@@Deconbrio I tried it both yesterday and today and it's working. A ton of people have joined and it's working for them as well. Try it again and let me know if it works.
My biggest takeaway from this channel is that I've apparently had everything I need to make professional sounding songs for the last decade and I didn't even know it 😂
I love the way you explain things and preach the "truth" regarding the misconception that fancy expensive gear is required for great results. "Its the ear NOT the gear !"
There's nothing your ear can do about a guitar that will not stay in tune, or cannot be intonated, or an interface or mixer that produces glitches, errors or other sonic garbage. It's about adequate gear, and not luxuries. It's also not about JUST the ear. That's the necessary nuance for discussions like this.
@@VVVY777So true. Get the best gear you can afford and get second hand in excellent condition to save $$. I've saved thousands building up my home studio with this almost everything I have is second hand but in excellent condition. Buy good gear and keep it. Learn it's strengths inside and out by always experimenting and learning what you like about it and add it to your arsenal of gear that you can use well. Upgrade only when you have spare cash or if it's really necessary to save $$.
Dude I absolutely love how you prove over and over again gear is not the end all. It's a tool. I am a contractor. And I use cheap tools all the time and still do top notch work. Some things yes you need something decent but I feel the source is overlooked. Thanks for sharing. Your channel is excellent
@@FrightboxRecording yes sir. And on vox, bass and guitars. Fun fact…if you remove the transformer in the 57, you’ll get less noise and more dynamic range.
First off Sarah has a terrific voice, she sounds great! And credit to you for your recording skills. What I want to say is I've been recording a song of mine in my basement. I recently purchased a Mac Mini with a M2. However I was recording on a 2012 Mac Mini works great. For an audio interface, I use a MOTU M4, I can't say enough good things about it. For a Mic, I have a Rode NT1a condenser, a Shure SM58, and a Shure SM57. I recorded my vocals testing all 3 Mic's. I settled for the SM57, I thought it captured my voice the best. I was going to buy a Shure SM7B but found with a Windscreen and some EQ I could get close to a SM7B. You're so right about the gear. We have plenty of Horsepower with what we have already. 🤗
I’ve done some wild things with 57’s on vocals. My favorite to date is the time I put a pair in a brick room. One to the left and one to the right and all the way to the back of the room. Then I had the vocalist stand in the center of the room at the front. So basically the mics and singer made a room sized triangle. I ended up making a stereo layer for choruses for the particular song. I’ve never done it since but definitely should. It yielded stellar results. Gave tons of depth to the vocals. Added texture and color for days. I have also used sm57’s to record vocals way back before I had a decent condenser. Bottom line is, it worked great. If a 57 is all you got, you’ll be able to make something happen and no one will know.
@@FrightboxRecording bro you 100% should try it. Maybe worth making a video over. People should know of the wacky things you can do with recording. This is rather vanilla in terms of wackiness but it is “thinking outside the box” at least a little.
I entered a track into Khole's metal vocal battle that just wrapped up. I'm very happy with how my mix turned out. I used a very old and beat up Bogen MSC-620 (I hear it's a SM58 clone) for both screams and cleans, into an alesis 16 bit 4 channel mixer into Reaper. Recorded at my work from home desk in the corner of an untreated bedroom. Your channel is half the reason I was willing to even consider trying this!
Another awesome video Bobby!! Used an SM57 to do all the vocals on my bands full record!! I liked my results, and I learned a lot from your video for next time!
Bobby I'm so glad. That you've done this exposé on the SM-57. One of the world's greatest, Studio Microphones thusly the, SM branding for Studio Microphone. That's what it means. And here's the great thing about the 57. It's not by Heinz. It's about the SM-7's. It's the same microphone cartridge capsule. The same identical one. There is no difference. I had inside scoop to, SHURE Engineering. When I was told that. Decades ago. As, when you write contracts. For studio construction. You need to have, technical data. And you discover such things. And so unlike Bobby here. I don't use those, embroidery loop, pantyhose, pop filters. No. I do it right. I wanted to sound like a SM-7 so? SHURE makes an oversized, oval-shaped, extra-large, foam, pop filter. Designed for the SM-57. And that pretty much gives you a, SM-7. For, about, $150 US. That's a lot less than $400-$500 for the SM-7's. To get the identical sounding microphone. Minus, 2 switches. Two switches you don't need. And you're good to go for $150. Foam, pop filters. Look cool and protect the microphone. And are less cumbersome. And you can put your lips up to the foam. And the trick is. It still keeps your lips. Approximately 2 inches away from the diaphragm of the microphone. This is what makes it sound better. And more like a SM-7. And hey. The SM-7 was the lead vocal microphone. For most of Michael Jackson's. Mega hit songs. He was recorded with a SM-7. That has a 57, cartridge/capsule in it. And there you go! What else would you need? It's good enough for Michael Jackson. Do you think you need something better? You think you are better than Michael Jackson? Have you seen the psychiatrist? The doctor is waiting. Yes this is one of the world's greatest studio microphones. One of my all-time favorites. That's what I use, most of the time. I sold my, expensive, antique, vintage, famous, valuable, German condenser microphones I had. Both valve and transistor, types. I really don't need them anymore. Particularly in the land of Digital Recording. They were important. To help cut through the analog tape grunge. Back in the day. We don't do analog tape, anymore. Therefore they have become, archaic, almost. I can do everything with a 57. Absolutely, everything. Don't believe me? I even recorded, Symphony Orchestras and Operas with, SMI 57's. And I am not talking, school orchestras. Nope. I have recorded the Washington National Orchestra. And you get great recordings with a 57. With a few 57s. With, a lot of 57's. And hey. Since I've designed and built studios. And worked for RCA. For a couple of decades. Under the NBC-TV & Radio, tutelage. As we use all that great RCA gear and microphones. We replaced a lot of those microphones with 57's. Because they are cheap. It can drop them on a cement floor from 6 feet. Every night for 40 years. They will just keep working. And sounding good. Rarely do they fail. They're so damned solid and reliable. And they sound real smooth, rich, full. When you use them correctly. When you high pass filter them extensively. When you compress and limit them fully. Followed by your downward expander. And you'll have it all locked up. You will be Golden. And what goes great with that is a, 1176 style, FET limiter clone. Any clone will do. Any clone will work just like an original 1176 would. And we'll get you to, Nirvana. Without Kurt Cobain. That's always been my favorite. My go to. It can do anything. Anything you want to anything. Just remember to roll off all the low-end. High pass the holy hell out of your vocal microphone. You'll thank me in the end. Roll everything below, 350 Hz-250 Hz, off. Get rid of it. Turn it all down fully. It will sound real tinny. Add lots of limiting. Lots and lots of limiting. And you'll love it. You'll know it when you hear it. You heard it, many times, before. It is recognizable. You'll fall in love with it. I do every time. Time and time again. It's just right. 90% of the time. For all other times? There's MasterCard. That's when you're going to want to get yourself a, Velocity Microphone a.k.a. Ribbon Microphone. There is nothing else like them. Nothing else works like them. Nothing else hears, like them. They sound like you're hearing. As they have been described. They don't have the lowest lows. They don't have the highest highs. But they respond to the velocity of sound. Not the pressure. They are not pressure transducers. They are speed, transducers. They are where the money is. Because they sound like it. And condenser microphones are just crispy critters. When you want crispy. You want small diaphragm condenser. For wispy crispy goodness. Grade on making a woman sound like she is absolutely ready! That's what you want a small condenser diaphragm for. It's the panting, hot sounding microphone. LDC or Large Diaphragm Capacitor Microphones. Or Condenser, if you will? Really never sound, all that good. In small room enclosures. They just don't. They are only good at large cubic foot rooms. Large studios. Large theaters. Where nothing is going to reflect back into its diaphragm. And everything reflects back in smaller rooms. And they sound like crap that way. Large diaphragm condenser microphones are lousy in small rooms. Plain and simple. Go for the small ones. They will sound great. When you want that particular sound. Nice and bright and crispy. Very nice sometimes. Not all the time. Not on everything. Then it's hard to take. Ear fatigue sets in. That's a point of no return. Then it's overly crispy fried. Though some people like that sound. Mostly guys who are already hard of hearing. Women typically hate that sound. But the boys don't know it. The girls never say anything to them about that. As I have the inside scoop. (More Pro Scoop in following post)
Someone recently did a frequency plot on both an sm7 and a transformerless 57 and the two graphs were so close that the only differences could be chocked-up to the slight difference between two identical capsules off the assembly line - if that makes sense. The 57 transformer plays a roll in it's signature mid bump. Yes, the 57 without transformer drops a few db output but the capsules appear to function the same. Mic body may change the outcome but we agree with your assessment. People simply hear things differently based on the price they've spent or legendary status. Cheers.
