Muffled Shure SM57 guitar mic

RSVampire · #1 10-04-2002, 01:55 AM

here's the thing. My friend got a SM57 for his guitar cab. This old ****ty 20 dollar mic sounded good. This thing makes his guitar cab sound like a blanket is put over it. When we finally get it to sound good on tape it sounds like total **** live. My other friend says it's because we are running it from an XLR to a 1/4 inch adaptor plug. Any suggestions?

Lonely Raven · #2 10-05-2002, 04:20 PM

I'd have to agree that the conversion to 1/4 is killing it. The Sure Mikes
need lots of voltage and a good PreAmp to sound good. I had one sitting
in a drawr for years because I thought it sucked. As soon as I got a good
Pre for it, that SM-57 quickly became my favorite!!

30yroldpig · #3 10-06-2002, 08:40 PM

Going from XLR to 1/4 Inch is not killing your sound. It all depends if it's a mono or stereo 1/4 Inch and how it's wired inside. There are multiple factors why your sound is crap:

-The wires in the cable (or the adaptor) are reversed, causing a poliarity inversion on the signal

-Pre-amp could be problematic

-A 20$ dollar mic hmmmm

There are also room acoustic issues and micing techniques that come into play here.

Good luck

RSVampire · #4 10-07-2002, 12:34 AM

Pat7. We've tried several cables. We've tried mono cables, and stereo cables. We played with mic levels and distanecs for a full 8 hours with no results. Moving the mic away from the cab results in more muffled tone. There is NO preamp. It's going straight from mic to a digital 16 track. And my friend said they were 7.99 on sale from ***************.com. They are Nady Starpower 1 mics. Sound abosolutly perfect.

30yroldpig · #5 10-07-2002, 02:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RSVampire

There is NO preamp. It's going straight from mic to a digital 16 track

What kind of digital 16 track? What brand?

Quote:

Originally Posted by RSVampire

We played with mic levels and distanecs for a full 8 hours with no results.

How can you play with levels without a pre?

Quote:

Originally Posted by RSVampire

And my friend said they were 7.99 on sale from *******.com. They are Nady Starpower 1 mics. Sound abosolutly perfect.

I thought you were talking about shure mics? How can they sound perfect if the sound is muzzled when you move it?

I justy don't understand...explain

RSVampire · #6 10-07-2002, 05:59 AM

ok the 16 track is a Fostex. We've played with the EQ on the recorder...it still sounds muffled. And the ones we've been using before this Shure SM-57 were 7.99 Nady Starpower 1 mics. Those sound perfect. This Shure SM-57 is a joke.

Anonymous · #7 10-07-2002, 01:25 PM

If that's the one that you paid 20.00 for then you've been ripped. Looks like the cap is finished.

RSVampire · #8 10-07-2002, 04:13 PM

no no no we didn't pay 20 dollars for anything. 799 for the Nady Powerstar 1 mics. And 79.99 for the Shure SM-57

ardell henderson · #9 10-10-2002, 12:59 AM

ryan, what kind of sound are you trying to mike?

Bright?
Beefy?
Clean?
Recto-fried?

what head?
what cab?

my sm-57 works great - it rolls off the high end a tad, just like it's spec'd - no problems...

ardell henderson · #10 10-10-2002, 01:01 AM

one more thing, when you say it "sounds like crap" - what exactly does that mean?

RSVampire · #11 10-10-2002, 03:05 AM

we got it to work now going from XLR to XLR. But we had to have it ear screeching bright for it to sound at all like a normal guitar....if we had a normal guitar sound....it would sound like someone put a blanket over the cab and put the mic like 30 feet away. We got it now. Thanks for your help....although 90% of the time everyone was confused..probably my fault. Thanks everyone.

TommyGuitar · #12 08-17-2006, 03:34 PM

Your friend was right. It's an impedance problem. You can't go straight XLR to 1/4", you need an impedance transformer or it will sound quiet and muffled.

Drew · #13 08-17-2006, 03:41 PM

Holy old thread bump, Batman!

I'd be curious to see what RSVampire has to say, if he's still around. I had a similar experience where I preferred a cheapo $30 radio shack mic to a SM57 for the longest time, but I just picked up a 57 recently and I've been blown away by just now natural it sounds on my amp now. I suspect that they're a LOT more sensitive to mic placement than the cheap vocal-oriented mic i was using back then, and the fact that it always sounded harsh and buzzy to me (admittedly, the opposite of RS's problem) was just because I didn't know how to mic a cab and EQ an amp to record. Well, to do it WELL, anyhow.

Aside from that, if you can't get a serviceable tone out of a SM57 on a guitar cab and it's NOT user error, there's got to be something wrong with the mic or signal chain. It's such a classic combination for a reason; it shouldn't require heavy EQ to make it sound "passable."

RSVampire · #14 08-17-2006, 04:02 PM

oh yeah I'm still around bro.

I've acually fooled around with recording a lot more since then. I've found out that my recordings sounded like crap because the Fostex recorder we used was total crap. The mic pre's in that thing makes everything sound like a donkey kong turd. I bought a really nice tube mic pre and it sounds MUCH better (that took awhile to figure out as well because I had to figure out that the mixer board mic pre level had to be set to 0 for it to sound good). So basiclly all my problems came from my equipment having the quality of a hard boiled egg.

Muffled Shure SM57 guitar mic

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Re: Muffled Shure SM57 guitar mic

Re: Muffled Shure SM57 guitar mic