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[Stephen Swaffer]

Slightly different mic situation but a relevant anecdote.  We used to use Shure MX202 hanging mics for our choir.  Pastor purchased some Heil PR30s- and thought they were the greatest thing ever-he and another vocalist stood in the choir loft belting out a hymn-maybe?  "Amazing Grace" acapella as we were testing-his main thing was GBF.  Without telling them what I was doing, I tweaked the MX202 nearest them "offline" and turned just that one mic on-then I started switching mics on them every other line as they sang.  They never caught on until they were told.

Ultimately, the change made sense because the hanging mics would be in front of our media screen-the Heil's take a bit of management but get moved for media.

[Scott Holtzman]

Slightly different mic situation but a relevant anecdote.  We used to use Shure MX202 hanging mics for our choir.  Pastor purchased some Heil PR30s- and thought they were the greatest thing ever-he and another vocalist stood in the choir loft belting out a hymn-maybe?  "Amazing Grace" acapella as we were testing-his main thing was GBF.  Without telling them what I was doing, I tweaked the MX202 nearest them "offline" and turned just that one mic on-then I started switching mics on them every other line as they sang.  They never caught on until they were told.

Ultimately, the change made sense because the hanging mics would be in front of our media screen-the Heil's take a bit of management but get moved for media.

Honestly I think the biggest problem is your Pastor makes these ad hoc purchases without consulting you are anyone else in the hierarchy.  I would walk away from all this nonsense.  Take the guy back and beat him with a palm frond. He has plenty of duties and needs to let go of his need to dabble in production. 

[John L Nobile]

Lead vocalist for the band that was here last Sat sounded great. There was a nice "airy" sound to his vox that I just loved. I asked the BE what mic he was using. It was a DPA. First time I've heard one. But then I thought to myself that the mic couldn't be giving that sound. BE was using an Avantis board. so I thought it might be a plug-in. I asked him about that and he said the Avantis was a great sounding board and then pointed to the rack he had. In it was a Manley Variable Mu compressor. That's what I was hearing.

Though not in the same league, I used a Behringer 1952 compressor on vocals for a few years that gave me a similar sound and cost a million times less. It also brought the vocals forward in the mix. Adding something in the signal chain may be another way to get a better mic sound.

[Brian Jojade]

There is no "better or worse" mic objectively, once you hit the so-called entry-level or industry standard mics. It seems like, whether spending $100.00 on an SM58/EV 767 (both of which I have), $700.00+ for Neumann KMS 105, or anything in between, there really is no objectively better or worse, or even an actual upgrade.

Seems like a fool's errand for me to just buy a mic right now, when I already have two good ones, and no reason to believe ANY of the ones listed here or on other sites are empirically better.

Well, yes and no.  There are better and worse mics out there, and yes, different voices will be better and worse on different mics.  Some amazing mics sound horrid on certain voices.  Some sound amazing, but have horrible feedback rejection, etc.

The nice thing about a mic like the SM58 is it roughly sucks equally across the board in a good enough way that it can be made acceptable in almost any situation.  Starting there as a base point allows you to try other mics along the way to find something you like better. When you have a base comparison to work with, you can see where the real strengths and weaknesses of other mics lie.

[ProSoundWeb Community]