The Shure SM57 is a fixture in the music business. You see it everywhere. In small clubs and 100,000 seat stadiums. This renowned mic is used by legendary performers and the latest up-and-comers. What you may not have seen are the thousands of SM57s at work behind the scenes in professional recording studios around the world. In fact, youll probably find it in more studios than any other mic. Not surprising. The unidirectional dynamic SM57 has set the industry standard by defining the way instruments should sound. Which is why its used by any serious musician or recording professional. Its warm, clean sound along with its carefully contoured presence rise make it ideal for a wide range of instrument miking applications, particularly guitar amplifiers and drums. The SM57 features a uniform cardioid pick-up pattern that isolates the main sound source and minimizes background noise.
Few microphones have the reputation for quality and durability that the SM57 has built up since it first hit the market in 1965. Since then, this product has been an industry benchmark to which all other studio microphones have been compared. It can be seen anywhere, from small clubs to sports stadiums, and has been used in the studio by many of the world’s greatest musicians. The Shure SM57 is also the microphone of choice for the White House, providing voice projection for the President since the 1970s.
Shure Construction you can Trust
The Shure brand ensures a long-lasting product that can withstand years of road or studio use. The SM57 was put through Shure’s famous drop test, in which the microphone was dropped ten times from a height of ten feet with no loss in input quality. Buyers can be confident in the durability of this microphone, exposing it to hours in the studio or the elements of an outdoor performance. The SM57 uses a cardioid pickup pattern to focus specifically on one source, rejecting audio from outside the pickup area. This can also be a great asset in live performances, as you can position the microphone wherever you like and not worry about feedback.
Presidential Sound Quality
The SM57 is one of the most versatile microphones on the market. This dynamic product can handle the highest sound pressure levels without distortion, making it the perfect choice for recording high-volume instruments like drums. Many hit recordings feature the SM57 on the snare, as it can handle the noise without distortion. This product is also perfect for use with high-volume amplifiers. The SM57 can even handle close up recording on half-stack amps that are painfully loud for human ears. This microphone will help you to bring the feel of a live performance to your recordings for a better representation of your music. While this microphone is notorious for being used in the studio to record the sounds of percussion, wind, and string instruments, it also provides high quality vocal recording. Whether you are using it for spoken word or vocals, the SM57 will deliver a flawless sound while eliminating background noises. Because of its reliability, sound isolation, and quality sound reproduction, the SM57 has been used at the podium for Presidential speeches for the past 40 years.
The SM57 differs from microphones that are manufactured solely for vocal pickup in many ways. Vocal microphones like the SM58 have their frequency dialed in to a certain range that is common in most singers, enhancing that microphone’s pickup of the human voice. The SM57 doesn’t have this specific tuning, so it can handle frequencies on a much wider scale, with a response from 40Hz to 15KHz. Without this tuning, the microphone takes in the sound exactly as it is played, creating a perfect recording every time. This is even preferred by some vocalists who want only the raw input of their voice with no tuning at all.