Hi guys, So I've just bought a SHURE sm58 mic and I'm just starting out setting up my home studio, the thing that baffles me is what cable to get?
The mainstream cables are XLRF to 6.5mm, but is it possible to get a cable which is XLRF to 3.5mm on a right angle connecting directly to my soundcard?
If the cable is made specifically to connect to a camcorder etc will it work at all in my soundcard? Is the sound going to be of less quality connecting straight to
the soundcard? aaaagh I'm sorry for the unload of questions I'm just beating the sm58 over my head wondering what to do, please help!

Can't say I've ever seen an XLR to 3.5mm (1/8 inch) cable. But it shouldn't be to hard to locate an adapter plug to go from 6.5mm (1/4 inch) to 3.5mm (1/8 inch). However if you do have a cable that is made to go from the mic to a camcorder with an 3.5mm (1/8 inch) jack, I see no reason that it wouldn't work or give you less quality.

Thanks for your reply uncle_jerr, I got hold of a 6.5mm(1/4") > 3.5mm (1/ adaptor from my local audio shop, I'm using a SoundBlaster X-Fi soundcard and I can't hear no sound/playback from my sm58, Now some people I've spoke to say that I need a pre-amp to transfer the waves from the microphone to soundcard, and others have said I should be able to get some kind of playback, I will be getting a microphone pre-amp regardless but was wondering if I could get sound connecting directly to my soundcard, as a sidenote I am not intending to connect to a camcorder, my intentions are to create vocals.

In admittance, I'm very, very naive about the whole thing but everyone starts somewhere right? I'll dig my head into my soundcard manual and play around to see if it's possible, either way I'll let you know how it pans out

Edit: Also, microphones are mono right? and maybe im using a stereo adaptor which could have some influence in sound retrieval

Microphones are mono, but balanced. Balanced means 3-pins: positive, negative, ground.

Your pc mic input is mono, unbalanced (2 pins: positive, ground)

So your cable should be xlr on one end: check. And the 3.5mm plug should have only two sections. If it has three, try either of these options: 1) Only plug the jack in about halfway. 2) Plug it in to the line input (all the way), and record onto a stereo track. Now the signal will only go to one of those tracks, so after you record, just convert it back to mono and you're good to go.

If neither of these work, it's probably an issue with the sound card, and we'll have to troubleshoot from there.

Hope this helps