Assuming that the singer has reasonably good mic technique and can stay on the mic, the Audix OM5 would come very high up the list for a general purpose and robust live vocal mic that doesn't cost too much.

Andrew

[De chromium cob]

Beta 57a

[aussie_techie]

what kind of venue?
if you can tune the system for your mic then you can choose almost anything, but if your walking into a system thats tuned for 58s your choices are very limited. Beta57A/58A are usualy the way to go, on most voices they sound much nicer and assuming the polar pattern isnt a problem they are very easy to work with

[bobby yarrow]

I'm liking the Heil PR20. Also a good mic most places you'd use an SM57. The Audix is great if you have really high stage SPL and you like to eat the mic. The PR20 is more full-spectrum (which not everybody wants), and can handle a singer works the microphone (viz., you don't have to have the thing down your throat to get signal into it).

[tINY]

The best mics are the ones that sound decent and can handle a little abuse.

"if you can't make it happen with a 58..." is about the dumbest statement I've heard in a while. There are 2-3 out of 10 singers that sound horrible through a 58: Maybe it's their technique, maybe their nasal cavity is just wrong for the old standby. Sure you can make it tollerable most of the time when you have a parametric equalizer (God help you if the mains have JBL horns, though).

But why???

The Heil PR-20 is a nice one - I've been using that on one of my problem singers lately and it sounds a lot better.

The Audix OM line runs 1-9 with different tunings so that you can match one up with a particular singer - usually you don't need EQ at all if you find the right one.

An RE-16 is a problem solver sometimes. It has very little proximity effect and its a hypercard.

The old EV 1776 condensers sounded good on a lot of high-altos and sopranos - the battery was a bit of a pain in the ass, though. I am hoping the new RE510 is as good or better, but I haven't got my hands on one yet.

The Beyerdynamic 39 is a nice smooth mic that sounded great on tennors and baritones for me. The 69 is a slightly more refined version that I haven't tried.

I used an SR-69 for a vocal mic once - it sounded phenominal, but the stage volume was low....

The MD-431 was usually a good choice on lots of voices (especially the weaker ones).

The Shure beta 87 has been good most times I tried it. The KSM9 looks like it might be good too, but it's a bit pricey until I hear more reviews.

That'll get you started.








-tINY

[bobwarren]

Male- Beta 58a or SM58
Female- Beta 87a