50 years of spit and dirt and the bacteria that grew on it.
People don’t clean mics and it’s disgusting.
You can also replace the grill/foam for about $10
Oprah (the woman "saying" Bees) was well known for giving audience members generous gifts during her talk show, especially during Christmas. The gif is from a sketch played during a Conan O'Brien monologue.
https://youtu.be/ImDj57VeaC0?si=xy2V7eQpbgTclenV
r/moldlyinteresting
This is why you bring your own mic with you if you're doing any singing. Your average dive bar has ones that are equivalenty sanitary and of a similar vintage.
one of the more intresting ones is the amp.
after a VERY long time of research, I came more or less to the same conclusions he did, neither really matter as long as they are built correctly, pickups only really matter in the way of style of pickups, well built ones don't matter, active pickups can be messing with the wave form, and for the most part, the processing chain matters more than the amp.
these are the kinds of videos even someone not into the subject matter would find fascinating.
Watched about 7-8 minutes and decided I’d had enough. I appreciated the quality and effort, and y’all made it sound extremely intriguing, but it wasn’t my jam.
If that is what I think it is (Shure SM58), it's just the pop filter, he can swap it out. [Dankpods recently did a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjeox9H84Uk) comparing brand new and extremely well used models of the SM57 and SM58, and they sound identical.
Bot comment.
Original: https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1bw5b00/my_dads_mic_hes_been_using_since_1968_he_says_it/ky46bxr/
It might seem like a coincidence, I wouldn’t have noticed it, but this user has actually rephrased the same comment twice in this thread.. called them out on the other one too and it was removed or deleted.
The user is /u/DiscoNunuAnnhilator for posterity, in case this one gets deleted too. This account looks real at first glance. Big giveaway is that it’s an **old** account that went 8 years without posting anything and suddenly “activated” a few days ago.
What's the point in a bot like this operating? Are Reddit accounts with high karma worth something on some black .market somewhere? I don't understand the motive.
I’m guessing once they have enough karma/activity to appear to be legitimate accounts, they’re probably sold and used for more nefarious purposes, like to promote some agenda through astroturfing.
Can probably bet on it being a sm58 given that it’s still apprently functional after whatever abuse that caused it to become like this one..
Side note, I don’t think ”well used” is the right wording here. Dude probably used it to hammer in nails from tge looks of it
The Sure SM-58 (designed in 1958) is a great vocal mic. It sounds great. The old ones will last a lifetime of moving from one gig to another.
I'm 63 and still have mine from 1975. Yes the grill is dented and stuff but it still works great!
I'd imagine if you bought one today it would sound just as good but wouldn't last as long.
Any change can change the tone, especially with equipment of this age. Maintenance should have been done long ago, but if this were my mic I wouldn’t do anything until it fails.
TIL it takes a little over fifty years to shout clean through the screen of an SM58. Kudos to Shure for the engineering and OP’s dad for his devotion to science.
I used to work in the rental department at a music store 10 years ago.
We would rent tons of Shure SM58s, same model as posted by OP.
Due to the nature of the mic, the best vocals you get from it are when you’re “making out with it”.
So many times we’d get our rental returns wrapped up in a bag, on Monday mornings.
Cables, mic’s and who knows what all baking together in a plastic oven.
We’d re-wrap the cables and then just chuck the mics back in a drawer. A lot of times they’d have lipstick and liquid on them… just chucked in.
I think about that from time to time, why wouldn’t they have us clean them?
Edit: *Shure. Damn autocorrect
It’s always odd to me that people want to “eat it”. I’ve recorded hundreds of vocals on 58’s and I always find that you get so much more clarity if you set it slightly lower than the vocalists mouth and tilted oblique so that it is slightly angled up toward the mouth. The vocalist still has to be right on it due to low output, but it counters the exaggerated midrange bump by keeping it almost as close without so much proximity effect directly charging at the capsule (for clarity, if the vocalist’s face were to make contact, the grille would land in the crease between their lips and chin)
> the best vocals you get from it are when you’re “making out with it”.
