Tracing the legacy of the legendary mic manufacturers.
Whether you are aware of it or not, you are already extremely familiar with Shure Microphones.
Don’t believe me? Try this simple experiment. Close your eyes and imagine a microphone being held on stage by your favourite singer. Is the microphone they are holding black with a silver dust cap? That’s a Shure. Perhaps you are of a particular vintage and your mind immediately defaulted to something chrome and classic and unmistakenly of the jazz/rockabilly aesthetic? That’s also a Shure. Perhaps music isn’t your thing at all (weirdo) and you are more into ‘content’? I’m willing to bet that’s also a Shure dangling in front of your favourite podcaster/YouTuber/talking head of choice.
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Like the microphone equivalent of the YKK zipper, you are most likely engaging with Shure’s products on a daily basis without even realising it – the iconic silhouettes of their most famous releases being permanently etched in your mind’s eye, even if you aren’t immediately able to identify them by name.
This is a remarkable phenomenon and one that is unique to Shure, but actually makes a tonne of sense when we consider the significant role that popular culture, entertainment, and communication continue to play in our day-to-day lives.
These important events need to be captured and collated at both an auditory and visual level. This inevitably requires sound equipment, some of which cannot always be neatly tucked away off-camera. Before you know it, the microphone in the foreground becomes an important component of the final shot composition, a functional accessory to the culturally significant happening being documented therein. For a brand like Shure, who have released a plethora of bonafide industry standards across their almost-100-year history, this kind of organic, incidental product placement has given their microphones a level of visibility far beyond that of your typical mic manufacturer.
Roger Daltrey swinging a mic overhead, that’s a Shure SM58. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, that’s a Shure Model 55S. Elon Musk smoking weed with Joe Rogan, that’s a Shure SM7B in the foreground. Woodstock? That’s a dozen or so Shure 565s. Michael Jackon’s ‘Thriller’, that’s a Shure SM7B. Elvis Presley? Model 55S again, same goes for James Brown, Chuck Berry, and Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam.
Bono is often seen singing into a Shure SM57, a mic originally intended for TV Studios, but which has since grown to become undoubtedly the most recorded microphone in music history, simply by virtue of its unrivalled popularity as a snare and guitar amp microphone. Chances are, you have already heard multiple instruments recorded on an SM57 today on your commute to work, such is their omnipresence in the space.
However, if there was one microphone in Shure’s enviable back catalogue that stands out from the rest, it would have to be the SM58, which is, for all intents and purposes, the highest-selling and most instantly recognisable microphone of all time.
You have almost definitely used a Shure SM58 at some point in your life, be it at a karaoke bar, a school assembly, at a wedding, in a sweaty rehearsal room, or on a live stage. They are the dictionary definition of industry standard for all of the above applications, boasting a market share that is almost laughable in its dominance.
Originally introduced in 1966 as the sister mic to the SM57, the SM58 continued Shure’s successful work integrating their Unidyne III capsule into a series of end-address microphones, which when held, would help minimise crowd noise, feedback, and various other undesirable elements from entering the captured audio.
While originally intended for TV presenters (the SM standing for studio microphone, as in TV studio), this proved particularly handy for singers in large-scale concert and touring environments, at a time when sound reinforcement was still in its infancy and the live music sector was making the transition into the highly organised, booming industry we see today.
These sonic characteristics, combined with the SM58’s bombproof construction and relative consistency from one unit to the next made it an instant hit when placed in the hands of live engineers and front-of-house operators. Fast forward to today, and most singers would have little onstage experience singing into anything else.
Beyond the fifty-plus years of market dominance, it’s the iconic replaceable silver grille that has no doubt contributed to the microphone’s success, serving the dual purpose of both looking cool, while also protecting the sensitive capsule from plosives and wind noise at outdoor venues.
The fact that they are replaceable is also a favoured feature among the touring community, and a quick switch out can give a beaten up SM58 a second lease on life in a matter of seconds. For many touring bands, it’s not uncommon to pack six SM58s and 12 replacement grilles, for a particularly arduous touring schedule.
While the SM58 is an incredible-sounding microphone, especially for the price point, it is this aforementioned durability that has no doubt strongly contributed to the reverence that surrounds this mic.
