The best microphone for podcasts, voice over, and narration (for me)

I’m making a documentary that will require a lot of voice over, and I’m looking for the right microphone for the job. I’ve used the Shure SM58 for six years, logging several hundred hours recording podcasts and recording voice overs for videos. I love the SM58. Great mic. Indestructible, affordable, has a classic “microphone” look, and it sounds great. It has worked really well for me over the years. It’s a dynamic microphone, which means it’s really good at rejecting the sound of the room it’s in; just picking up what’s right in front of it. Crucially, it’s also not an SM7B. Everyone has one of those. Lately, though, I’ve wondered if I couldn’t upgrade my setup. But I don’t want to throw away my old friend without doing some tests first. I dug out all the microphones that I have and I’m just going to check in with them all. The contestants: Blue Snowball Blue Yeti Shure SM58 Sennheiser MKE 600 Sennheiser MKH 416 RODE Wireless Pro lav Countryman B3 Electro-Voice RE20 Contact [email protected] #microphone #podcast #audio Chapters: 0:00 Intro 1:05 Meet the contestants 1:23 Blue Snowball 1:51 Blue Yeti 2:23 Shure SM58 2:59 Sennheiser MKE 600 3:29 Sennheiser MKH 416 3:58 RODE Wireless Pro lav 4:20 Countryman B3 4:37 Video, but vertical 5:42 RODE Wireless Pro built-in mic 5:53 Checkpoint 7:06 A challenger approaches 8:01 The history of all hitherto existing society 8:22 Results and conclusion 9:32 Photo montage