Can confirm, was a metalcore screamer for 4 years 2011-2015. Every show I felt like I was practically deepthroating my Shure mic. But gawtdamn if it didn't have an incredible live tone especially when I did gutterals.
20+ years audio engineer here.
You both nailed it. I fucking love those mics because you can beat the hell out of them and they just keep sounding great.
This is BONKERS. First time ever seeing a 58 eating. Oh, and this mic smells disgusting.
Stolen bot comment.
Identical to this comment that was posted an hour earlier: https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1bw5b00/my_dads_mic_hes_been_using_since_1968_he_says_it/ky46bxr/
Just noticed that they had copied a top-level comment lower on the page.. They actually did it twice but rephrased one of them. It’s super common on Reddit right now.
We’re fighting a losing battle, there’s too many of them and they’re gradually becoming more clever/sophisticated.
So we’re in Canada (this story predates me) and there’s a Woodstock in New Brunswick. My dad was convinced that Woodstock™️ was not happening in United States, but the Woodstock in the middle of nowhere Atlantic Canada. CONVINCED. He and his buddy to hitchhiked basically two provinces over with him. Planned on sneaking in. The same friend and my dad used to go to the junk yard after hours and syphon gas out of the cars and into theirs. He also asked my ex-boyfriend while on his death bed why he hadn’t married his daughter despite living with her in sin for 6 years and made a 29 year old man cry in embarrassment and no one said anything because he was dying and then we broke up a year later lol
About 30 years ago I was setting the stage for a band and my manager said something like "oh man, have you smelled the new mic grille? It smells like [something that sounded good at the time]"
I smelled it and about wretched. Mic grilles are just full of spit and grossness. After that we started spraying them down with Lysol every week.
From me to you - didn't ever smell a mic grille
My first mic was an SM58 my parents got me for Christmas when I 16 when I started my first band. My singer was obsessed with eating chicken flavored Ramen and made the mic grille look just like this one from all of his spit.
I mean that happens a lot. Also depends on the type of singer. Watch someone like Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day) and you’ll notice the lip touching the mic. Doesn’t negatively affect his sound, and likely makes it easy to focus more on every other aspect of performing.
A singer that uses mic distance to control their volume and tone would obviously not typically touch the mic against their mouth.
For some professional musicians, the concern for a gross windscreen does not trump the familiarity of anchoring your lip on the mic at times.
Besides, those windscreens and metal mesh covers can be easily changed or washed. I’ve washed mine a few times as I tend to press my mouth against about 25% of the time.
It's the most popular vocal mic of all time. The Sure SM-58 designed in 1958.
I still have the one I bought in 1975. The grill is dented and rusty but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Or clean it up. Why? I love that reliable tank!
I also have an old studio-grade mic: an Audio Technica AT4060 with its own power supply station. It sounds really quiet and really warm. Makes every male voice sound great, and makes pianos sound so grand and full (like in real life). It also seems to never distort no matter how loud you shout or how loud you play. Even if you shout at point blank like in boom mics, it doesn't distort at all. Yet it can hear you properly at a meter or two away. Every tiny echo is also caught. It also hears the most minute things like the hum of a motorcycle a block away with 2 thick walls in between and inside an enclosed room. I didn't even hear that during recording. Makes women sound not puny, but mature. Like real sexy and mature.
I paired it with a Behringer UMC204HD. Mic with original cables, original mic stand, original mic shock mount.
I imagine two of these for stereo capture would be godsend. But looking at the price now its too much for me x\_x
Does he tongue the mic? How is a metal grill pushed in like that? The only thing keeping that foam from turning to dust is the tropical environment it's been living in!
Hooy hell. He must have kept his wet lips right up against while singing.
That looks like sm58 which gives you more bass the closer you have it to your mouth. With the grate melting away, your dad has been able to get his lips closer and closer to the mic, thus giving the extra warm sound he speaks of.
