Several years ago, I was teaching a college audio engineering class where, for the sake of experimentation, we sat out all 17 microphones the studio had that were suitable for vocals. I had two vocalists with different vocal styles go through and sing a line on each mic, and we recorded all 34 takes. Then we did blind evaluations. One of the more expensive microphones sounded the best on the first vocalist, but it was the cheapest microphone that sounded the best on the other. When we just picked what sounded good, rather than what we might have assumed would be the best choice, we got great results. In other words, learn to use your ears. It's a timeless maxim of audio: if it sounds good, it is good.
So where does that leave us?
There are a lot of great live vocal mics, and it's hard to make recommendations. There's a reason why there are so many reasonable choices—mic “A” might sound great on one person and lousy on another, and the opposite can be true for mic “B.” It's about personal preference and finding a mic that complements the vocalist.
If you want a quick solution, buy the most common live vocal mic in the history of sound reinforcement: the Shure SM-58. It's a great mic, and you'll probably be quite happy with it. However, if you have the time (and I highly recommend you make the time), try as many different offerings as you can. You may have a vendor willing to let you demo some options; you might try renting from a production company; or you may find another church in your area willing to let you borrow some. You simply have to listen for yourself.
If you already have different mics available at your church, take a few minutes sometime to try the different ones on your vocalists. I promise you it will be a worthwhile experiment.
What makes it a “vocal” mic, anyway?
The most significant detail that sets live vocal mics apart from others are their internal windscreens (also known as pop filters). These reduce plosives, those nasty pops from p's and b's, that are so annoying. Also, unlike typical studio vocal mics, they are “front-addressed,” meaning you sing/speak into the top. This is intuitive, of course, but studio vocal mics are usually addressed from the side.
Vocal mics can work well on instruments, too. But “instrument” mics, without windscreens, can be more responsive to plosives and, therefore, may perform poorly on vocals.
You can also usually remove the grill on a vocal mic for cleaning. This is highly recommended for sanitary reasons. Consult your microphone's literature for recommendations on cleaning it and the internal filter, too.
Wired vs. wireless
I recently worked an event where the wireless coordination was very tricky. One of the ways to keep everything behaving better was to put the background vocalists on wired mics. It doesn't look as good on TV, but it meant the wireless microphones for the worship leader and pastor were more reliable. It would have been even better to go with wired mics for the worship leaders, too, but that was aesthetically unacceptable for this event.
The question you need to ask is, “Do you truly need wireless?” Wireless links aren't as reliable as wires; require batteries; usually don't sound as good as their wired counterparts; and are more expensive.
That said, perhaps you can justify going wireless and can afford to do it right. Here's what I recommend: stick with the major manufacturers that everyone knows (hint: they're probably advertising in this magazine), and aim for their mid-grade or better products. With the radio-frequency (RF) landscape constantly changing, you want the most reliable radio links you can get, and you want to have a lot of flexibility to find new frequencies in the future. Being good stewards with your resources means spending wisely, not spending the least amount of money. If the money for a quality product isn't in the budget today, it may be wiser to wait.
Using headworn or earset mics
Despite major improvements in recent years, in my experience, a headset mic usually doesn't sound as good as a handheld. Also, the singer loses the ability to easily move away from the mic to cough or talk to another musician. However, if the headsets are used as wired mics (such as with a piano player who's directing the band and singing), a foot pedal mute switch or A/B footswitch can give them some control of how or when they're heard. The A/B footswitch, in particular, can let them toggle between feeding the house and feeding just the band's ears.
Interpreting the spec sheet
One of the most important items on the specification sheet of any mic is the polar pattern. Figure one shows a comparison of five common polar patterns. Take a look at figures two through four to get a visualization of what those patterns look like around the microphone.
The omnidirectional pattern picks up in every direction. This is the most neutral-sounding and well-behaved pattern. The problem is that it picks up everything, and we usually don't want that for vocal or instrument mics (although omnidirectional pickup is often a great choice for an earset or lavalier mic).
The cardioid pattern (figure three) is the most common pattern, and behaves like we intuitively expect a microphone to behave. In other words, it only picks up what it's pointing at. This is a bit exaggerated, of course, since the coverage angle is actually quite wide (see figure one), and all microphones become omnidirectional at low frequencies. Figure four shows a super-cardioid, which rejects more from the sides than a cardioid, but with the addition of some rear pickup. Hyper- and super-cardioid are very similar.
To me, plain cardioid usually sounds smoother than the more directional “hyper” and “super” variations. However, the tighter pattern of super- and hyper-cardioid mics allows for more rejection of neighboring sounds—particularly monitor wedges (if the mics are used at typical, nearly horizontal angles). So, with the more highly directional patterns, you get better rejection of unwanted stuff and possibly less chance of feedback; a cardioid pattern, on the other hand, might sound better.
I was recently struggling with the tone from one of our vocal mics. Something in the upper-midrange frequencies didn't seem right, and EQ wasn't helping. Then, I remembered that these mics can switch between cardioid and super-cardioid patterns. It turned out it was set to super-cardioid, so I switched to cardioid. That fixed the issue. The vocal now sounded more natural.
Another time, though, I had to switch the other way. The vocal sounded fine, but the mic was picking up too much of a drum kit that was about six feet away. Switching the mic to super-cardioid cleared that up, and still sounded good on that vocalist.
Another significant difference is between dynamic and condenser elements. A dynamic element seems to provide more isolation from other sounds, but also is usually less open, airy or detailed (all subjective observations). A condenser element will often sound better on vocalists, but is more expensive and may pick up too much unwanted content around it. It may also be more sensitive to plosives and sibilance—the exaggerated high end that can come with the “s” sound. Some vocalists I work with sound better on condenser mics, and some sound better on dynamics, so it's often still a matter of preference.
The frequency response graph may help you avoid unpleasant situations, particularly if you know that a singer has an issue at a certain frequency, or your sound system has an off-axis anomaly at a frequency, where the mic might exaggerate and cause ringing. Of course, you might be able to work around those with EQ, but it may be worth avoiding in the first place.
Another piece of advice: please don't choose a microphone based solely on the frequency response graph, as it does not tell you how good it sounds. Some of the mics I've enjoyed the most in various situations had undesirable frequency response graphs. If the frequency response helps you avoid a known issue with the vocalist or sound system, or tells you of a deficiency in a frequency range that you know will be a hindrance, that's useful information. Only your ears can tell you if it actually sounds good, though.
Conclusion
There is simply no substitute for listening. So, if you can, get your hands on a range of vocal mics. Try them out. Then learn to trust your ears.
