Best mic choice

markm2553 · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 6:01 am Post subject: Best mic choice

If you are going to play acustic and sing into one mic, do you use "vocal" mic or an "instument" mic?

We are getting some new mics at Church, a few of the old ones have been dropped too many times I guess.

We are looking at Sure PG 58 ( vocal )
And Sure PG57 ( instument )

As far as I know, we have no instument mic's now. Are they a big advantage for a flat top?

Beside being much cheaper what is the difference between Sure "PG" and "SM" mics?

Thanks,

shardy53 · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 8:40 am Post subject:

I like an Shure SM58 for vocals and the Beta 57A for micing a guitar. That is all we use in our Bluegrass band. No instrument gets plugged in.
Steve

markm2553 · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:02 am Post subject:

If you where going to sing and play into just the one mic, what mic do you use?

Bates15 · Moderator Joined: 19 Feb 2002 Posts: 1084

Using a 'vocal'mic on a accoustic guitar is not a wise thing to do. They tend to loose a lot of hight. Using a capacitor mic on the acc is the best. I dont see how you use a single mic on both vocal and guitar. How do you balance the two? How do you compensate the loss of lows on the vocal and guitar?

Get a sm58 for the vocal and a (if you want shure) SM81 for the acc. Then get the mic posistion on your guitar just right and sing straight into the sm58. Best way to go, if your soundman knows what he is doing!

link:http://www.shure.com/microphones/models/sm81.asp

markm2553 · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 10:28 am Post subject:

Nate, what about singing using an instument mic? I am stuck using one mic all the time for playing and singing at Church. Sometimes there is just not enough to go around. And during P&W I move too much to try and balance two mic's. I didn't say it sounded the best, but we don't know any better. I'm going to check out that link you put up.
I was just looking for the best of a bad situation.
Thanks

ACfixer · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2004 12:04 pm Post subject:

A Shure 57 works good for both. I don't know if it's SM or PG, I thought it was SM...

Bates15 · Moderator Joined: 19 Feb 2002 Posts: 1084

That is the sm 57 indeed. There is a beta version with a bit more highs and a bit more $$. Were do you place the mic when singing and playing at the same time? How big it the church, the stage? How big is the band?
These are all very important things to know when placing a mic. If you play in a fairly big church you could get lost in the mix, maybee even make for some good old feedback in the low-mids (400hz or so).

markm2553 · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2004 6:46 am Post subject:

We never have trouble picking up my big mouth, ever. I can stand three feet back from the mic, play and sing, and no one will have trouble hearing me when I play solo. That is about 80% of the time I play. We are planning to get some new sure mic's to replace the mic's that have stopped working all together, or are very weak. What I mean by weak is that we have to turn them up 2x what the other mic's are set at to get them to proform. Then the sound is much like holding your nose when singing. Most of the mic's are used for vocal's only. There are only a few of us that play anything. Most of the special singers use a CD behind them. They will love the PG58 mic's! When we have people just playing we will use a PG57 mic. The people just playing will love the PG57 mic's I'm told. Now when we have someone playing and singing using only one mic, what is best to use, between the two choices? They may very well be the only one on stage, but they want to use one mic, what mic do we use for them?

Church seats 300
Average 130
Record 240

The shop I deal with told us to save money and buy the Sure PG series in our case, he said we don't need the SM series. He sells both.

Thanks

Bates15 · Moderator Joined: 19 Feb 2002 Posts: 1084

AND

If you take a good look, you will see the PG has a lower output at a lot of frequenties. That is something your soundman has to compensate for to get the same sound. Amnd keep in mind that the SM58 is almost like a tank. We have owned sm´s for overb 15 years, they have no paint anymore, look like someting else and still work like never before!

If you have the $$ go for the SM58-57. You wont regret!

sharring · Tiger Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Posts: 812 Location: Texas

Hey Nate...arn't the Shure Beta's supposed to be even better than the SM's? I read somewhere that you can crank them even higher volumes before feedback due to a tighter reception cone. (right words?) What i'm trying to say is the area of mic pickup is in a tighter pattern? Have you heard of this? scott

Steve · Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 5:07 pm Post subject:

Bates15 · Moderator Joined: 19 Feb 2002 Posts: 1084

Belivers and none belivers for both mic type's. Get what you like and not what the person next to you tells you to get. Some mics just work out better on some systems and vocals (ie instruments). Some add just the right hint of precense. And that again is subject to taste and so on. I can only tell you that the SM58 mics are built like tanks and if you want to go on for a while, they are a s(h)ure investment!!!!

Steve · Posted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 6:31 am Post subject:

markm2553 · Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2004 5:25 am Post subject:

UPDATE

Well, we took the local music shops advice and bought four PG58's. We have had them a couple of weeks now and everyone really loves them. They are so much better than what we have been using all those years. I was suprised to see how much "hotter" these mic's are, the level we run these mic's to get the same responce is about 1/2. That means feedback has become a non issue. We have one guy that sings a very soft tenor and we had been having trouble picking him up, we can really crank him up now. They all came with 20 ft cords, and I think we ended up paying $50 each.

Thanks for the help everyone!

Steve · Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2004 6:15 am Post subject:

Excellent!