One of the great things about the SM-57. It sounds great. In crappy small room acoustics. It really doesn't care about those lousy acoustics. It really doesn't hear, those lousy acoustics. Like condenser microphones do. And they filter out a lot of the grunge. They filter out low-frequency grunge. Rumbling from air conditioners and such. They filter out high-frequency sounds. Like the hissing of air conditioning. It really doesn't hear that grunge. And provides important filtering for you. And you can make great recordings in, small, compromised, acoustic environments. It will never sound compromised. It will sound great. 50-17,000 Hz, works for you that way. Nothing much below 50. Nothing much above 17,000. No real quality of signal there. At those extreme frequencies. And everything you want at those frequencies. 57 as have a certain sound. There are other dynamic microphones by other manufacturers. That can initially sound better. But better is not better. Better is merely different. I don't want or need that difference. I don't want better. I want the sound of 57's. I know what that is. I can count on that. It will give me exactly what I want. The way, I want it. And strangely enough. The joke is? When I didn't have enough, U-87's at our studio. We set out. To a microphone comparison. What best replaces the sound of our, 87's. That were real expensive. As we purchased ours new. But for this one session. We needed 3. We didn't have three. We had about a dozen microphones. Some good ones. Some run-of-the-mill, utilitarian type. And the SM-57, came the closest. Really really close. In some ways, better, warmer, Fuller. It was funny. Paid 100 on a microphone up against a $3000 microphone. And doing a double blind listening test. Everybody kept on picking the 57. I saw the handwriting on the wall. A little tweak with the Equalizer is all it needs. Like a, 2 dB boost at 10 kHz. And that's it. And what a hoot, it is. A stupid, rock 'n roll PA microphone. Beating out, a $3000, U-87. And that's absolutely true. It is that funny. RemyRAD
I’m love this. Great job,and great advice. Anyone who believes you need fancy gear and a finished room to do the thing needs to see this After 25 years of home recording experience and about 35 as a musician, this holds true. A great room and great gear can make the process a bit easier, but if you know how to use your gear and room, and more importantly have a great performance of a great song, then minimal gear can get you there. Thank you for proving it
I have a great tip for folks like me that have neighbors that don't want to hear my loud ass voice recording a vocal track. As long as you are in a safe place, I can't stress this enough, you can record vocals in your car. The Scarlet Solo is USB so you can power it with your phone, plug a mic in (even a powered one in) and listen to the mix through a 4 track recorder on your phone (there are several free ones out there that work great!), just be safe as far as your environment, I don't want someone getting car jacked for their gear. Recording in a car (or truck or whatever) gives you a nice dead sounding area to work with and I have gotten great results in some cases just going straight in with a USB mic. These mics actually seems to capture less sibilance than other mics.
I actually used to use a 57 with a pop filter on a lot of the more folky singer songwriters I produced! That was even when I had a Neumann and multiple tube mics. It has a rawness that’s very nice! I also ALWAYS recommend dynamics to people starting out and to all my podcast clients because of the expectation that few people will consider rook treatment. I think this is the very reason most people will hear a tlm103 and think it sounds inferior to a cheaper mic. Higher end mics are significantly more sensitive and generally have faster transient response than budget condensers and thus pick up wayyy more room tone. Thus in most cases unless you have a well treated space, a dynamic mic will be preferable.
I started playing guitar the summer after I graduated in '94. Had a band that summer and the following winter w/some friends. My drummer gave me an Realistic (Radio Shack brand) mic that he had, which was very similar to an SM57. We never recorded, but I just ran it into the second input on my Peavey Express 112 and sang and played guitar thru it. Never had any issues until the mic died at some point years later. Nice seeing the basic standards used. The mic is built like a tank, and fine for vocals, guitars, drums....cant' find a hammer and need to finish building something :)
I tracked some vocals recently in my cluttered dining room with the Marantz MPM-1000 podcast mic haha but with some simple eq, filtering, compression etc it came out sounding great. Goes to prove you really can get pretty good results with budget gear
I've seen videos about a bunch of different mixing methods and different opinions, most often shows not how difficult this art is, but on the contrary, the amount of schizophrenia among sound engineers who make a fucking cult out of mixing, showing their subscribers the results of mixing a track, skipping a bunch of stages that happen BEFORE mixing and ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than the mixing process itself. We need to stop doing this shit and start with the basics: a good song, good vocals, drums, bass, guitar, etc., recorded correctly, in good conditions, with the right technique. That's when we'll get a 10/10 track, which may not even have to be mixed for longer than 2-3 hours. But your channel is different. I bought your course and beed stunned how easy it it.
I’ve used the SM57 for vocals myself. It is the most versatile mic. Some complain it is too bright but you can adjust for that. I’ve used my condenser mic and honestly can’t tell it makes that much of a difference. I’ve heard some use it as a handheld when recording vocals. John Lennon used it occasionally I‘ve heard.
Ha ha ... not just John Lennon ... lots and lots of famous pros ... and watch those older live performances on UA-cam and you frequently see SM57s with A2WS foam screen attached, they're easy to spot.
Thanks Bobby. I was questionning my self regarding over compressing and, I guess I'm not that crazy after all!!! Good tips, I'm presently strugling to track vocals with an AKG P120 piking all the noises around, it I need to be gate heavely and it creating an bad effects. I will borrow the 57 on the drum kit and probably use it with my old ATM41HE (2 tracks) for comparison. And yes, I'm going for your free ''ways to improve your recording'' course right now. Sly
Actually there's one more thing I would add to the list of things to do on the recording end. Something I discovered back in the analogue days before in the box digital DAW's but the same process would apply either way. That being paying very close attention to the input gain. I was recording through a Mackie mixer into a TASCAM 4-Track cassette recorder. At the time all I had was an SM-58 and a SM-57 and found that my voice sounded better through the 57. I had been setting the input gain on the mixer going by what the MACKIE manual suggested to get the optimal signal level but wasn't very happy with how vocal recordings sounded. It kept sounding like the mic was just a little too hot and crispy! So one night I decided to "break the rules" and forget about what the manual said and just go by ear instead. I finally found the sweet spot for that mic by turning the input gain down quite a bit lower than where the manual said and WOW!! Night and day! So yeah I can personally vouch for what this fellow is saying! 57's CAN sound great! I would just add that setting the "right" input gain on the interface can make a big difference. As the saying goes it all starts at the mic... Getting a good recording makes the whole rest of processing that much easier.