Their legendary ruggedness has reached meme-worthy standards in the internet age, with YouTube being awash with videos of people flushing them down toilets, throwing them in the ocean, cooking them on barbecues, and driving over them with cars to show they still work.
In a publicity stunt, Shure themselves even dropped one from a helicopter at 200ft. Yep, that happened and it still worked. This kind of durability is why one is likely to find 58s still in commission at pubs, some 20 years from their initial purchase date, still sounding as good as their first day out of the box (although looking rather worse for wear it must be said).
There are even a couple of SM58s onboard the international space station, their ruggedness making them the perfect mic for banging against the station control room at zero gravity.
Perhaps one of Shure’s greatest contributions to the broader microphone space is the way in which the ubiquity and accessibility of their products lends itself to applications far beyond their initial intent.
In India, the unique sonic profile of the SM58, on paper a vocal microphone, has become so closely associated with traditional percussion instruments like the Tabla and Dholak, that most Indian wedding bands simply refuse to use anything else. The sound of the SM58 on these instruments has come to define that instrument’s sonic fingerprint when amplified, much in the same way that certain guitar amplifiers and pickups are commonly associated with particular tonalities and genres.
Another Shure mic, the SM7B, a giant killer from the days of commercial studios, has somehow managed to pull off the neat trick of gaining iconic status across three separate eras in three completely different fields (most recently becoming the podcast mic to which all other podcast mics are judged).
As well as being the current industry-standard voiceover and podcast microphone, the SM7B has also been a key player in the digital music boom of the post 2000s – its ability to counteract untreated spaces and poor mic technique serving as a perfect foray into studio-quality sound for the layperson. This ability to withstand loud performances at close range has also seen it become the de facto microphone of choice for countless metal vocalists and Soundcloud rappers worldwide.
As the years have passed and the world has continued to change, the brand has continued to grow and refine their scope, carrying on their trusted broadcast and live lineage and translating it into the world of digital media and content creation.
Recent USB mics like the MV5 and MV51 have not only successfully carried on the brand’s stellar reputation for bombproof ruggedness and impressive sound quality, but they have done so while employing the same stylish retro-futurist aesthetic that made the Model 55 and Green Bullet so instantly recognisable all those years ago. The result is some of the best-looking and best-performing mics of anything in the USB era.
The brand has even moved into visuals with products like the Shure MV88+ Video Kit providing all-in-one audio/video recording solutions, capable of turning your smartphone into a professional-quality video rig at a moment’s notice.
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Products like the MV88, Aonic headphone series, and the free ShurePlus MOTIV apps also show a company very much committed to staying on the cutting edge of the content movement – all super-versatile smartphone/lightning/USB-C adjacent products that belie a thorough understanding of the technical demands of the burgeoning podcast/live streaming/vlogging crowd.
The latest generation of Shure products also share the brand’s uncanny knack for providing professional solutions that very quickly transcend the professional crowd, capturing the imagination of the first-timer and opening the doorway for a whole new generation of audio enthusiasts, much in the same way that the SM58 and SM57 had done in the decades prior.
Icons come in many shapes and sizes but the one thing they usually have in common is that we can almost always identify them by name. This flies in direct contrast to the technician’s code of conduct, to be heard and not seen, to hide away in the wings and keep the emphasis on the talent.
Despite the subtlety of their products, the overwhelming popularity and sustained excellence in the field exhibited by Shure’s most famous microphones have allowed them to transcend the anonymity of their utilitarian roots, becoming icons in their own right.
Like the omnipresent fly on the wall, they have been there for almost every significant political and cultural event since the advent of recorded sound, a common thread among the wellspring of pop cultural bric-a-brac we consume on a daily basis. The next time you chuck on the TV, look at a historical photograph, watch a live performance, or watch the video feed of a podcast, stop and have a look at the microphone. Now that you can identify them, you’ll never be able to unsee it.
Anyone in the market for a mic will be pleased to hear that Jands (Shure’s Australian affiliate and themselves an icon in the AU Live sound space) are currently running the Shure Instant savings promotion, which includes the SM57, SM58, SM7B and a whole host of other awesome content creation and recording peripherals. Check in with your local Audio or Musical Instrument store today and grab yourself a piece of history.
This article was made in partnership with Jands.
