obobviousley

Damn...I think somethings wrong with the spell check.

Personally, I think 012s are the new SM57s. I never liked 57s (despite my pointing links to people who do), and my first real mic purchase was a pair of 012s. I'm not the only person I know who falls into that category, either. Cheap, amazingly versatile, great-sounding, as indestructible as a condenser gets - the lovely Oktava MC012!

I didn't know what was what when I started getting into recording music, so I went out and bought a bunch of 57s. These days, I put the 57s on a shit sounding drum kit which I use to work out song writing ideas and so forth. They have each been smacked by drum sticks more than twice, yet those 57s keep on working just fine. Therein lies the beauty of the SM57, and that is why I own 4 of them.

i use the sm57, by the way. but then, it's one of two microphones at my disposal.

it brings a "lo fi" sound to everything, probably because of the weak bass response and weak treble response, and it usually sounds passable on guitar amp and lo fi but passable on vocals

I've only just ,after about a year of ignoring the 57 ,started using it again and I must say I've missed it.

I agree completely it's hit or miss on a guitar amp though I would rarely use it on it's own anyway, I'd be far more likely to use it in conjunction with a good quality condensor.

It's mainly the sanre drum close mic I've realised I really missed it for. The frequency response is great assuming you are also using room mics/fairly distant overheads as these will get the higher roomier aspects of the drum but the 57's frequency response is perfect for the body and presense of a snare and it's a lot easier to reject hi hat spill than with a condenser or dynamics with "better" frequency responses

bubbleboy wrote:It's mainly the sanre drum close mic I've realised I really missed it for. The frequency response is great assuming you are also using room mics/fairly distant overheads as these will get the higher roomier aspects of the drum but the 57's frequency response is perfect for the body and presense of a snare and it's a lot easier to reject hi hat spill than with a condenser or dynamics with "better" frequency responses

I don't have a 57 myself, but I'm mixing some songs for a friend right now and the snare close mic was a 57. The overheads were a pair of Coles 4038s. The snare sound through the overheads is about 25 times meatier (adjectives like "body", "impact", "power", etc.) than the close mic. I've used the close mic to provide the stick attack (like maybe 3-5 kHz), but virtually any microphone that could withstand the SPL would be just fine in this role. I know that the Coles pair costs roughly 30 times what the 57 does, but we are dicussing why you would ever consciously choose to use a 57. Certainly, you will use it if it's either all you have or all you can afford.

This same record had some guitar basics cut with a trio of mics - a 57, a Beyer 160 (re-ribboned with 77DX stock by Stephen Sank) and a 4033. The Beyer won the shootout on all of the tracks, though it did fart out on a couple of the louder passages due to large amounts of low end in the signal.

So, it gets points for durability and for SPL handling, but the only reason I would get one for a studio setting is to serve as a $75 security blanket for those people who imbue it with certain magical properties. I don't count myself among them.

Dan

for my money, the sennheiser e-609 is really much better on most guitar cabs and snare drums than the 57.

and I think it's like 10 bucks more than a 57.

to my ears, the 609 has a spike in the mids that works a lot better than the 57. I've never used an md 409 though.

but, for some singers, I swear, a 57 is THE mic.

I have an old SM57, and I think it sounds great right up against a guitar cab, slightly off-axis, and about 1/3rd of the way in from the edge of the cone. It takes a fair bit of moving about to find the sweet spot, but I really like the sound.

Having said that that, I'm going more and more for more ambient distant-mic'ed sounds these days, for which obviously it isn't really suitable. But I'll always own at least one.

CDR-1 wrote:for my money, the sennheiser e-609 is really much better on most guitar cabs and snare drums than the 57.

and I think it's like 10 bucks more than a 57.

Thank you! My feelings exacly, and it also has a much better low end on guitar cabs.

I got an Audix i5 and I liked it a lot more on snare than the 57. i also use a 421 and Beyer 201 but on this snare the i5 sounded the best.
I also vote for the MC012 as the new do it all, I've used it on snares, both top and bottom, overheads, strings, room, toms. the only thing I don't like it on are guitar cabs.

Eddie