Bobby... with this setup that you have here for our lovely vocalist. What would you think? If you could play the band tracks. Out of your speakers. Nice and loudly. Without her or you having to wear headphones? As it's a trick. Once you run the vocal overdubbed down. You have to do it again. Without her singing anything. You just record the room and the fold back audio again. To a separate track. Then. You take the vocal track. And combine it with the empty room track. Invert the phase of the room track. Then balance up the level against the vocal track. And the speaker feed just disappears. Like magic. So much of it. It is never a factor. You don't hear it. And anything left. Easily removed with the downward expander. It's a fun way to go. A fun way to do overdubs with, musicians in the room. They really get into it. When the speakers are blaring and they don't have to wear headphones. A fun way I created back in, 1979. When all we had was analog tape. And I did this with analog tape tracks and overdubs. It worked out great. Everybody loved it. Everybody gets more into it with the speakers. But of course. But the caveat here is. That microphone. Cannot be touched, bumped, moved in any way. Or this will not work. You can not change the fold back track balance either. It must be identical. It's a great way to go. It's lots of fun. And you just mix minus the lead vocal track out of the studio speakers. You don't feed the vocal tract to the studio speakers. It's only the instrumental tracks. The background sound in the room must remain the same minus the singer. For this to work effectively. I like the way you roll, kiddo. I think I watched you, grow up on UA-cam. And now you are 40? My assistant just turned, 40. 40 is cool. And it's all downhill from here. You've got 25 more to go, doing this. You're going to need more, 57's. Keep up the great videos. RemyRAD
Hey Bobby, cool video! Is the singer monitoring with the direct monitoring built in the Motu? Or are you monitoring with any compression, eq, reverb, through your daw? I've been making a record in my basement. Recording vocals with an AKG c214 and a focusrite interface. The small amount of round trip latency when monitoring with some stock EQ and compression via the DAW bothered the singer (Reaper, strong pc). Because of this we have been using the focusrite direct/no latency monitoring. The end results have been excellent, but I have to ride the preamp a little bit for her to get a consistent monitoring experience. Monitoring with compression and some reverb can be inspiring. Nicer studios that I've recorded at use outboard gear to achieve this with no latency. It has me lusting after a UA Apollo interface with onboard DSP.. no latency monitoring with compression, eq and reverb, but it can record the audio raw/without printing any effects for flexibility later. Can you curb my lust for the fancies?
I love this video Bobby is so right on. When you stocking about using lots of compressors and limiters. Right on man! And what did you say you are pulling? 24 DB of gain reduction? Is that all? Oh man? So? Am I doing something wrong? Using only a single, 1176? All buttons in. Slow attack, fast-ish release. And pulling, 25-35 dB of gain reduction? Am I going too far? It sounds killer. And I follow that with my, KEPEX-1. Set to about, 10-15 dB of, downward expansion. Below the breath. So it doesn't slam the door closed. That's awful lot of vocal. If that's what you keep it at between 10-15 DB of dip. So it doesn't go any lower. It still gets rid of all the background gunk. It never shuts the microphone off. It sounds so blasted natural it's laughable. And the vocal stays in the mix exactly where you place it. You hear the dynamics. But there are really, No, dynamics. Because the human voice. Really doesn't need dynamics. In pop music recording and mixing. You still hear the, character and timbre of the, dynamic structure. They present. While holding the dynamics tight. Tightly controlled. To make it sound oh, so natural. It really does. So I get away with just using one, 1176 FET limiter. I frequently keep the attack time rolled almost all the way to slow. Because even slow. At its slowest. It's still a 1 ms attack. One microsecond at its fastest. You don't need it that fast. Except for an FM radio transmitter. Roll the attack time back. You'll thank me later. You won't be clipping anything you could hear. They are microsecond clips. You can't hear those. Don't worry about those. Let them fly. It'll prevent the overloads you can hear. You are not doing, vinyl, disc mastering. You don't need ultrafast attack times. Sometimes I actually roll attack times back to around, as much as 15 ms in, software. In peak or RMS emulations. To let the truly dynamic peaks through. It's not going to break anything. It's okay if peak lights flashed occasionally. Not regularly. Not on every beat. But sometimes, sure. If you are going for a sound. Sometimes in software. I will use what I call, Creative Clipping. Now what is that? That's the art. Of deciding. How much odd order, dissonant distortion you want. And I will use the, Normalize, function. To, slightly over normalize. Say, 110%. Then. I re-normalize to, 97%. And there you go. I have purposely clipped. What I wanted to clip. And then reduced the level below, 0 DB FS. So there is no converter clipping. Going clicky clicky clicky. None of that. And now I've added a little extra edge to the sound. It's kind of like an enhancer. I'm enhancing, a slight bit of odd order harmonics on the peaks. It makes them sound harder. Hitting harder. And that's Creative Clipping. We did something similar in FM radio. To get that station louder than the other stations. We used Composite Clipping of the Mono signal. And it added more distortion. And the louder you made the station. The more distortion it had. Until people couldn't stand it. And that would be too much, Composite Clipping. But just a little bit. Could make your station really loud and Punchy. And that would get you more listeners. Staying on your station, longer. So they get all the commercials even better. And everybody stays in business! So creative clipping is used in FM radio. To make stations jump out of your radio. So not all clipping is bad. Would you do it right. Clipping is the, odd order side of, Saturation. Which is more even order, harmonic distortion. And is more musical sounding. Smoother, sounding. That's why electric guitarists like them. They had natural distortion. Not electronic sounding distortion. Which can still be effective. When used, sparingly. Just like anything else. Subtly. It can make all the difference. I'm just fully retired these past couple years. I sold off my Sound City, better control room. Yes it was better. And I have a lot more processor. At one time five, 1176's. 2 pairs of LA-3 & 4's. 2 racks full of, DBX 900's. 165's, 160's, Orban stuff. Allison Research, KEPEX-1's. A rack full. Lexicon, Yamaha, others, digital effects and reverbs. All that's needed. For worldwide, rock 'n roll broadcast's. In one small, 25,000 pound, diesel, box truck, Control Room On Wheels. Then there was, only 3 trucks. In the USA. That packed a vintage, 1972, custom Neve, consoles. I was one of them. For over 30 years. What a great time, of my life. Now it is just a memory. Now the remote recording Truck. Has been replaced. With a big old diesel pusher Motorhome. With 3 expanding slide outs. And upper end, interior. And now a little digital audio console. And some, 57's. What? I still have a pair of JBL 4311 with Crown DC-300 A. And a pair of, KRK, V6's. FOSTEX 6301's. In the Motorhome, now. And 65 inch, 46 inch, Samsung, LCD displays. One takes up the entire wall in the bedroom. With the, KRK's. The 46 inch with the, JBL's in the living room. On the passenger side interior. And a 40 inch. In the front. 17 inch in the bathroom. With a 6301's. And cameras everywhere. Into quad split hard disk recorders. In my motorhome. I guess I'm kind of crazy? But I get to be in my retirement. And I like stuff that sounds good. Like my old mixes. They still sound great. RemyRAD
your videos are always so damn good! Do you have any notes for using the SM57 for softer but warmer vocals? I'm trying to record some singer-songwriter vocals (think Hozier's live version of Like Real People Do with the SM7B), but finding it hard to get that warmth with a bit of proximity effect, without it immediately being too much - I'm using the shure AW2s windscreen so I can get a bit closer, but not sure if it's doing as good a job as a better pop filter would?