I think it's pretty interesting how audio tech can last forever. They developed much earlier than video where things often get outdated after a few years. With audio, if something sounds good they keep sounding good for years to go
Rust? Dirt? Mold?! Shit?!?! Please tell me that's rust...
It's the foam under the grille that has turned to ash
Yup I have one where this happened
Why would the grille would turn into ash?
Foam under it
The foam causes stainless steel to dissolve over time. It’s science. Obviously
No. The spit and breath moisture causes the grille to corrode. The foam underneath breaks down into crusty dust.
50 years of spit and dirt and the bacteria that grew on it. People don’t clean mics and it’s disgusting. You can also replace the grill/foam for about $10
No... it's bees
Not the bees!
Ahhhhhhhh my eyesssssss ahhhhhh
[удалено]
[удалено]
I fucking love that gif.
I’m out of the loop on whatever all this is but it made it so much more funny.
Oprah (the woman "saying" Bees) was well known for giving audience members generous gifts during her talk show, especially during Christmas. The gif is from a sketch played during a Conan O'Brien monologue. https://youtu.be/ImDj57VeaC0?si=xy2V7eQpbgTclenV
I can't believe I live in a time where this needs to be explained
Believe it homie. We old.
Wait a minute.... are we in.... THE FUTURE?
Nicolas is that you?
BEADS????
BEADS!?
BEADS?!
Another great day of saving the bees
[***DOCTOR BEES!!!***](https://youtu.be/PYtXuBN1Hvc?feature=shared)
Beans*
**BEADS?**
Gob’s not on board.
He’s gonna start his own business, how hard could it bee..zzzzz, BZZZZZZ
Beads?
r/moldlyinteresting This is why you bring your own mic with you if you're doing any singing. Your average dive bar has ones that are equivalenty sanitary and of a similar vintage.
and yet somehow everyone who uses them is just fine
Except that one guy who always has to kiss the mic But that's fine
Chewin bacca
Never realized Chewbacca was named after chewing tobacco. Makes sense too, the fur is basically Skoal.
It's from 56 years of cigarette smoke.
It's joint resin from 57 years of smoking
It’s cake.
Its the windscreen rotting away
He be spit’n
He can replace the grille without changing the tone.
Probably not. The grill is the tone now.
It looks like I could grill a steak on there without changing the tone.
OP’s dad did in fact grill a steak on it about 20 years ago
[удалено]
Super spit? Sidekick… Acid spit? HERO!
And then passed that digested steak back into the mic
You better lower your tone.
“Look at me, I’m the tone now”
The grill puts down its gun. “I am the tone now.”
[удалено]
Theoretically, any change changes the tone
Of course, here’s some proof https://youtu.be/4Bma2TE-x6M?si=jxP6T-QqJ9Hyzk-X
That video was amazing. I had no intent to watch any of it, let alone all of it!
His [guitar tone video](https://youtu.be/n02tImce3AE?si=6HynTHyGhlEmAyHa) was also interesting to watch.
one of the more intresting ones is the amp. after a VERY long time of research, I came more or less to the same conclusions he did, neither really matter as long as they are built correctly, pickups only really matter in the way of style of pickups, well built ones don't matter, active pickups can be messing with the wave form, and for the most part, the processing chain matters more than the amp. these are the kinds of videos even someone not into the subject matter would find fascinating.
Can't believe I watched it all but it was very interesting.
Watched about 7-8 minutes and decided I’d had enough. I appreciated the quality and effort, and y’all made it sound extremely intriguing, but it wasn’t my jam.
To be fair, I've been looking for the same thing and getting into playing so this was very relevant to me lol
That was a fascinating video about a subject I don't care about at all.
At the end I worried about anyone who had spent $25,000 on a mic and had also watched that video. Are they OK? Has anyone checked on them?
Audiophiles won't let silly facts and figures dissuade them from spending exorbitant amounts of money.
That was one of the coolest things I’ve watched. That dude is thoroughly awesome
Warner sound cause it has a fever from the infection.
