Shure SM98A
A tiny condenser that earned its reputation one drum kit at a time, and left a paper trail of famous engineers saying so.
Overview
The Shure SM98A is an instrument condenser microphone. The surviving documentation shows a small-format problem-solver, not a general-purpose studio workhorse. Shure's own catalog copy from the period, the "other Shure favorites" sidebar that ran alongside the company's full-line advertising, summed the SM98A up in three words: "Great for drums." That's the whole pitch. Shure sold it on what it did in tight, punishing places.
No spec sheet survives in the archive's research, so the company it kept tells the story. In a long-running Shure endorsement campaign, producers Chris Kimsey and Eddie Kramer were the brand's living proof. The SM98A appears in that copy as one of the "newer Shure models" alongside the SM91A and the company's condenser line, listed right next to the SM7, SM81, SM57, and SM58 that had already become studio furniture. Kimsey, whose credits include nine Rolling Stones albums, put his loyalty in practical terms - a "very high comfort factor" - while Kramer credited Shure with "constantly reinventing" itself. It's marketing, sure, but it places the SM98A in the late-period Shure condenser family and not among the legacy dynamics.
The mic also turns up in the trade press. A December 1987 Studio Sound (p.60) advertisement ran the headline "Small Wonder!" and described the SM98 as a tiny condenser that "outperforms larger, more expensive units." It added that the mic had been "hailed as the best small microphone available" and that a broad range of accessories could tailor it to problem-solving applications. Two years earlier, Recording Engineer (February 1985, p.184) had announced the SM98 in its New Products column as a microphone "designed specifically for instrument and amplifier miking," one that combined "the convenience and adaptability of small size with professional" performance. The period pieces treat the SM98 and the SM98A as the same family, and the archive's research lists the SM98A as the variant that carried the reputation forward.
The SM98A earns its keep in close-miking. The most specific account in the record comes from saxophonist Richard Elliot, who described recording his album City Speak in a home project studio. Elliot double-miked his horn. A tube mic sat two to three feet back and off-center, and a Shure SM98A sat up close in front of the bell. He said the close mic gave "a nice bite and attack from the horn," blended against the body from the tube mic. He found the SM98A sitting in the studio and was "goofing" with it when he tried it, almost by accident.
It's not a vocal mic and was never positioned as one. It's the little condenser you clamp near a drum, a horn bell, or an amp grille when a full-size mic won't fit or won't behave. The archive's research contains no frequency response, polar pattern, phantom-power requirement, or pricing data.
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