On the virtues of the 57....

heylow

heylow

New member
We talk alot about mics and we all want the best. There is nothing wrong with that. Ya know those threads where someone asks about the best bang for the buck mic.....

I gotta say.....its still the 57. Why am I typing this? Well.....I'm sitting here listening while I type to the first 2 Elliot Smith albums in headphones. I havent pulled these out in about a year. I'm sitting there trying to remember what was used to record since I know he recorded himself. It hit me.....all he had then was a 4 track (reel to reel I think....tascam? It was cheap!) and one 57.

This is important because I was thinking about how his acoustic and vocal tracks are SO warm and immediate....maybe not million dollar immediate, but SO cool sounding. I was thinking about how last weekend I tried and tried to record an acoustic guitar with a 414 and could make it nice and warm. And how sometimes when doing a vocal, I want that "unhyped" sound and sometimes I will freak signals out just to degrade them some.

Maybe I should have pulled out the 57!!!

Maybe its not something one should do all the time....but this has made me think I need to do some experimenting with the 57. We get condensors and forget all about our poor little "newbie" dynamic mics in favor of our newest investments....at least I do.


Just some thoughts....hope it makes someone else want to try it out again too!;)


heylow
Indie Snob


(PS...even the 4track tape hiss is cool on these record!:cool: :p )
 
I agree

We can all have an entire locker full of studio mics put the real challenge is learning how to use them. Being able to have someone say "You have to use a condensor for this or a ribbon for that" keeps me wondering. Will they sound better, probably. Will they sound like everything else recorded that way. I have more fun using the wrong mic and trying to get it to work for a given situation than using the plug-and-play method. It's amazing what moving the mic around will do.
 
my friend recorded a song the other nite and used his 57........then we went to mar's on saturday and he bought an AT 3035...went home......he re-recorded the vocals with the AT and a pop-filter.....

we did an A/B test of them................

the verdict was that neither was really better.........just different.

the performance makes the most difference it seems. :)
 
As far as I know, Elliot Smith used a Tascam 4 track cassette
Portastudio to do most of his albums including the first two,
based upon the recent Tape Op book that's out.
I'll check later tonight and see if it says the model number.

Have you guys checked out the Beta 57 compared to the 'ol 57?
For singing a hard rock/blues type song the 57 works fine for me,
however, for pop/rock the Beta works betta as it's cleaner and has a hotter output.

Also, have you tried tracking vocals by having the singer use the
monitors and a 57 instead of using a headphone?
They did this on many Bad Company songs for Paul Rodgers BTW!

Chris
 
Amen to that, sister. It's amazing that a cheap microphone such as the 57 has become such an industry standard. It just goes to show that a million dollar recording does not a million dollar mic make.
 
Did a little experiment with my brandy-new SP C-1 and a 57. Stuck em next to each other behind an old upright piano (c1920's) and had a good player noodle around for a while. Of course I wanted the C-1 to sound better and perhaps it did. It was certainly cleaner - that old piano sounded just exactly like what it was - an old piano. Something about the sound (warmth?) of the 57 won over everyone in the room. Not even close. For that application I know which mic I'm gonna use.
 
In the Tape Op book, Elliot says the first album was done on a Tascam
4 track cassette portastudio (no model specified), and the second album
was done on a Tascam 8 track (probably a 388) reel to reel.

Chris
 
Over the weekend, I re-aquired my old Rogers drum kit. After months of reading posts here, I was dying to begin my trial by fire in acoustic drum micing. I tried every mic in the locker for everything--just to see what happened. When I got to the snare, the Beta 57 was by far the best in that application. My 58 sounded just about as good too.

Man, I was amazed at the difference that mic placement makes. For the kick, I settled on ther V67 about 8-10 inches away. Moving that mic to different spots made it sound like a completely different mic every time. Amazing. (I kept it away from any air movement to keep the diaphragm from getting screwed up.)