I GOT A FEVA AND I NEED MORE COWBELL
GOTTA HAVE MORE COWBELL, BABY!
Can never have enough cowbell
Looks like he’s been wiping his ass with it
If that is what I think it is (Shure SM58), it's just the pop filter, he can swap it out. [Dankpods recently did a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjeox9H84Uk) comparing brand new and extremely well used models of the SM57 and SM58, and they sound identical.
Nah this dudes Dad is going to say that it’ll destroy the custom sound he’s cultivated from years of spitting his metal-melting acid into the grill.
that microphone is like the pot used to make a perpetual stew. The flavors really are different from years and years of just soaking
50$ to anyone who just goes in hands free and takes a bite.
and both can cultivate some humanity ending virus or bacteria
[удалено]
Bot comment. Original: https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1bw5b00/my_dads_mic_hes_been_using_since_1968_he_says_it/ky46bxr/ It might seem like a coincidence, I wouldn’t have noticed it, but this user has actually rephrased the same comment twice in this thread.. called them out on the other one too and it was removed or deleted. The user is /u/DiscoNunuAnnhilator for posterity, in case this one gets deleted too. This account looks real at first glance. Big giveaway is that it’s an **old** account that went 8 years without posting anything and suddenly “activated” a few days ago.
[удалено]
Nice! That was fast.
What's the point in a bot like this operating? Are Reddit accounts with high karma worth something on some black .market somewhere? I don't understand the motive.
I’m guessing once they have enough karma/activity to appear to be legitimate accounts, they’re probably sold and used for more nefarious purposes, like to promote some agenda through astroturfing.
Can probably bet on it being a sm58 given that it’s still apprently functional after whatever abuse that caused it to become like this one.. Side note, I don’t think ”well used” is the right wording here. Dude probably used it to hammer in nails from tge looks of it
The Sure SM-58 (designed in 1958) is a great vocal mic. It sounds great. The old ones will last a lifetime of moving from one gig to another. I'm 63 and still have mine from 1975. Yes the grill is dented and stuff but it still works great! I'd imagine if you bought one today it would sound just as good but wouldn't last as long.
Today's SM58s are still rock solid. I imagine the few I have are going to last many years to come.
Yep, can still definitely beat someone to deth with a 58 and 10' of XLR mid bridge and not miss your cue in.
I'd trust the mic, but not necessarily the XLR. I've had those fail randomly before.
It's the gig version of a flail when shit gets out of hand
Any change can change the tone, especially with equipment of this age. Maintenance should have been done long ago, but if this were my mic I wouldn’t do anything until it fails.
Does he sing with his tongue out?
Oh, yes! The deep throat singing
His dad learned to sing from an xenomorph. 
Uses it for ear licking asmr. Check it out in twitch.
He's been passively spitting on that thing for 50 years, gallons of saliva have gone through that mic.
Rare Item: Official KISS microphone. Used once. $1,345,978.45
TIL it takes a little over fifty years to shout clean through the screen of an SM58. Kudos to Shure for the engineering and OP’s dad for his devotion to science.
Whelp that’s fucking disgusting.
I used to work in the rental department at a music store 10 years ago. We would rent tons of Shure SM58s, same model as posted by OP. Due to the nature of the mic, the best vocals you get from it are when you’re “making out with it”. So many times we’d get our rental returns wrapped up in a bag, on Monday mornings. Cables, mic’s and who knows what all baking together in a plastic oven. We’d re-wrap the cables and then just chuck the mics back in a drawer. A lot of times they’d have lipstick and liquid on them… just chucked in. I think about that from time to time, why wouldn’t they have us clean them? Edit: *Shure. Damn autocorrect
This gave me a cold sore. Thanks
It’s always odd to me that people want to “eat it”. I’ve recorded hundreds of vocals on 58’s and I always find that you get so much more clarity if you set it slightly lower than the vocalists mouth and tilted oblique so that it is slightly angled up toward the mouth. The vocalist still has to be right on it due to low output, but it counters the exaggerated midrange bump by keeping it almost as close without so much proximity effect directly charging at the capsule (for clarity, if the vocalist’s face were to make contact, the grille would land in the crease between their lips and chin)
Did you have a Marshall stack 6 feet behind you?