I've a couple of questions. The first question is regarding using an outboard preamp with the SM57's on my interface (Steinberg UR44). I've often have to turn the gain on my interface almost the way up (like 5 o' clock on the knobs) which means there's a little hiss from the hot preamps. How did you get such good and loud sounding vocals by plugging it directly into your interface? Second, would you reccomend I buy and outboard preamp to solve this problem? I'm thinking of getting an A. R. T. Pro MPA II or their Voice channel to help with this. Thanks in advance!
You can literally do an entire album and mic every instrument, including cymbals, with SM57's and it'll work. We actually did that in college and I was amazed at how good it sounded.
@@FrightboxRecording Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I had an AKG, but it was messing up, so right now I only have SM57, 2pcs. Also runs acoustic guitar, as well as guitar amplifiers. I'm working on a mix right now, you and Jordan Valeriote is my favourite mixing engineers, I like your instructions and descriptions, you keep it simple.😎
Yes it does...my setup....sm57 into focusrite Isa one into Mytek Stereo 96ADC into Antelope discrete 4 via spidif into logic pro x, 90s style rap vocals, and wow so smooth!🫴
For my ear the vocals turned out to be too crispy. As for compression, I think that I'm starting to overdo it and use too many compressors, limiters and saturators, but I can't stop. And you have to have a good powerful computer to handle all of your processing. Great video, btw, as always!
Can we get a video on the rest of the chain? I really like how the effects sound. Sounds like there effects but very natural. I’m having issues with it sounding clear and natural (I am using sends for my reverb and delay).
Hey Bobby! Great video, as always I find a lot of good information in your videos. A quick question: the lead vocalist in my band has a rich, deep baritone voice. I want to roll off unwanted frequencies in the low end, but want to preserve the qualities that make his voice special. What are your thoughts?
@@FrightboxRecording Thanks, Bobby! It's probably the 'relative' frequencies that give the impression of fullness to the voice, rather than the actual low end, play with the mid range frequencies and see how it sounds... Am I on the right track...?
Bro my computer keeps crashing I think because I only have 8GB but I think it's because of all the plugins I'm using when we are trying to stream through OBS. Is there a way I could still make a good mix with the RAM issue when it comes to streaming?
what Daw are you running on you 2012 Mac and how is even working ???? I still have mine and would love to still make use from it which version of macOS are you using???
Hey Bobby, got a question not related to this video, I’m struggling with the balance between having a fat low end on the bass and in some of your other videos you have recommended high pass filtering your bass up to 60/70hz above the kick, I’ve tried this but I feel like I’m loosing that blanket feel in the low end kind of hugging the mix, I’ve seen other people use plugins such as soothe or dynamic eq’s to quickly dip the specific sub frequencies in the bass when the kick hits, is this something you have experimented with or do you still stand by high passing the bass higher up? Cheers 👌🏻
I don't use soothe or dynamic EQ, just solid mixing strategies. Those tools are cool but unnecessary if you get the mix right. If you're having trouble with low-end, I recommend watching the training I mention at the end of this video.
Sounds great, I'm definitely impressed with the top end on that intro. I was expecting a 57 to be a bit more lispy, but the sheen on this is excellent. I do think you've overdone the Melodyne: with a vocalist as talented as this, the vocals need to breathe more. That's just my opinion, man.
When i record my sm57 there is just to much noise and i cant get the mic loud and present to the mix, can some one help me how to get volume out of the 57 without cranking up the noise?
So keep up the great work Bobby. I love your channel. You are great. Too bad you don't have a real career. This industry used to work. It'll never come back the way it once was. Pro Audio is now a UA-cam Show. And there's lots of great programming to be had. Like you, Bobby. Rick Be Auto and Glenn Fricker. I love all you guys. But you are the best. I mean Warren is okay. He's a bit more esoteric. And he has a sleepy, SSL 4000. We don't see much anymore. He's moved away from it, largely. Everybody's doing the software thingy. The software video dance. The, Plug-in Hoedown. The rally around, transformer less, microphone pre-amps. Ugh! I mean they are usable. Don't get me wrong. But there's something about hearing your audio. Twirling around. Inside a transformer. Before it comes out, there. There's just something about that sound. Personally all you really need. There's a couple of, Neve, microphone input transformers. That's the sound. Of those boards. Primarily. As they later moved to, integrated circuit chips. There are cheap. With the same transformers. So get a couple of microphone input transformers. Get a couple of output transformers. And tell everybody you have a Neve console. They will hear that it's true. It's a recognizable sound. Largely due to the Transformers Rupert Neve designed. So the 57 with the Neve input transformer. And you've got the whole, shebang going. For just pennies on the dollar. And it really really works. It's only $9.95 from Ronco. Audio Operators, standing by. It really is that easy to get that sound. Just keep watching Bobby here. He won't leave you wrong. Yeah I'm not just anybody. I'm retired. With multiple major music award nominations. And additionally 20 years with a major American network. So I gotten around. Bobby is 100% right here. This is the sound. Of that microphone. You thought you could never afford. But it's only $100 new. About $50 used. But make no mistake. There are many Chinese counterfeits. Of this here microphone. That is indistinguishable. Visually. Except for the sound. They don't sound anything like a 57. But they look like them. If you like them. They have the same printing on them. They are horrible Chinese counterfeits. Usually available for around $20. Don't waste your money unless you are desperate. They will work. They will not provide the sound you seek. They are garbage. And can be used in a pinch. But only in a pinch. Because they are crap. Through and through. Make certain they are the real deal made in America. You won't find them for much less than $50 used. Lucky when you can find a good one for $40. I found one at a flea market that was like new. I could hardly believe it. I wasn't even shopping for one. But I got it. I was like is this for real? Yup. Sold. You can never have too many. Have a, 58 but want a 57? Screw the metal mesh ball and Voilà! Same microphone. Once you unscrew the ball. 2 microphones in one. And then 3 microphones in one. When you get the big foam pop filter. And make it sound like a SM-7. So, there you go. From an old retired, FART. I am 100% with Bobby on this one. He's not as stupid as the rest of you. And providing a very good solid salad advice. You just can't go wrong with this microphone. Even excellent on drum, overheads. I had to use them once. When my, A KG 414 broke. And I was like crap! Dave, grab me a pair of 57's. And the drums sounded really good. For the live broadcast. It was broadcast. Coast-to-coast. As that failed just before broadcast. They work great on everything. You don't need anything else. It's a Primary. Everything else is just everything else. When you don't have enough, 57's. There were 2 other models that used to the same cartridge capsule and that was the SM-56 and the SM-5. I miss both of those, models. 56's great on drums. They screw directly to the microphone stand. The 5 is just a 57. With a big outer blimp of foam. There was no visible metal. It was just a big chunk of foam. With a 57 inside. So it was really just a 57. In an internal shock mount. Inside the outer foam housing. Popular for radio announcers, mostly. Or recording studio singers. As they screwed directly to the microphone stands. And there was that nice big blob of black foam. The SM-5. The same as the 7. The same as the 56, 57 and 58. And so the joke is on everybody. That wastes their money on the SM-7's. Paying $300-$400 more. And they are all largely, dummies. Wasting extra hundreds of dollars they don't have to. But they want you to think. They know something professionally. I mean they, no, something, professionally. And they'll look like morons jerks to me. They must know something? They spent 300-$400 more! They did not need to spend. But they wanted to look important and authoritative. Then they had their headphones on. So they could hear themselves talk. Because they are not on the air live. But they want you to think they are. Because they want to be important. They want to be Famous. For wearing their headphones and having a SM-7. They look so smart that way. You don't see Bobby do that often. Because he is actually smart, talented and seasoned. So I take all the things I said about Bobby, back. He's really not stupid! And he is into heavy metal music. Not my cup of tea for more than 10 minutes a day. But I appreciate it. As an art form. And those that do it well. Like Bobby. I don't think I would know, Hispanic heavy metal if I heard it? RemyRAD
I’m using a sm57 straight to my scarlett 2i2. When I record, the vocals are just so quiet. The only way I hear the them is if i turn the gain all the way up and if I basically have the mic inside my mouth. Lol Anybody know why this happens? Am I suppose to use a plugin to boost the vocals? Or am I doing something else wrong? Newbie here. Just trying to learn. Thank you!
