A good mic for begginers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Masters Of War
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Why does anyone even MENTION the SM57 anymore.
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Get the B1 if you cant afford anything better than a 57. 57 gets beat every time by most of my other mics, I have never found a use for it other than as an extra mic for rough tracking or talkback... and its my last pick for talkback cause I hate sounding like I'm in a cardboard box in the headphones, and the rejection is too loose to keep from feeding through the monitors if I have them up at a decent volume.
Lets not talk anymore about some ultra crappy rejection, either... put it on a snare and hear the hats... nuff said....

SM57- well built crap.
Industry standard? Kinda like ProTools, only cause it was there 1st, no longer the best, but everyone still THINKS it is cause no one thinks for themselves anymore. Bah. Get your own brain, people!
 
I tend to agree with you ... although I just bought a 545 on ebay to try out on vocals.
 
Masters Of War said:
Thanks for all the replies, I have just one more question, what is the difference between a condenser mic and a dynamic mic, and why would you want one type over the other, one again thanks for all the help.
Checkout the "Sticky" at the top of this forum... Harvey answers your question there. IMO, the dynamic Shure SM57 is the perfect beginners mic... because if will give you a good point of reference later with other mics, plus it's a good mic and is built like a tank and IMO it's a "must have" mic. Condenser mics need p-pwr and break way easier... which isn't a good thing for a beginner.
 
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I, too, dislike the 57 in the studio. Live application is very good. 1st mic in the studio should be at 3035, 4033 or sp c1. I wish I had known this when I started. I could've saved lots of $
 
tubedude said:
Why does anyone even MENTION the SM57 anymore.
Because it's a good mic and I don't like most cheap Chinese made budget mics.
 
Hmm, I don't remember you mentioning that before ;):p

They are certainly well-built and I don't think they suck on anything (well, I've never had any fun with a '58 on an acoustic) but I just feel that if you want a beginners' dynamic you should really be fetching a Sennheiser ... the top end makes up for some of the poor parts in my signal chain! And, call me crazy, but I have a hunch that my mp3s work better when they have some more top end detail to begin with ... cos then it doesn't ALL get crunched in conversion.
 
I also say Sennheiser for a beginner on a budget. I got my Sennheiser E835 for $100 at Guitar Center, and it ended up working quite good(for a dynamic) for recording.
 
I think its lousy form to recommend a 57 to someone as a 1st or 2nd mic.
Why? because they are going to have a lousy preamp already, if they even have one, and a really good dynamic (or pretty decent condensor) is way more affordable than a good mic pre.
Its bad form because when they get this already boxy sounding 57 home (yes they do sound boxy by comparison to MOST decent mics) and plug it directly into thier soundcard, they are going to be mightily disappointed. The least you can do is recommend a better sounding mic to get them started with so that at least the result arent quite as much of a let down. A 57 is a 6th mic, or 7th.... not a 1st. Its not THAT versatile people. Really. Its not.
Peace
Paul
 
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