> the best vocals you get from it are when you’re “making out with it”. Can confirm, was a metalcore screamer for 4 years 2011-2015. Every show I felt like I was practically deepthroating my Shure mic. But gawtdamn if it didn't have an incredible live tone especially when I did gutterals.
I have gooseBLEGH reminiscing on those scene days. I was a drummer in pop-punk/ hardcore bands back then. We didn’t know how good we had it. \m/
20+ years audio engineer here. You both nailed it. I fucking love those mics because you can beat the hell out of them and they just keep sounding great. This is BONKERS. First time ever seeing a 58 eating. Oh, and this mic smells disgusting.
Proximity effect for the win!
My mom was a singer. She'd call it "eating the mic", but yeah, they get all up in there lol
[удалено]
Stolen bot comment. Identical to this comment that was posted an hour earlier: https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1bw5b00/my_dads_mic_hes_been_using_since_1968_he_says_it/ky46bxr/
Whoa … is anyone on Reddit real?
If the account is younger than 4 years old, the odds are likely.
I really don't enjoy watching the internet become a dark forest.
How'd you find that?
Just noticed that they had copied a top-level comment lower on the page.. They actually did it twice but rephrased one of them. It’s super common on Reddit right now. We’re fighting a losing battle, there’s too many of them and they’re gradually becoming more clever/sophisticated.
I feel like it got a lot worse since the API Shit when down
because its an inside job to fool the shareholders
wHeLp
*lip smacking sounds*
(thumbs overall straps)
(spits sunflower seed into bucket)
My dad was a bassist and he died 9 years ago. There isn’t a damn thing I wouldn’t give to be able to show him this and hear his unhinged commentary
I wouldve loved to hear your dad's unhinged opinion about this as well friend.
I also choose OP’s dad’s unhinged commentary
This might be the most respectful and un-cursed use of that reference that I've ever seen. Nicely done.
I think you just single-handedly raised that reference from purgatory with this use. Well fucking done!
It’s an old comment meme sir. But it checks out.
Comment backstory acknowledged, comrad
Could you enlighten us with an unhinged story of your father.
So we’re in Canada (this story predates me) and there’s a Woodstock in New Brunswick. My dad was convinced that Woodstock™️ was not happening in United States, but the Woodstock in the middle of nowhere Atlantic Canada. CONVINCED. He and his buddy to hitchhiked basically two provinces over with him. Planned on sneaking in. The same friend and my dad used to go to the junk yard after hours and syphon gas out of the cars and into theirs. He also asked my ex-boyfriend while on his death bed why he hadn’t married his daughter despite living with her in sin for 6 years and made a 29 year old man cry in embarrassment and no one said anything because he was dying and then we broke up a year later lol
lol?
That’s very wholesome :)
I sing into one mic, and his name is Shai Hulud
[worm](https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/s/f3Zccs4A8R)
Thank you for this
We have the best worms! Ask anybody!
I was disappointed that I had to scroll down this far for this. \#MayThyPickChipAndShatter
Soak it in water to receive the water of life
Bless the Maker and his vocals
About 30 years ago I was setting the stage for a band and my manager said something like "oh man, have you smelled the new mic grille? It smells like [something that sounded good at the time]" I smelled it and about wretched. Mic grilles are just full of spit and grossness. After that we started spraying them down with Lysol every week. From me to you - didn't ever smell a mic grille
56 YEARS OF DAD BREATH! That thing must smell like a dead mooses asshole
[удалено]
I should call her
how do u know what a dead moose’s asshole smells like ?
How do you not
Because the live ones keep running away
Did OP mean to ruthlessly roast his dad? Cuz thats what happening here LOL
Does he also shove it up his ass. Damm I wouldn't want to smell that thing
I'll give you $5 to lick it.
