Poor Mic quality

[Giggo96]

What sort of voice do you have (compare to other singers if you want) and what sort of material do you play?

Not sure how to describe it, probably a Bass/Baritone kind of voice? Not sure who I would compare it too off the top of my head.

I play all pop acoustic kind of stuff middle of the road. Ed sheeran, Avicii wake me up, Call me Al, George Ezra, With or without you U2, Gerry Cinnamon, Brown eyed girl, when you say nothing at all, and not forgetting WONDERWALL!

[Wonks]

It's still a hard choice. All the mics there are decent. Of the three, I'd be tempted to go with the e835 if choosing blind. But if you can borrow the D5 and take the grille off (and disinfect it), that could work well on a bass/baritone, lifting the top end without overemphasising the bass end.

I'm useless at making decisions!

[Mike Stranks]

This has been a fascinating thread - and will probably continue to be so....

Just a comment or two from an old sweat who's now retired from Live Sound:

I used to have about 4 or 5 varieties of live vocal mics in my cases, because the mic/voice combination is crucial. A lead vocal that sounded less than stellar in sound-check could be transformed by swapping-in a different mic. And despite doing the biz for a long time I'd sometimes get it wrong... hear the voice/style, choose a mic, listen... nah! Chose what I'd imagined would be a 'no-no' and - bingo!

And the seasoned pro's who'd turn up with what to me seemed a decidedly average/unsuitable mic were often spot-on. For their voice and style 'their' mic was just right.

Wonks has done us all a service with his excellent analysis and assessment. But as he says there are guidelines for choosing mics, but no formula.

[James Perrett]

Im shortlisting these mics to keep an eye on for myself;
- Beta 58a
- Sennheiser e835
- SM58

One word of advice - buy them from a proper dealer rather than Ebay or any other low price site. The mics on Ebay that seem like a bit of a bargain are usually fake. I've been getting adverts for Wish on my Facebook feed and they're advertising obviously fake Sennheisers.

And I would totally agree with this advice from Wonks

If in doubt, go for a real SM58 (which generally means buying new) as it will always work. It may not be the best mic for all applications, or even your voice, but you'll get a useable sound.

[Wonks]

Just done my normal (by now) mic relative frequency comparison of the Stag SDM50 against my SM58. (I don't have a proper test rig, so this is just pink noise through a single monitor at roughly 6" away and equidistant from both drivers, with all the inherent frequency bumps and dips associated with such a method).

The SM58 trace is in black, the Stagg SDM50 in red. I've adjusted the levels so that they have (as close as I could get) the same relative dB value at 1kHz.


You can easily see that the Stagg's got a lot more bass-end than the SM58, and that the upper mids as well as the treble are boosted by 3-4dB compared to the SM58. The bass end will be further boosted by the proximity effect when singing/speaking right into the grille.

So you should be able to tell why the Stagg's so bassy, and with those very boosted upper mids, you aren't going to get a natural sounding voice at all. If the response was flatter from 1.5kHz upwards, then you could probably make it work with a lot of bass cut. The extended high-frequency response (compared to an SM58) could then be very useful, especially with a female voice. But all that extra boosting (or alternatively, a lack of low- and centre-mids) just makes it too much hard work to bother with it. There are better (if not perfect) mics out there for similar money.

On the other hand, with the boosted bass and upper-mids/treble, it would be worth trying it as kick drum mic, as its overall frequency response is broadly similar to an Audix D6.
I'm not going to get a chance to do that for quite a while though.

[Giggo96]

Just done my normal (by now) mic relative frequency comparison of the Stag SDM50 against my SM58. (I don't have a proper test rig, so this is just pink noise through a single monitor at roughly 6" away and equidistant from both drivers, with all the inherent frequency bumps and dips associated with such a method).

The SM58 trace is in black, the Stagg SDM50 in red. I've adjusted the levels so that they have (as close as I could get) the same relative dB value at 1kHz.


You can easily see that the Stagg's got a lot more bass-end than the SM58, and that the upper mids as well as the treble are boosted by 3-4dB compared to the SM58. The bass end will be further boosted by the proximity effect when singing/speaking right into the grille.

So you should be able to tell why the Stagg's so bassy, and with those very boosted upper mids, you aren't going to get a natural sounding voice at all. If the response was flatter from 1.5kHz upwards, then you could probably make it work with a lot of bass cut. The extended high-frequency response (compared to an SM58) could then be very useful, especially with a female voice. But all that extra boosting (or alternatively, a lack of low- and centre-mids) just makes it too much hard work to bother with it. There are better (if not perfect) mics out there for similar money.

On the other hand, with the boosted bass and upper-mids/treble, it would be worth trying it as kick drum mic, as its overall frequency response is broadly similar to an Audix D6.
I'm not going to get a chance to do that for quite a while though.

Some very insightful information and excellent work

Thanks for all the help on this topic. looking forward to trying out a few other mics in the near future!

[Wonks]

I just found my old Beta 57A and Beta 58A test files. I did them using white noise, rather than pink, and they may have been done at a slightly different distance from the monitor than the other tests I've run recently, so I can't put them up against my SM58 plot, but the main purpose here is to demonstrate just how similar the mics are. Beta 57A in black, Beta 58A in red.



The only real differences are up above 7kHz, where the 58A has slightly more treble, but in reality, it's probably just down to the manufacturing tolerances between two different capsules.

It may be that the capsules are tested and the slightly brighter ones fitted in the 58As, with the others going in the 57As, but I just don't know. As I said previously, I did try swapping the grilles over, but that didn't affect the results.

Whereas with an SM57 and SM58, although they use the same capsule, the very different grilles give very different end results (SM57 in red, SM58 in black).



Again, you need to make some allowance for manufacturing tolerances between capsules, but a lot of the differences are still down to the grilles.

So, the Beta 57A and Beta 58A are very similar sounding indeed. Which is why I question why you'd really want to pay more new for a Beta 58A when currently the Beta 57A is £20 less.

[Sam Spoons]

I have three Beta57s in my mic box, mostly used for vocals. Simple, straightforward mics that get the job done.

[OTE2020]

Very well put together & an interesting read