Do you have your mic pad engaged without noticing it? It's normal for the vocals to sound quiet if you're not compressing them while monitoring. As long as you're peaking anywhere around the -5dB range, you should be fine.
Hate to sound negative here, but 'album quality' is subjective, and to me that vocal sounds hollow and almost sounds like it's coming from the bathroom or another room. There's no intimacy, and it's severely lacking detail. I can tell that singer has a great voice and I'd like to hear her right up close and intimate. The SM57 is a workhorse and can get many jobs done. That singer would sound a lot better even with just a made in japan Audio Technica 3035 which is insanely affordable. I'd even argue that an SM7b targeted a little at her chest would give her recorded performance a heckuva lot more body and throatiness.
Most of the time it's a placebo effect. I'd be willing to bet that if I told you this was recorded with a U87 you'd love it. I see this happen all the time with guitar players in the studio. They love the tone they hear until they find out that it's an amp sim and not their expensive amp.
Given that the Sun Sessions were recorded on one mic straight to vinyl and they're amongst some of the best recordings ever made. It's not really about the gear.
only comment is that on delicate vocals there was more background noise, i think if youre a singer like billie eilish for example...or lana del rey....condenser is the way to go
Oh really? You never wondered how singers like Adele, Dua Lipa, etc. achieve those tones? 'cause those aren't dynamic mics. Dua did use an SM7b once, and it sounded wooly and nowhere near as high quality as her other work. You never wondered which songs Chino Moreno used handheld SM58's on, and which were condensers? Probably just all the same to you.
Not too bad. To the first song, The EQ'd vocal sounds unnatural, "meatless" and thin, "hollow" if you will. All that compression seems unnecessary as well. To my ears the vocal sounds very artificially processed. The second songs vocal sounds better though.
@@MrAdopado That's what preamps are for. A transformerless 57 is a favorite do everything mic around here. Even vocals. Has been for over 20 years. Cheers.
@@jimp.7286 Yes, good preamp needed. First 57 I bought some years back turned out to be a fake! I took it apart and it actually "pretended" to have a transformer ... they had gone to the trouble of burying a little transformer core in the translucent silicone but it had no windings! Amazingly it didn't sound bad at all despite not being Shure.
@@MrAdopado I've heard about the transformerless 57 copies from china. I know they exist. The pacific rim copies many things these days but often take short-cuts. As for mine, a good low noise preamp brings the mic right up to where it would've been with transformer. Many folks say they're way down after the removal. Not true. Only a few db. If one can't make a hit album with a transformer-less 57 - they have other problems. We use ours on multiple sources for over twenty years now, ( a favorite snare drum mic as well ),. I've seen the wave form plot comparisons between transformer-less 57 and sm7. They look virtually identical meaning the capsule is likely the same or just about. Cheers again.
yeah, but here's the thing many girls & bands in her age bracket all sing the same she sings like she talks in my opinion & sings in one key.. she doesn't have any real range at all in my opinion .. just my opinion she's not a good singer/// just my opinion she's not singing on her vowels & where vowels consonants? I don't feel it..
Mic is fine. TOO MUCH COMPRESSION taking all the life out of the vocal. Too much volume and high mids on buzzy guitars blocking the voice and forcing you to put even more high mids on the vocal.
You can do anything with enough processing. That doesn't mean you should use shitty gear and fix everything in post. If that's all you can afford, do what you gotta do, but this doesn't mean a 57 is a good vocal mic lol There are plenty of mics in the same price range that are better suited for the job. Drums and guitar cabs? Yes, 57s all the way. You can even mod one for better low end response
►► {FREE TRAINING} 4 Dead-Simple Ways To Improve Your Recordings & Mixes: frightboxrecordingacademy.com/free-training/
I’m trying to sign up, but I’m getting a parsing error on the page
@@Deconbrio I tried it both yesterday and today and it's working. A ton of people have joined and it's working for them as well. Try it again and let me know if it works.
My biggest takeaway from this channel is that I've apparently had everything I need to make professional sounding songs for the last decade and I didn't even know it 😂
Love hearing that!
You probably didn't have the skill or experience you have now. That's a decade's worth.
Same here dude
Same here, man. Procrastination is a hell of a drug.
same here - I waited to record my vocals because I didn't have that fabulous preamp that's gonna resolve all my problems
Helping home studios create professional-quality music without breaking the bank.
Thanks for the feature Bobby! You do great work and it was awesome singing with you! 🤘
The song is amazing. I'm buying the SM57 tomorrow
I love the way you explain things and preach the "truth" regarding the misconception that fancy expensive gear is required for great results. "Its the ear NOT the gear !"
There's nothing your ear can do about a guitar that will not stay in tune, or cannot be intonated, or an interface or mixer that produces glitches, errors or other sonic garbage.
It's about adequate gear, and not luxuries. It's also not about JUST the ear. That's the necessary nuance for discussions like this.
@@VVVY777So true. Get the best gear you can afford and get second hand in excellent condition to save $$. I've saved thousands building up my home studio with this almost everything I have is second hand but in excellent condition.
Buy good gear and keep it. Learn it's strengths inside and out by always experimenting and learning what you like about it and add it to your arsenal of gear that you can use well.
Upgrade only when you have spare cash or if it's really necessary to save $$.
Dude I absolutely love how you prove over and over again gear is not the end all. It's a tool. I am a contractor. And I use cheap tools all the time and still do top notch work. Some things yes you need something decent but I feel the source is overlooked. Thanks for sharing. Your channel is excellent
I recorded my first album with 4 sm57s and Great River NV mic preamps. It turned out great.
Love it! 4 57's on the drum kit?
@@FrightboxRecording yes sir. And on vox, bass and guitars. Fun fact…if you remove the transformer in the 57, you’ll get less noise and more dynamic range.
