| Home recording and general music post from the archived Yabb Recording Website Message Board. Some of the info here may be outdated but many of the audio recording and home studio tips are still good. Note: The only tags I made and attempt to convert are italics, bold, center and underline. So if you see some gibberish surrounded by brackets, just ignore it.
Recording Website Archived Yabb board Post
Febuary 2001 Yabb Message Board Archive
Subject: Vocal Mic (SM57 or SM58) for Voice-over questions.
by Munro | 02/23/01 at 22:29:05
Hi,
Me and some friends of mine in college are making a cartoon/animation and are trying to decide whether to buy Shure SM57 or Shure SM58 for doing voice-overs. The reason for not choosing a large-diaphragm studio mic is that we're on a budget and don't have a sound-proof environment like a studio. It'll all be done in a small apartment with computer, so a large-diaphragm mic would probably pick up too much noise from the computer itself and occassional traffic outside. Hence, the choice came down to those two mics by Shure and probably some sort of cheap mic preamp with proper cables and adapters for hooking it up to a sound card. I've searched some topics on a few forums and found one that deals with a choice between SM57 and SM58 with responses that the only difference is a pop screen/filter on SM58. However, I remember reading some reviews that said that SM58 also has a bass proximity effect unlike SM57. Can someone confirm if this is true? Would it be better to have a mic with bass proximity effect for doing voice-overs or the one without for a dryer sound? All our voices are pretty young and aren't deep, by the way. Some will be kept as they are, some will have reverb, flanger and pitch shift added later, so I'm not sure whether in some instances a bass proximity effect will be needed or if a recording without it is preferred for such applications. If SM57 and SM58 are, indeed, the same mics with the only difference being a pop screen/filter, then will SM58 still sound decent and umuffled if another external pop filter will be used? If they're the same then I would probably go for SM57 and use a soft foam windscreen if needed. However, if the bass proximity effect is necessary for voice-overs then I'll have to go with SM58. Thank you for taking your time to read this and your responses are, of course, appreciated.
Munro
Subject: Re: Vocal Mic (SM57 or SM58) for Voice-over questi
by Ice Pick Slim | 02/24/01 at 10:27:13
From what I understand the bass proximity thing is a difference, but if you look at their stat sheets the SM57 (instrument mic) has a slightly larger frequency range, where as the SM58 having been designed specifically for vocals has a slightly different frequency range that it picks up, but in reality I've used both (on accoustic bass) and they sound basically the same, so I'd say go with the 57, it is about $20 cheaper and I find I get a more consistant sound no matter where I place the mic, with the 58 the closer it gets to the origin of the sound the more bassy it sounds, which can be tough if your doing work for multiple days and cant leave the mic set up so they get moved and might sound a hair different the next day.