How hot should an SM57 be...?

B

Bigsnake00

New member
I havent recorded with a dynamic in a while, and the output of my 57 seems to be very low. I am recording an acoustic guitar through the 57 into a Firepod. Is it just my ears, or could something be wrong the the mic. I'll try to post a clip later.
 
Well an acoustic guitar through a dynamic such as a 57 isn't going to run very hot without a good bit of gain, not to mention it probably won't sound nearly as good as a condenser. I'm not experienced with testing mics, especially since I've never had a problem with my 57's, but I would think a better test of it's electronics would be to throw it in front of something louder or to compare it's output to another similar dynamic, say a MD 421. I guess the real test is to look at your signal to noise ratio when you crank up the gain on your preamp and if it gets rather noisy before you get an adequate output signal, then you might want to see if somethings wrong.

I think the real question here is, how did you get away with not using a 57 for a while? :D I seem to be using one every 5 min or so.
 
Is there any kind of pad enabled along the way, including any digital mixing software that may be running?

I aim for a uniform -15db peak for all my stuff now.
 
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