Can i use a shure sm57 for vocals

I was just listening to the cd mic shootout and I actually like the air and low end on the sm57 obviously not near the high end mics but liked it better than the sm7 and a lot of other mics. Doesnt seem to have a sock over the mic feel to it like a lot of the other low end mics. My Studio. I hate to be "that" guy, but if you spend some time searching for SM57 you are going to find hundreds of threads talking about all it's applications, famous people who have used them, ect.

You will see people compare them to mics of similar price, more expensive. You will end up learning a lot more from the many threads than what you could from this one. Good luck p.

Sure lots of people have used the 57 and 58 for lead vocals. A friend of mine who used to do a lot of Hardcore bands in the late 90s So eventually he started just giving them an SM58 to hold in their hand the way they do on stage. They'd jump around, flex, and go as nuts as they wanted to. It's probably the only type of mic that would have worked in that kind of situation. The 58 is incredibly quiet even being held and jumped around with while recording too.

In any case, that's just one example where the basic Shure dynamic mic was the perfect and only feasible tool for the job. And without compromising quality. A 57 was the vocal mic on The Killers Hot Fuss album. Don't know if that was continued or not on their later albums but it sounds like it. PJ Harvey. A friend of mine recorded a bit with her and said nothing sounded like "her" except for when she was singing through a SM As a result, the original signal is intact while the noise produced by the microphone or other piece of equipment is still subjected to polarity reversing.

This is why balanced signals are considered to be clearer than unbalanced, and why almost all microphones like the SM57 carry balanced signals. The table below shows which recording devices are balanced and unbalanced, and which cables they typically use. The most reliable and common method used for connecting a Shure SM57 to a computer is by pairing it with an audio interface.

Audio interfaces are devices that receive the signal from the microphone and transmit it to a Digital Audio Workstation DAW on the computer. Check out my article on getting started with an Audio Interface here.

On the front of the audio interface, there will be a balanced input, which receives the male end of the 3-pin XLR. The female end of the cable is then connected to the SM Some audio interfaces have visual gain meters so that you can see the signal as it is received. If the signal is too loud, this will result in clipping. Next, open up your chosen DAW and create a new audio channel.

Make sure the input of the selected channel correlates to the input which the Shure SM57 is plugged into on your audio interface. You can now do a test recording to check that the SM57 is fully connected to the computer or laptop. You should see the waveform in the sequencer being created in real-time.

If the waveform exceeds the vertical distance of the channel in the sequencer, this means you need to reduce the gain. Otherwise, digital distortion will be present in the recordings you make with your SM The main difference between the two mics is that the SM58 is mainly for vocals, and therefore has a ball-shaped grille with a built-in pop filter.

The SM57 has a smaller grille. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Simply enter your email below and we'll send it right away:. Via Tsubasa Hiroki Flickr 1. Classic On Snare Drums The other place you will get great use out of your 57 is on the snare drum. The Alternative Vocal Mic The third reason why you should own an SM57 is to have an optional vocal mic that can handle crazy loud singers.

Kern on March 19, at am. Sad Panda on March 19, at am. Frank Nitsch on March 19, at am. Hi Graham, the first two usages indeed are well known. Smurf on March 19, at pm. Frank Nitsch on March 20, at am. Toby Baxley on March 19, at am. Mitch Gonzalez on March 19, at pm. Andrew Bauserman on March 19, at pm.

Andrew on March 19, at pm. Alex on March 20, at am. Arthur John Luay on March 20, at am. GoDawg on March 20, at pm. Great suggestion on a great mic.

Roddy on March 21, at pm. Evan Bradford on March 22, at am. Bryce on March 25, at pm. Would a 57 fair well on cymbals?

Evan Bradford on March 26, at am. Bryce on March 26, at am. Evan Bradford on March 26, at pm. No prob! Although the SM57 was originally intended for instrument applications, there are plenty of examples through music history of it being used as a vocal microphone.

This is because the increased proximity effect — and 5KHz frequency boost — can be used to the engineers advantage with certain vocalists. In other words, the same qualities that help instruments, can sometimes also bolster certain voices. It's all a matter of what works for your application.