First off Sarah has a terrific voice, she sounds great! And credit to you for your recording skills. What I want to say is I've been recording a song of mine in my basement. I recently purchased a Mac Mini with a M2. However I was recording on a 2012 Mac Mini works great. For an audio interface, I use a MOTU M4, I can't say enough good things about it. For a Mic, I have a Rode NT1a condenser, a Shure SM58, and a Shure SM57. I recorded my vocals testing all 3 Mic's. I settled for the SM57, I thought it captured my voice the best. I was going to buy a Shure SM7B but found with a Windscreen and some EQ I could get close to a SM7B. You're so right about the gear. We have plenty of Horsepower with what we have already. 🤗
I’ve done some wild things with 57’s on vocals. My favorite to date is the time I put a pair in a brick room. One to the left and one to the right and all the way to the back of the room. Then I had the vocalist stand in the center of the room at the front. So basically the mics and singer made a room sized triangle. I ended up making a stereo layer for choruses for the particular song. I’ve never done it since but definitely should. It yielded stellar results. Gave tons of depth to the vocals. Added texture and color for days.
I have also used sm57’s to record vocals way back before I had a decent condenser. Bottom line is, it worked great. If a 57 is all you got, you’ll be able to make something happen and no one will know.
Wow that's a killer idea!
@@FrightboxRecording bro you 100% should try it. Maybe worth making a video over. People should know of the wacky things you can do with recording. This is rather vanilla in terms of wackiness but it is “thinking outside the box” at least a little.
I entered a track into Khole's metal vocal battle that just wrapped up. I'm very happy with how my mix turned out. I used a very old and beat up Bogen MSC-620 (I hear it's a SM58 clone) for both screams and cleans, into an alesis 16 bit 4 channel mixer into Reaper. Recorded at my work from home desk in the corner of an untreated bedroom. Your channel is half the reason I was willing to even consider trying this!
So pumped to hear that, Justin!
Another awesome video Bobby!! Used an SM57 to do all the vocals on my bands full record!! I liked my results, and I learned a lot from your video for next time!
This by far is the best video on how to get the best vocal sound with home recording gear.
Bobby I'm so glad. That you've done this exposé on the SM-57. One of the world's greatest, Studio Microphones thusly the, SM branding for Studio Microphone. That's what it means.
And here's the great thing about the 57. It's not by Heinz. It's about the SM-7's. It's the same microphone cartridge capsule. The same identical one. There is no difference. I had inside scoop to, SHURE Engineering. When I was told that. Decades ago. As, when you write contracts. For studio construction. You need to have, technical data. And you discover such things.
And so unlike Bobby here. I don't use those, embroidery loop, pantyhose, pop filters. No. I do it right. I wanted to sound like a SM-7 so? SHURE makes an oversized, oval-shaped, extra-large, foam, pop filter. Designed for the SM-57. And that pretty much gives you a, SM-7. For, about, $150 US. That's a lot less than $400-$500 for the SM-7's. To get the identical sounding microphone. Minus, 2 switches. Two switches you don't need. And you're good to go for $150. Foam, pop filters. Look cool and protect the microphone. And are less cumbersome. And you can put your lips up to the foam. And the trick is. It still keeps your lips. Approximately 2 inches away from the diaphragm of the microphone. This is what makes it sound better. And more like a SM-7.
And hey. The SM-7 was the lead vocal microphone. For most of Michael Jackson's. Mega hit songs. He was recorded with a SM-7. That has a 57, cartridge/capsule in it. And there you go! What else would you need? It's good enough for Michael Jackson. Do you think you need something better? You think you are better than Michael Jackson? Have you seen the psychiatrist? The doctor is waiting.
Yes this is one of the world's greatest studio microphones. One of my all-time favorites. That's what I use, most of the time. I sold my, expensive, antique, vintage, famous, valuable, German condenser microphones I had. Both valve and transistor, types. I really don't need them anymore. Particularly in the land of Digital Recording. They were important. To help cut through the analog tape grunge. Back in the day. We don't do analog tape, anymore. Therefore they have become, archaic, almost. I can do everything with a 57. Absolutely, everything.
Don't believe me? I even recorded, Symphony Orchestras and Operas with, SMI 57's. And I am not talking, school orchestras. Nope. I have recorded the Washington National Orchestra. And you get great recordings with a 57. With a few 57s. With, a lot of 57's.
And hey. Since I've designed and built studios. And worked for RCA. For a couple of decades. Under the NBC-TV & Radio, tutelage. As we use all that great RCA gear and microphones. We replaced a lot of those microphones with 57's. Because they are cheap. It can drop them on a cement floor from 6 feet. Every night for 40 years. They will just keep working. And sounding good. Rarely do they fail. They're so damned solid and reliable. And they sound real smooth, rich, full. When you use them correctly. When you high pass filter them extensively. When you compress and limit them fully. Followed by your downward expander. And you'll have it all locked up. You will be Golden.
And what goes great with that is a, 1176 style, FET limiter clone. Any clone will do. Any clone will work just like an original 1176 would. And we'll get you to, Nirvana. Without Kurt Cobain. That's always been my favorite. My go to. It can do anything. Anything you want to anything. Just remember to roll off all the low-end. High pass the holy hell out of your vocal microphone. You'll thank me in the end. Roll everything below, 350 Hz-250 Hz, off. Get rid of it. Turn it all down fully. It will sound real tinny. Add lots of limiting. Lots and lots of limiting. And you'll love it. You'll know it when you hear it. You heard it, many times, before. It is recognizable. You'll fall in love with it. I do every time. Time and time again. It's just right. 90% of the time. For all other times? There's MasterCard.
That's when you're going to want to get yourself a, Velocity Microphone a.k.a. Ribbon Microphone. There is nothing else like them. Nothing else works like them. Nothing else hears, like them. They sound like you're hearing. As they have been described. They don't have the lowest lows. They don't have the highest highs. But they respond to the velocity of sound. Not the pressure. They are not pressure transducers. They are speed, transducers. They are where the money is. Because they sound like it. And condenser microphones are just crispy critters. When you want crispy. You want small diaphragm condenser. For wispy crispy goodness. Grade on making a woman sound like she is absolutely ready! That's what you want a small condenser diaphragm for. It's the panting, hot sounding microphone.
LDC or Large Diaphragm Capacitor Microphones. Or Condenser, if you will? Really never sound, all that good. In small room enclosures. They just don't. They are only good at large cubic foot rooms. Large studios. Large theaters. Where nothing is going to reflect back into its diaphragm. And everything reflects back in smaller rooms. And they sound like crap that way. Large diaphragm condenser microphones are lousy in small rooms. Plain and simple. Go for the small ones. They will sound great. When you want that particular sound. Nice and bright and crispy. Very nice sometimes. Not all the time. Not on everything. Then it's hard to take. Ear fatigue sets in. That's a point of no return. Then it's overly crispy fried. Though some people like that sound. Mostly guys who are already hard of hearing. Women typically hate that sound. But the boys don't know it. The girls never say anything to them about that. As I have the inside scoop.
(More Pro Scoop in following post)
Someone recently did a frequency plot on both an sm7 and a transformerless 57 and the two graphs were so close that the only differences could be chocked-up to the slight difference between two identical capsules off the assembly line - if that makes sense. The 57 transformer plays a roll in it's signature mid bump. Yes, the 57 without transformer drops a few db output but the capsules appear to function the same. Mic body may change the outcome but we agree with your assessment. People simply hear things differently based on the price they've spent or legendary status. Cheers.
One of the great things about the SM-57. It sounds great. In crappy small room acoustics. It really doesn't care about those lousy acoustics. It really doesn't hear, those lousy acoustics. Like condenser microphones do. And they filter out a lot of the grunge. They filter out low-frequency grunge. Rumbling from air conditioners and such. They filter out high-frequency sounds. Like the hissing of air conditioning. It really doesn't hear that grunge. And provides important filtering for you.
