In addition to being a reporter, I sing in a band. My trusty Shure SM58 ball mike sounds great when I'm singing, no handling noise at all. How come there's all this handling noise when I use it for interviews, and it sounds so thin?

That SM58 is a cardioid mike, and its directionality has side-effects like increased susceptibility to popping P's, handling noise, and wind noise. But everything's relative, remember? When you're screaming out those rock lyrics with the mike resting on your lower lip, the sound pressure level reaching the mike is WAY louder than the handling noise and plosives. When you're doing a conversational-tone interview with the mike several inches away from your mouth, the sound pressure level from your voice is far lower, but the handling noise stays about the same. So comparatively speaking it's much more noticeable in the interview. Your recorder has to amplify the signal from the interview far more than it would for your singing, so the handling noise and plosives become more audible.

As for the thin sound during interviews, that too is affected by miking distance. Most directional mikes, like the SM58, exhibit something called "proximity effect". Sound produced very close to the mike sounds not only louder, but bassier as well. Some of this bassy quality is desired by singers who want to sound fuller, more "ballsy".

But too much bass can make the sound muffled, so the mike manufacturers design vocal mikes with some rolloff of the low end to compensate for the proximity effect. That same mike, when used at a distance like 6 to 8 inches where there's far less proximity effect, will then sound thin, lacking in bottom end.