Karaoke Forums

Just went to a show in South Florida tonight, one I had been to before. Everything seemed to be the same. I was looking forward to singing, and thought I knew that they had good mikes for me, SM-58s which I had used there before.

The host handed me a VocoPro wireless mic I had never seen before, one with a silver/chrome basket. I thought -- wow, maybe VocoPro has finally made something pro quality.

Wrong! It was *terrible*. And not only that, after I sang I asked if she still had the SM-58s laying around so I could use one. Nope -- totally gone for four of these extremely poor VocoAmateur mikes.

If you are going to switch to wireless, and insist on choosing something schlocky like that stuff, why would you totally eliminate your good mics? Do people think that no one will notice?

It isn't maybe so noticable for tenors and above, but if you have a deep baritone like I do you can't be holding the mic a foot away.  You have to be right up on it to get anything decent sounding at all. Those cheap crappy mics just are unusable for my voice, and they make everyone sound worse than they are.

And last week I tried another show where the host  spent $2500 on the Bose L2 system, had a Mackie mixer, three Pioneer triple-trays, had ripped all of his Pioneer Laser Disks to video,  and used the cheapest sort of Nady mics! They sounded awful -- so bad I simply won't go back.

What are they thinking? The one guy was a terrible singer, so it may be that he can't hear or doesn't know the difference. But the first women has been around the block and sings well -- I don't get it.

A lot of wireless mics, especially the cheaper ones, tend to not respond very well to lower notes. I use both wired and unwired, and let the singer choose his poison.....wireless mics also don't pick up too well, when held to far from the mouth, but they do tend to minimize feedback

Saw that same model of VocoPro mike at a show tonight in South Florida. It is pretty bad, though this host seemed to have it eq'ed a bit better.

This wireless-only trend, because few hosts seem to want to step up to the plate and spend the $500 or more it takes to get at least one topnotch mike. I could see having your extra mikes be schlock, but not the main one.

It's too bad those VocoPro mikes were crappy. I've had good luck with their products in general and would have thought they were okay. Are you sure they had the mike set up correctly? Most times you can't just "plug and go" with wireless.

I use Audio Technica wireless mics and have a head set that I wear. They are fabulous sound and tough as hell. My main hand mike has been dropped numerous times over the 4+ years I've had it, and it still sounds great...my only complaint is I wish the batteries would last longer.

When you have sang on a 58 for a long time and without thinking continually move it then a cheap mic is frustrating ( One example is I sometimes hold it above the mouth to rid of lisp) I have actually quit in the middle of the first song and didnt go back. Other than the shure wireless the only other one I liked I think was the AudioTechnica..

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the audio technica freeway series are pretty good for inexpensive mics.  it's what i use for wireless.  ( i have a wireless sure that i use exclusively for myself, but it's a $400 mic that i refuse to let others destroy!)  the audio technicas are rugged and can handle several drops.  the receiver on the other hand is a bit fragile and need to be handled with care.  you can pick them up at radio shack for aroun $100

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