Jacob Collier on the endless appeal of the SM58: “There’s something about it that is very unexaggerated, very honest and extremely familiar”
The five-time Grammy winner spoke of his love for the staple microphone from Shure on the latest episode of My Forever Studio
Image: Frank Hoensch / Getty
Five-time Grammy winning composer and producer Jacob Collier recently spoke of a piece of must-have gear that has kept him creative from his humble beginnings – the Shure SM58 microphone.
Collier, who often works alongside Coldplay, Hans Zimmer and Pharrell Williams, explored his dream studio set-up in the latest episode of the My Forever Studio podcast. After having a chuckle on the wacky element of playing with gongs, things got pretty real when he mentioned a must-have: “There are certain things that keep you grounded and for me in my musical life the one microphone that’s never left my arsenal from day one is my Shure SM58.”
He went on to add, “The reality is I use it to this day to record all sorts of things because there’s something about it that is very unexaggerated, very honest and extremely familiar.” Collier spoke of a plethora of gear in his dream set up, noting that while most tech on offer these days “does things for you”, there’s nothing wrong with experimenting with simple set-ups to let your creativity run wild.
“It reminds me where I came from as a musician, which is the idea [that] you can basically make anything sound good with this mic,” He stated. “Far and wide I’ve come across all sorts of gear that makes your life easy, that does things for you and will blow your mind with XYZ […] but for me, for better or worse, my automation growing up was to place my SM58 in the best possible position on the thing I was recording. So imagining through it has been truly important for me; without an SM58 in my studio, it would not be my studio.”
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