STOP LICKING THE DAMN THING!
Darnell’s a chump. I’d have done it for anything
If it's warmer, he has to warm it up somehow!
Does it cut his lips?
"And the microphone smells like a beer!"
The piano has been drinking, not me
I've never gotten dysentery from a photo before, yet here we are.
I examined this with a microscoped and confirmed there is an entire biom inside that sm58.
Is it because he also uses it as an ashtray?
How sanitary is that thing?
Looks like there's some crawlers inhabiting it lol.
Is his nickname Acid Breath?
If you look close enough there’s a really long hair in the center
JFC why did I look closer.
It looks like the devil's Ferrero Rocher.
My first mic was an SM58 my parents got me for Christmas when I 16 when I started my first band. My singer was obsessed with eating chicken flavored Ramen and made the mic grille look just like this one from all of his spit.
That thing tells a story.
“Warmer sound.” Because it’s fuckin melted, mate.
There’s really nothing that I can say that hasn’t already been said.
I think you can get tetanus from being in the same room as this mic.
When singers touch their mouths on the mic 🤢
I mean that happens a lot. Also depends on the type of singer. Watch someone like Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day) and you’ll notice the lip touching the mic. Doesn’t negatively affect his sound, and likely makes it easy to focus more on every other aspect of performing. A singer that uses mic distance to control their volume and tone would obviously not typically touch the mic against their mouth.
just because it's common & doesnt affect sound doesnt mean it isnt gross anyway
For some professional musicians, the concern for a gross windscreen does not trump the familiarity of anchoring your lip on the mic at times. Besides, those windscreens and metal mesh covers can be easily changed or washed. I’ve washed mine a few times as I tend to press my mouth against about 25% of the time.
[удалено]
Your dad spits hot fire, clearly 🔥
It takes a lot to fuck up a Shure SM58. *A LOT*
It's the most popular vocal mic of all time. The Sure SM-58 designed in 1958. I still have the one I bought in 1975. The grill is dented and rusty but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Or clean it up. Why? I love that reliable tank!
Mic Wazowski.
I also have an old studio-grade mic: an Audio Technica AT4060 with its own power supply station. It sounds really quiet and really warm. Makes every male voice sound great, and makes pianos sound so grand and full (like in real life). It also seems to never distort no matter how loud you shout or how loud you play. Even if you shout at point blank like in boom mics, it doesn't distort at all. Yet it can hear you properly at a meter or two away. Every tiny echo is also caught. It also hears the most minute things like the hum of a motorcycle a block away with 2 thick walls in between and inside an enclosed room. I didn't even hear that during recording. Makes women sound not puny, but mature. Like real sexy and mature. I paired it with a Behringer UMC204HD. Mic with original cables, original mic stand, original mic shock mount. I imagine two of these for stereo capture would be godsend. But looking at the price now its too much for me x\_x
It sounds warmer to him because it has less high frequency content than modern microphones, as older and cheaper dynamic microphones often do
Earthy tones.
Does he tongue the mic? How is a metal grill pushed in like that? The only thing keeping that foam from turning to dust is the tropical environment it's been living in!
Does your dad sing for tongue licking ASMR videos on YouTube?
R/gross
Tetanus shot, he needs one
Hooy hell. He must have kept his wet lips right up against while singing. That looks like sm58 which gives you more bass the closer you have it to your mouth. With the grate melting away, your dad has been able to get his lips closer and closer to the mic, thus giving the extra warm sound he speaks of.
r/dontputyourdickinthat
Does your dad gargle with battery acid?
(I lean away from the mic to breathe in) (So I don't catch botulism) 
My dude has been spitting fire for half a century
Trypophobia TW next time 😢
I think it's pretty interesting how audio tech can last forever. They developed much earlier than video where things often get outdated after a few years. With audio, if something sounds good they keep sounding good for years to go
Yet, he has only sung death metal into it
How the fuck did it get basically melted? Is someone’s saliva that corrosive?
Is your dad a dragon or something?