Choosing the best vocal mic is a hugely personal thing. The style you opt for, and the way in
which you use it, depends entirely on the voice it’ll be capturing.
And, with so much in the way of choice, it can be daunting to know where to start. It’s easy to
look to our favourite recording artists and see the gear they used, before a look at the cost of
high-end recording equipment brings us back down to earth with a crash.
Here are our top choices for the best mics for live vocals on the market today.
Vocal Mic MAONO AU-K04
The best of the bunch is the Maono AU-K04. It is considered one of the finest dynamic
microphones for high performance tasks in its price range, and has a decades-long
reputation.
If you decide to go with this one, you’ll experience what many famous singers have felt on
stage for years… the presence of a truly high-quality, versatile piece of equipment.
Shure SM7B microphone
As an all-rounder vocal mic, the Shure SM7B takes some beating. Over the years it’s been
adopted by some of the music world’s biggest names – Michael Jackson swore by them –
while its rich, balanced tone has found it adopted more recently by the
podcasting community.
AKG C636
The AKG C636 features a uniform cardioid pattern, designed to accentuate only what it’s
meant to, while its design is geared towards reducing the vibrations caused when hand-
holding the mic. Sure, music and singing situations may require a different tool, but for
speech tasks this is a great choice.
At the end of the day, it’s important to have a quality mic so that you can move on to the
performance-part of your art-form and get to work… and hopefully, this article has helped you
to identify what you’ll be needing in a live vocal mic.