And you can make great recordings in, small, compromised, acoustic environments. It will never sound compromised. It will sound great. 50-17,000 Hz, works for you that way. Nothing much below 50. Nothing much above 17,000. No real quality of signal there. At those extreme frequencies. And everything you want at those frequencies.
57 as have a certain sound. There are other dynamic microphones by other manufacturers. That can initially sound better. But better is not better. Better is merely different. I don't want or need that difference. I don't want better. I want the sound of 57's. I know what that is. I can count on that. It will give me exactly what I want. The way, I want it.
And strangely enough. The joke is? When I didn't have enough, U-87's at our studio. We set out. To a microphone comparison. What best replaces the sound of our, 87's. That were real expensive. As we purchased ours new. But for this one session. We needed 3. We didn't have three.
We had about a dozen microphones. Some good ones. Some run-of-the-mill, utilitarian type. And the SM-57, came the closest. Really really close. In some ways, better, warmer, Fuller. It was funny. Paid 100 on a microphone up against a $3000 microphone. And doing a double blind listening test. Everybody kept on picking the 57. I saw the handwriting on the wall. A little tweak with the Equalizer is all it needs. Like a, 2 dB boost at 10 kHz. And that's it. And what a hoot, it is.
A stupid, rock 'n roll PA microphone. Beating out, a $3000, U-87. And that's absolutely true. It is that funny.
RemyRAD
I’m love this. Great job,and great advice. Anyone who believes you need fancy gear and a finished room to do the thing needs to see this After 25 years of home recording experience and about 35 as a musician, this holds true. A great room and great gear can make the process a bit easier, but if you know how to use your gear and room, and more importantly have a great performance of a great song, then minimal gear can get you there.
Thank you for proving it
Awesomeness Bobby! I always feel inspired after watching your practical approach without spending more money. Thanks for helping so many of us out.
I have a great tip for folks like me that have neighbors that don't want to hear my loud ass voice recording a vocal track. As long as you are in a safe place, I can't stress this enough, you can record vocals in your car. The Scarlet Solo is USB so you can power it with your phone, plug a mic in (even a powered one in) and listen to the mix through a 4 track recorder on your phone (there are several free ones out there that work great!), just be safe as far as your environment, I don't want someone getting car jacked for their gear. Recording in a car (or truck or whatever) gives you a nice dead sounding area to work with and I have gotten great results in some cases just going straight in with a USB mic. These mics actually seems to capture less sibilance than other mics.
I actually used to use a 57 with a pop filter on a lot of the more folky singer songwriters I produced! That was even when I had a Neumann and multiple tube mics. It has a rawness that’s very nice!
I also ALWAYS recommend dynamics to people starting out and to all my podcast clients because of the expectation that few people will consider rook treatment. I think this is the very reason most people will hear a tlm103 and think it sounds inferior to a cheaper mic. Higher end mics are significantly more sensitive and generally have faster transient response than budget condensers and thus pick up wayyy more room tone. Thus in most cases unless you have a well treated space, a dynamic mic will be preferable.
Dude I Love you! You're preaching. Thank you
I started playing guitar the summer after I graduated in '94. Had a band that summer and the following winter w/some friends. My drummer gave me an Realistic (Radio Shack brand) mic that he had, which was very similar to an SM57. We never recorded, but I just ran it into the second input on my Peavey Express 112 and sang and played guitar thru it. Never had any issues until the mic died at some point years later. Nice seeing the basic standards used. The mic is built like a tank, and fine for vocals, guitars, drums....cant' find a hammer and need to finish building something :)
I tracked some vocals recently in my cluttered dining room with the Marantz MPM-1000 podcast mic haha but with some simple eq, filtering, compression etc it came out sounding great. Goes to prove you really can get pretty good results with budget gear
I've seen videos about a bunch of different mixing methods and different opinions, most often shows not how difficult this art is, but on the contrary, the amount of schizophrenia among sound engineers who make a fucking cult out of mixing, showing their subscribers the results of mixing a track, skipping a bunch of stages that happen BEFORE mixing and ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than the mixing process itself. We need to stop doing this shit and start with the basics: a good song, good vocals, drums, bass, guitar, etc., recorded correctly, in good conditions, with the right technique. That's when we'll get a 10/10 track, which may not even have to be mixed for longer than 2-3 hours. But your channel is different. I bought your course and beed stunned how easy it it.
I’ve used the SM57 for vocals myself. It is the most versatile mic. Some complain it is too bright but you can adjust for that. I’ve used my condenser mic and honestly can’t tell it makes that much of a difference. I’ve heard some use it as a handheld when recording vocals. John Lennon used it occasionally I‘ve heard.
Ha ha ... not just John Lennon ... lots and lots of famous pros ... and watch those older live performances on UA-cam and you frequently see SM57s with A2WS foam screen attached, they're easy to spot.
Thanks Bobby.
I was questionning my self regarding over compressing and, I guess I'm not that crazy after all!!!
Good tips, I'm presently strugling to track vocals with an AKG P120 piking all the noises around, it I need to be gate heavely and it creating an bad effects. I will borrow the 57 on the drum kit and probably use it with my old ATM41HE (2 tracks) for comparison. And yes, I'm going for your free ''ways to improve your recording'' course right now.
Sly
The SM57 will work well and will probably eliminate the need for a gate.
Awesome video! I love the idea of making the most out of and learning to use what you have.
Where have you been all these years? YT’s algorithm finally decided to show me the way.
Actually there's one more thing I would add to the list of things to do on the recording end. Something I discovered back in the analogue days before in the box digital DAW's but the same process would apply either way. That being paying very close attention to the input gain. I was recording through a Mackie mixer into a TASCAM 4-Track cassette recorder. At the time all I had was an SM-58 and a SM-57 and found that my voice sounded better through the 57. I had been setting the input gain on the mixer going by what the MACKIE manual suggested to get the optimal signal level but wasn't very happy with how vocal recordings sounded. It kept sounding like the mic was just a little too hot and crispy! So one night I decided to "break the rules" and forget about what the manual said and just go by ear instead. I finally found the sweet spot for that mic by turning the input gain down quite a bit lower than where the manual said and WOW!! Night and day! So yeah I can personally vouch for what this fellow is saying! 57's CAN sound great! I would just add that setting the "right" input gain on the interface can make a big difference. As the saying goes it all starts at the mic... Getting a good recording makes the whole rest of processing that much easier.
Thank you, these are great tips! And exactly what I was looking for regarding vocals.
Glad it was helpful!
Bobby... with this setup that you have here for our lovely vocalist. What would you think? If you could play the band tracks. Out of your speakers. Nice and loudly. Without her or you having to wear headphones? As it's a trick.
Once you run the vocal overdubbed down. You have to do it again. Without her singing anything. You just record the room and the fold back audio again. To a separate track.
Then. You take the vocal track. And combine it with the empty room track. Invert the phase of the room track. Then balance up the level against the vocal track. And the speaker feed just disappears. Like magic. So much of it. It is never a factor. You don't hear it. And anything left. Easily removed with the downward expander. It's a fun way to go. A fun way to do overdubs with, musicians in the room. They really get into it. When the speakers are blaring and they don't have to wear headphones. A fun way I created back in, 1979. When all we had was analog tape. And I did this with analog tape tracks and overdubs. It worked out great. Everybody loved it. Everybody gets more into it with the speakers. But of course.
