Inexpensive but more sensitive mic than Shure SM57

soma1975

HI all,

I'm recording a couple of pedal demos and am playing at a little above conversation level and I have an ancient SM57 I swapped for a pedal on here a couple of years ago. Currently I'm having to max out my Presonus Audiobox preamp gain to get any sort of a respectable signal.  

Don't know if it's my particular mic or all SM57s, but is there something fairly cheap I can stick in front of my combo and get a decent level/tone without too much fannying about? 

Thanks in advance for suggestions. 

joeyowen

You can't blame the SM57, they are used for cabs since the dawn of time (Including Dinosaur rock bands).

They are usually bullet proof, but maybe it has developed a fault, have you got any other way of testing it?

soma1975

I just wondered if a) It needs a louder signal than I am sending it so maybe i different a different mic for my specific quieter needs or b) whether it has finally given up the ghost somewhat. 

Audio is passing through it - it's just not a hot signal unless everything is boosted to max. 

joeyowen

Are you able to crank it?  I'm not sure any signals will sound amazing at conversation level.

Try and sing a line into the 57, they have been used as vocal mics with some great success, and if the level is still too quiet then you might have a shot mic.

soma1975

good thinking. will test later. cheers. 

Jalapeno

Any old £20-£40 dynamic mic will give you infinitely better results

robinbowes

Jalapeno said:

Any old £20-£40 dynamic mic will give you infinitely better results

Eh? Than a '57, the classic "been used since the dawn of time" guitar cab and general purposes mic?

Jalapeno

robinbowes said:

Jalapeno said:

Any old £20-£40 dynamic mic will give you infinitely better results

Eh? Than a '57, the classic "been used since the dawn of time" guitar cab and general purposes mic?

At non gig volumes absolutely.  A live onstage 4x12 belting out is a different case altogether

robinbowes

Jalapeno said:

robinbowes said:

Jalapeno said:

Any old £20-£40 dynamic mic will give you infinitely better results

Eh? Than a '57, the classic "been used since the dawn of time" guitar cab and general purposes mic?

At non gig volumes absolutely.  A live onstage 4x12 belting out is a different case altogether

They work very well on many sources, not just 4x12 cabs, vocals, for example.

I don't believe "Any old £20-£40 dynamic mic" would be better.

Musicwolf

Whether or not you like the sound of an SM57 in front a cab the fact remains that it should work unless;

a)   You have a fault in the system (mic > lead > pre-amp / interface)

b)   The levels hitting the mic are very low indeed

In the case of the latter then you could use a more sensitive type of mic i.e. a condenser.  But this kind of mic would require phantom power.  I would stress - the levels from the amp would need to be really low for this to be the case.

Danny1969

57 is not a great mic for low level recording, it needs a bit of level to get it moving. Trouble is more sensitive mic's will pick up more unwanted noise as well as the cab  .... like the acoustic sound of the strings from the electric guitar as well as the cab sound. 
For low level recording indoors a cab sim or speaker simulater is a better choice

soma1975

Yep you're probably right there. Waiting on that new Boss Tube amp expander thingy to be released. 

Stuckfast

SM57 sounds pretty bloody good here to my ears -- on lead vocal and acoustic guitar:

Jalapeno

robinbowes said:

Jalapeno said:

robinbowes said:

Jalapeno said:

Any old £20-£40 dynamic mic will give you infinitely better results

Eh? Than a '57, the classic "been used since the dawn of time" guitar cab and general purposes mic?

At non gig volumes absolutely.  A live onstage 4x12 belting out is a different case altogether

They work very well on many sources, not just 4x12 cabs, vocals, for example.

I don't believe "Any old £20-£40 dynamic mic" would be better.

At low volumes '57 is poor. (and I do use one for vocals)

Stuckfast

It's not my favourite mic by any means, but if you can't make a 57 sound halfway decent on most things, the fault does not lie with the 57.

To the OP -- is there actually a problem with having to turn the gain right up? The gain knob is meant to be usable across the full range of its travel. On a lot of budget mixers and interfaces the gain tends to 'bunch' at the clockwise end of the travel so the last few degrees actually make quite a difference. Don't be frightened of cranking it up unless it gets noisy.

soma1975

I've used this mic before and it worked fine. 

Had to down tools due to family coming home but will test again tomorrow. 

Thanks all

paulmapp8306

I use a beta 57 in preference to almost all other dynamic Mic, on pretty much everything.

ecc83

Youhave several compounded problems there Soma. "bit above conversational levels" That would be about 80dB spl and a brand spanking '57 would put out arond 400 MICRO volts!

The AI is not one, AFAIK noted for high, clean gain.

The mic is old and thus could be gummed up or/and a bit "de-magged".

First deterime the noise floor of the AI. Stuff the mic under a pile of duvets, plug it in and slam the gaing to max and record 30 seconds or so. If that is much above -70dB fs on the DAW meters you are probably wasting your time. There are hotter dynamic mics than the Shures but not by much, 6dB tops and they tend to be expensive. A small D capacitor such as the AKG P170 would do but SDCs really don't work for electric guitar. A  pre amp such as the Cloudlifter or Fethead would be great but again costly.

The best, cheap solution I can come up with is a small mixer. The Behringer Xenyx 802 has pretty good pre amps but so do other mixer brands. Again a cost but check out Cash Genny and charity shops.

Dave.

Winny_Pooh

Sm57s are pretty meh as a utility mic. If you want more gain get a budget SE Electronics condensor or a beta57a (higher output).

Stuckfast

Assuming it's the current AudioBox model the specs are a bit confusing -- on the front panel the mic gain runs from 0 to +60 dB, but the specs say 0 to 35 dB. That would be rubbish so I'm assuming the front panel is right. In which case you should be absolutely fine recording something fairly quiet through an SM57. Turn the gain right up, if it's still quiet, just normalise the resulting recordings in your DAW. The limiting factor noise-wise will almost certainly be the noise of the amp and the ambient noise in the room, not the noise floor of the interface.

octatonic

SM57's need a bit of level but they are more than decent guitar amp mics.
How are you positioning it?
On Axis, Off Axis?
How far from the cone?

Most of those amazing albums that used them were recording to tape in excellent sounding rooms by brilliant musicians being produced by the best engineers and producers through killer consoles and outboard.
It isn't really the SM57 that was the make or break element of those tones.

The actual sound an SM57 is quite honky but it suits a guitar's range, especially when blended with a condenser or a ribbon mic.
For the last 15 years or so it has been typical to pair an SM57 with a Royer 121- the Royer fills in the gaps that the SM57 has.

I prefer using a Sennheiser E906 (or 609) myself, I usually blend it with a U87, Josephson E22 or C42.
Preamp matters too- that Presonus is pretty average sounding, but it is typical of preamps in that price range.
Same with the converters, and then monitoring chain.
It all matters and a lot of it is relatively small increments of improvement but they do add up.

FWIW I tend to EQ but not compress to disk (as distorted electric guitar is already quite compressed)- meaning I do my EQing in the analogue domain and that EQ'ed single is what gets recorded into the DAW.

How far you want to take this is up to you- but it is unlikely to be an issue with the SM57 unless that particular SM57 is broken.
They don't break very often- that is part of their appeal- they can take a real beating.

You might find pairing another mic with the Presonus will help but I'm pretty sure that if you used a working SM57 with a nice channel strip (Neve, API, Chandler etc) into a great converter you'd be happy- but that is going to be a much more expensive proposition.

Feel free to post some examples.