Never even heard of it, but it could be cool to use. Omni is underrated for vocal mics, in a decent room it can be awesome. Omni on stage might be a nightmare for feedback issues tho. Intersting find Paul.

Flipping through the channels last night (which I sometimes still do on terrestrial TV), I saw an episode of Sanford and Son (Presenting the Three Degrees) where the MC at a club was using a mic that looked like that. I was pretty sure it was a Shure.

I might use an omni on stage for certain things. A close mic on a guitar amp is one possibility, or a shared snare and high hats mic. If the source is loud and close it would be no problem. To be honest, with good quality monitors and reasonable stage volume, I'd be able to use them on vocals.

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I'm happy using omni headsets, once you know what works and what doesn't - like floor wedges, for instance - but now we have lots of IEM quieter stages, and this one intrigues me - AND - it's a very visually nice mic, which many are not! If Richard Carpenter liked it, that's a good recommendation I think. I'm going to add it to my searches for interesting products here.

I got one! Same thing in long handle, for interviewing - good condition, in champagne finish. Coming from a long way away - Scandinavia!

I used to have one of those. excellent vocal mic.

Cheers Dave, I wonder why they vanished?

They were replaced by the SM63, which shares the same body and design - but is still current, although not remotely common, but radio stations and interviewer still use the long handle versions. The SM61 had an upper limit of 14K, when it took a nose dive, the 63 has a hump at 1.2K and another at 10K, and goes up to 20K. It's a bit lower output than the original 61. Even better is the guy in Norway has a couple of really nice condition 63's so I've got both on the way instead of the vintage one - They sound really nice in the crispness stakes, so I think they can be pretty useful.

Hey Paul. The 61's were the TV studio handheld for many years throughout the world!

I think they missed us in the UK - the Carpenters clips was my first view of one!

I've got 2 nearly as new 63L's just arrived and they're really great - bright and really nice. I'll post some pictures later. The SM61 hasn't arrived yet. It's coming from America.

I've done a quick test, and I really am pleased with these. I can think of plenty of things - maybe a Jeklin disk? In the test I started with a known mic - an AKG 414 set to omni, at six inches. I swapped to the SM63L. Output down a little - so I normalised the AKG, then the Shure at the same distance, then did the Shure touching my lips - with all three moninally the same peak level - you can hear the results.
 

Cool. Hardly any proximity effect. That's what I remember from the SM61 I had.

I had found a bundle of mics at an estate sale many years back and in the collection was the SM61, an SM59, an SM81, and an SM87. I bought all four for $100 cash. The SM87 worked for about two weeks and obviously had been abused and when it quit it really quit! Shorted and tried to eat my monitors. (They are condensers in case no one remembers them) The SM59 was an elegant and interesting sounding mic. I saw several TV shows in the late 80's and early 90's that had these as handheld featured singer mics but they almost had too much grill and distracted from the face doing the singing....Maybe thats why they stopped using them. The SM81 I kept for a long time and it went from me as part of an equipment swap. Since I don't remember anything in the swap except the 81, I'd say I got hosed. I think I loaned the 61 out and that was years ago so I think it lives with someone else now. The "white" color on Karen's mic was called "Suedecoat".

Suedecoat? I'll remember that one. We now have crystal covered radio mics but there are rarely any really nice looking mics - although today on ebay UK there is a red SM7B - somebody has sprayed one bright red!

Suedecoat from Shure came in a few finishes. A black...Tan...off white....a couple others I can't remember....which doesn't surprise me these days....That finish took all the shine off the mic....made it "organic" and "Neutral" to the cameras.

The SM61 has arrived and it's great. It needs a new piece of foam - it disintegrated when I gave it a covid clean! It's actually very similar to the 63, but larger. Same plastic mesh grill. Sound wise it is rather nice - it clearly follows the original spec - the top end starts to dive earlier than the 63, but that's actually quite nice on vocals. It's the same champagne finish as the 63s, and for the age, remarkably unmarked. It's nice to find new useful mics for the mic box, and the 61 and 63 appear to be mics I just never noticed or considered. I can understand why the Carpenters liked this mic - it looks good and works for female, low voices. If you see any for sale for sensible prices, snap them up! I've never bought a mic from the States before and the process worked really well!

Congrats on your "new" toy.

Love to see a pic, please share :)

Here you go. Just needs a bit of foam.

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Wow, beautiful condition!

I'm going to make a Jeklin disc - I'm sure I have some old thick acoustic tiles somewhere and I've always fancied having a go, so a couple of omni with decent frequency response should be interesting. 3 mics stands is a bit excessive but I have plenty - so one for the disk, then one each side for the mics. I've never used one, but I'll try it on the first acoustic concert when covid finishes.

I use SM7B, it's a miracle microphone

I have one too - hate it! One of my friends has had it now for three months and I do not miss it at all. That's why microphones are the male version of perfume - what one person likes is horrible to somebody else. Too personal. I'm content people liking SM7B's but miracle is pushing it a bit far for me.

I used a SM7B doing a radioshow for three years. For narration I found it OK, would not use it for anything else. BTW: I'm not doing that radioshow anymore......

I use it to stream..

The sm7b is one of the most widely used dynamic mics around. Both on records and broadcast.

I think of it as an sm7 on steroids.

My philosophy is it might not be the best mic for a voice, but is never the worst. To me it's about as close as it gets to "safe" or universal for a vocal mic.

OK - so I start a topic about an omni handheld, pretty microphone I spotted Karen Carpenter using, that when I get it is bright and crispy and has no proximity effect, and we end up on a Shure SM7B. It's not exactly hand held, it certainly would look pretty silly on stage and the tone in close is not remotely crisp and clean, but warm and cosy. Other than that ....................

We got the 57 or 58 for stage. Id be intersted in what, if anything the sm7b or other sure mics have in common with the 61 from a parts/design perspective.

The capsule is only open on the front end and looks very different from the 57/8 which has the rear vent for pressure gradient - much slimmer handle. I'll open a 58 up and show the difference if you like? Hang on.

Here’s the inside of a Beta58 and the SM61 for comparison.

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Interesting, i don't know enough to be able to tell anything useful, but its fun to look at the innards of gear.

My SM7b has become relegated (if you will) to the two uses I find it best at and that is as a large floor tom mic and a cabinet mic on my mid-60s Ampeg B15 amp. I suppose if I was doing a lot of gravel throated screamers I could see where it might be handy. I have used it as an off the floor guide vocal track with everyone in the same room and it works for that. It does have that Shure stamp on its sound no doubt. The space created by the inner grill works keeps it from being overly proximity'd so theres that.

Miracle? Maybe not.

miyaru wrote: I used a SM7B doing a radioshow for three years. For narration I found it OK, would not use it for anything else. BTW: I'm not doing that radioshow anymore......

Hey miyaru thats cool! If you don't mind me asking... what was the show about?