Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1543098
8 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Spring 2026 for live performance." Soon the SM58 became the standard for live vocal mics, whether you were Roger Daltrey on tour with The Who or in a combo playing songs at a Holiday Inn Lounge. Today on Amazon, you can purchase a Neumann U87 Ai for $3,750, an RCA 77DX is available on Reverb for $2,850, the Electro Voice 635A, discontinued in 2024, after a sixty- year run, can be found used for around $200, and you can purchase a new Shure SM58 for $99 wherever quality microphones are sold. In the 1960s, about the time of the birth of the SM57 and SM58, the abbreviation for microphone changed from mike to mic, making the present participle of the verb "to mic" the somewhat confusing 'micing," which looks like it has something to do with a small rodent. Some use "miking," others "mic'ing." The etymology of micification can be mystifying. Around that time, Dad had a Wollensak tape recorder for business use. It was my first personal experience with a microphone and with reel-to-reel tape. My good friend, Jim Standley, and I recorded radio commercials for high school events on that rugged machine. The same year, I successfully auditioned for the Nebraska All-State Orchestra. I had never played trombone in an orchestra (I was a percussionist in the Hastings High School ensemble my senior year). Being selected was kind of a big deal. Players from high schools all over the state traveled to Omaha, spent a couple of days rehearsing with a guest conductor, and performed a concert, including the "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky. We each received an LP of the live recording. Wish I could travel back to see what mics and recording equipment were used to make that record. Today, I learned that my maternal grandmother's life overlapped with Tchaikovsky's. Her husband, my grandfather, was born before time zones existed. In 1972, after the passage of the 26th Amendment, I was excited about voting for the first time. My grandmother told me that she had that same feeling at age 35 when she first got to vote in the 1920 election. The first election after the passage of the 19th Amendment. The first time women voted. I like time-span factoids and will share another favorite later in this ramble if space allows. Those of us who have reached a certain age probably remember pulling cable in the plenum of the Shrine Auditorium and the Pantages Theatre, or maybe dragging a long DT12 through the wet grass and mud in Pasadena for the Rose Parade. If you never experienced that rite of passage, be grateful. When the Calrec Alpha came on the scene, we began to embrace audio signals being transported over fiber optic cables. In the beginning, we ran copper backups for the fiber, but now we are totally reliant on those lightweight, back-pain-saving cables. On a recent show, audio information between the stage and the broadcast truck ran on TAC 12 fiber to and from the Calrec Hydras (stage boxes). FOH and monitor Digico consoles were connected with Optocore fiber. We used a Ferrofish, an AD/DA device to send Pro Tools and Autotune outputs to the splits, a Yamaha Rio on fiber to the truck for emergency backups, audience mics, and lighting board timecode at FOH, and a CPT Systems Dio 0808MA-XLR for emergency backups between split world and the truck. It's only a flesh wound The meeting of analog and digital in split world We still run some copper mults, mostly W-2 and W-4, but not nearly as much as we once did. I wonder what is next. Whatever it is, chances are good that an SM58 will still be involved. Oh, yeah, and it has been years since I've been in a plenum. The voice of Vin Scully, whether coming through a Shure SM58 or any other microphone, is iconic. In 1950, when Vin started announcing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Connie Mack was still the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics. Connie Mack was born when Lincoln was President.