Microphones
Featured Microphones
The ‘Shure’ things in mics are the SM57 and SM58 The SM57 and SM58 are industry standards. They are the affordable real thing in this day of cheap microphones flooding the market. They are heavy duty. They can take real world use and keep on working. Each can play roles in the studio or on the stage.
My favorite application for the SM58 is vocals. There are certain singers who don’t sound the best through good vocal condensers or even large diaphragm dynamics such as the Shure SM7 or the Electro Voice RE20. For these people, you need to put up a Shure SM58.
The Shure SM57 seems to find its strength in spoken word, snare drum and guitar amps. One of the more difficult areas of recording is spoken word, which is also called dialog or voiceover. A lot of studios tend to think they can put any mic in front of a voice actor and get reasonable results. Most studios probably put up a Shure SM7, EV RE20 or even a Neumann U87 for dialog. You need to remember that the SM57 can put across the speaking voice as well. The President of the United States uses a Shure SM57 as his podium mic. Sometimes, the SM57 can be the best mic for the voice and perform much better than mics costing over 25 times its price.
The Shure SM57 is a cardioid pattern dynamic mic. The cardioid pattern does an excellent job of isolating the source from background noise.
The SM58 is the same mic but adds the bulbous grille. It sounds different in that there are less highs. It seems to also be missing a tad bit of the accentuated top in the mid frequencies that are present with the SM57. Side by side, the SM57 sounds a little more open on the top end than the SM58.
The Bottom Line: Recommended. The Shure SM57 and SM58 are heavy duty workhorses.
Microphone Test Video
Dave is a broadcast professional with almost 50 years of experience. “Uncle” Dave has been entertaining crowds from 50 to thousands, both as a mobile disc jokey and as a radio show host.