Just to finish the story, those ECM 8000's were by far the best sounding overheads. That Beta 57 was great on the snare, though. It makes me want to get a pair of 57's just to use on who knows what. Love 'em on vocals, snares and guitar cabs. They are such a good deal too. A must have mic.
 
Yeah....

I pulled it out and read it earlier tonight. I forgot how great of a book it is, too!! I kept reading even though I've read it a hundred times....seems I always find something new. Or maybe as my understanding grows, I pick out different things.

Its amazing that that Elliot's other band (at the time) Heatmiser did "Mic City Sons" on DA-88's in a basement too! One of my favorite albums!

My favorite (one of em at least) quotes from the interview....about the tape hiss and and all on the early Elliott smith stuff:

"That was the way it had to be. There is something to be said about things having to be a certain way. The you stop worrying about whether you should have made this decision or that about how things sounded and just get down to the business of making songs." -Elliott Smith, Tapeop-

This hits me because sometimes I get a little nostalgic for my 424. That was some of my best stuff in a way...not perfect by any means but it was what it was....only so much you can do so you just go into it with guns blazing, damn the results. Now I have better stuff and every step of the way I'm second guessing because my options are wide open and I want to pick the best route. The other way DEPENDED on being creative....there was no other way to get the job done.

A perfect example of this is Erland's music....its great! Not because he has all the great gear....he doesnt. Its because he understands the limitation of said gear and works inside the confines while at the same time stepping around the confines to make something happen (see Erland's guitar drum;) ) Its like you just go for it without expectations.

When I used the 424....I figured I had nowhere to go but up....if something sucked...what could I do about it? So I didnt worry. There were no aux's. Everything got printed which goes a long way to shape what you are doing sans the options. For those of you with the Tapeop book, see Tony Visconti's forward to the book....very interesting, indeed.

So in closing, its not that I want to go back to the 424 but rather recapture the aethetic and the methods employed in that route of recording...devil may care, printing distorted vox, compressing the fuck outta something just watch it sputter and choke!!!!:eek: ;) :D

Thats why I started recording at home, after all.

Any thoughts, gentlemen?


heylow
 
crawdad said:
Over the weekend, I re-aquired my old Rogers drum kit. After months of reading posts here, I was dying to begin my trial by fire in acoustic drum micing. I tried every mic in the locker for everything--just to see what happened. When I got to the snare, the Beta 57 was by far the best in that application. My 58 sounded just about as good too.

Man, I was amazed at the difference that mic placement makes. For the kick, I settled on ther V67 about 8-10 inches away. Moving that mic to different spots made it sound like a completely different mic every time. Amazing. (I kept it away from any air movement to keep the diaphragm from getting screwed up.)

Just to finish the story, those ECM 8000's were by far the best sounding overheads. That Beta 57 was great on the snare, though. It makes me want to get a pair of 57's just to use on who knows what. Love 'em on vocals, snares and guitar cabs. They are such a good deal too. A must have mic.
Click to expand...

Yep! Really still THE mic to start with and keep around. Sometimes it's ok to leave the newest fangled mic in the cabinet;)

I feel so silly in a way!:D Rediscovering the 57!!!:p


heylow
 
when i do song writing/arranging nothing beats my 424.....just plug a mic into my ART studio MP, or straight in, press record and go..

(people seem to really bash and hate the ART unit it seems, but I get killer use/results out of it as a bass DI, an acoustic PU DI, a condenser or dynamic mic pre......it took a while to learn how though)

my computer just sucks if I'm in a hurry to get an idea down...well it is if everything doesn't go "just right" which is about 50% of the time on my pc..lol...I just love it when you record that killer take, and you get drop outs in the track because you forgot to close your virus scan software or something.....oh joy!!!:D
 
i still find whenever im in a tough spot on trying to decide which mic to use , i always grab the 57 first and see how it works. it to me, is one of the greatest mics that will always go down with the least scrutiny because of the fact that no matter what you try it with you always get a sound you can use, sometimes great, sometimes decent, but it always pulls its weight.
 
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