Last night at rehearsal we tried using the Beyer M88 for the first time on vocals. Previously we had been using SM58's. The M88 rocks! It was specifically designed for high gain before feedback and has a tight hypercardioid pattern. It also has a good presence and crispness for vocals.

We found it worked best on the SM58 preset (01). We got our vocals a lot louder and more present (didn't have to roll off the highs so much) without feedback.

As a bonus, the M88 is also a classic recording mic, and sounds great on snare drums, toms, and guitar amps. In fact it was a recording engineer friend who recommended that we try them for live vocals, and being a recording engineer myself I was surprised I hadn't thought of it before - seemed like a perfect fit with the PAS.

Other random things we have discovered recently: Bose often recommends to tilt your mic upward toward the ceiling to get more gain before feedback. This might work well in some cases, but it may not work so well if you're a short person! I'm 5'4 and our bass player/lead singer is probably about 5'6. Tilting the mic upward at our level seems to point the mic right at the top of the L1, which I believe is where most of the upper frequencies reside, no? In any case we were having to turn down our high end a lot in order to avoid feedback. Lowering the mic so that we're singing down on it more, and pointing it more or less straight across, seems to work well for us. Experimenting for a few minutes with the position of the mic vs. the L1 is definitely recommended, cuz usually there's a "magic spot" in any given room that really works.

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Awesome post Lee. I'm so glad the M88 is working out. You'll have to show Cliff sometime .

On the "tilt the mic upward" recommendation, I see what you're saying. What I think also may make a difference in that recommendation is distance from the L1. If you are far enough away tilting upwards may help you, if you are close it may aggravate feedback.