But the caveat here is. That microphone. Cannot be touched, bumped, moved in any way. Or this will not work. You can not change the fold back track balance either. It must be identical. It's a great way to go. It's lots of fun. And you just mix minus the lead vocal track out of the studio speakers. You don't feed the vocal tract to the studio speakers. It's only the instrumental tracks. The background sound in the room must remain the same minus the singer. For this to work effectively.
I like the way you roll, kiddo. I think I watched you, grow up on UA-cam. And now you are 40? My assistant just turned, 40. 40 is cool. And it's all downhill from here. You've got 25 more to go, doing this. You're going to need more, 57's.
Keep up the great videos.
RemyRAD
wow this is awesome! love the sm57! 🎤👍🏼🫡✌🏼
Me too! If there's one mic to buy, it's the SM57 for sure.
Nice work and great singing
reminds me the ''budget'' approach Tom Scholz had when he recorded Brad Delp's vocals for that first Boston record that sold 25 million copies -
Hey Bobby, cool video! Is the singer monitoring with the direct monitoring built in the Motu? Or are you monitoring with any compression, eq, reverb, through your daw?
I've been making a record in my basement. Recording vocals with an AKG c214 and a focusrite interface. The small amount of round trip latency when monitoring with some stock EQ and compression via the DAW bothered the singer (Reaper, strong pc). Because of this we have been using the focusrite direct/no latency monitoring. The end results have been excellent, but I have to ride the preamp a little bit for her to get a consistent monitoring experience. Monitoring with compression and some reverb can be inspiring. Nicer studios that I've recorded at use outboard gear to achieve this with no latency. It has me lusting after a UA Apollo interface with onboard DSP.. no latency monitoring with compression, eq and reverb, but it can record the audio raw/without printing any effects for flexibility later. Can you curb my lust for the fancies?
She's monitoring through compression and EQ in the DAW. I never use direct monitoring. I just use light, stock plugins so that there's no latency.
that free course at the end isn't coming through to my email are you still sending it out ?
Yes it's still active. Email me at bobby@frightboxrecordingacademy.com and I'll make sure you get it.
Saludos desde sudamerica! Paraguay . . .
El shure sm57 es el mejor microfono !!! lo voy a tener conmigo toda la vida. No necesito nada mas
I LOVE the Frightbox goes Guerilla videos!
I love this video Bobby is so right on. When you stocking about using lots of compressors and limiters. Right on man!
And what did you say you are pulling? 24 DB of gain reduction? Is that all? Oh man? So? Am I doing something wrong? Using only a single, 1176? All buttons in. Slow attack, fast-ish release. And pulling, 25-35 dB of gain reduction? Am I going too far? It sounds killer. And I follow that with my, KEPEX-1. Set to about, 10-15 dB of, downward expansion. Below the breath. So it doesn't slam the door closed. That's awful lot of vocal. If that's what you keep it at between 10-15 DB of dip. So it doesn't go any lower. It still gets rid of all the background gunk. It never shuts the microphone off. It sounds so blasted natural it's laughable. And the vocal stays in the mix exactly where you place it. You hear the dynamics. But there are really, No, dynamics. Because the human voice. Really doesn't need dynamics. In pop music recording and mixing. You still hear the, character and timbre of the, dynamic structure. They present. While holding the dynamics tight. Tightly controlled. To make it sound oh, so natural. It really does.
So I get away with just using one, 1176 FET limiter. I frequently keep the attack time rolled almost all the way to slow. Because even slow. At its slowest. It's still a 1 ms attack. One microsecond at its fastest. You don't need it that fast. Except for an FM radio transmitter. Roll the attack time back. You'll thank me later. You won't be clipping anything you could hear. They are microsecond clips. You can't hear those. Don't worry about those. Let them fly. It'll prevent the overloads you can hear. You are not doing, vinyl, disc mastering. You don't need ultrafast attack times. Sometimes I actually roll attack times back to around, as much as 15 ms in, software. In peak or RMS emulations. To let the truly dynamic peaks through. It's not going to break anything. It's okay if peak lights flashed occasionally. Not regularly. Not on every beat. But sometimes, sure. If you are going for a sound.
Sometimes in software. I will use what I call, Creative Clipping. Now what is that? That's the art. Of deciding. How much odd order, dissonant distortion you want. And I will use the, Normalize, function. To, slightly over normalize. Say, 110%. Then. I re-normalize to, 97%. And there you go. I have purposely clipped. What I wanted to clip. And then reduced the level below, 0 DB FS. So there is no converter clipping. Going clicky clicky clicky. None of that. And now I've added a little extra edge to the sound. It's kind of like an enhancer. I'm enhancing, a slight bit of odd order harmonics on the peaks. It makes them sound harder. Hitting harder. And that's Creative Clipping. We did something similar in FM radio. To get that station louder than the other stations. We used Composite Clipping of the Mono signal. And it added more distortion. And the louder you made the station. The more distortion it had. Until people couldn't stand it. And that would be too much, Composite Clipping. But just a little bit. Could make your station really loud and Punchy. And that would get you more listeners. Staying on your station, longer. So they get all the commercials even better. And everybody stays in business!
So creative clipping is used in FM radio. To make stations jump out of your radio. So not all clipping is bad. Would you do it right. Clipping is the, odd order side of, Saturation. Which is more even order, harmonic distortion. And is more musical sounding. Smoother, sounding. That's why electric guitarists like them. They had natural distortion. Not electronic sounding distortion. Which can still be effective. When used, sparingly. Just like anything else. Subtly. It can make all the difference.
I'm just fully retired these past couple years. I sold off my Sound City, better control room. Yes it was better. And I have a lot more processor. At one time five, 1176's. 2 pairs of LA-3 & 4's. 2 racks full of, DBX 900's. 165's, 160's, Orban stuff. Allison Research, KEPEX-1's. A rack full. Lexicon, Yamaha, others, digital effects and reverbs. All that's needed. For worldwide, rock 'n roll broadcast's. In one small, 25,000 pound, diesel, box truck, Control Room On Wheels. Then there was, only 3 trucks. In the USA. That packed a vintage, 1972, custom Neve, consoles. I was one of them. For over 30 years. What a great time, of my life.
Now it is just a memory. Now the remote recording Truck. Has been replaced. With a big old diesel pusher Motorhome. With 3 expanding slide outs. And upper end, interior. And now a little digital audio console. And some, 57's.
What? I still have a pair of JBL 4311 with Crown DC-300 A. And a pair of, KRK, V6's. FOSTEX 6301's. In the Motorhome, now. And 65 inch, 46 inch, Samsung, LCD displays. One takes up the entire wall in the bedroom. With the, KRK's. The 46 inch with the, JBL's in the living room. On the passenger side interior. And a 40 inch. In the front. 17 inch in the bathroom. With a 6301's. And cameras everywhere. Into quad split hard disk recorders. In my motorhome. I guess I'm kind of crazy?
But I get to be in my retirement. And I like stuff that sounds good. Like my old mixes. They still sound great.
RemyRAD
your videos are always so damn good! Do you have any notes for using the SM57 for softer but warmer vocals? I'm trying to record some singer-songwriter vocals (think Hozier's live version of Like Real People Do with the SM7B), but finding it hard to get that warmth with a bit of proximity effect, without it immediately being too much - I'm using the shure AW2s windscreen so I can get a bit closer, but not sure if it's doing as good a job as a better pop filter would?
I've a couple of questions.
The first question is regarding using an outboard preamp with the SM57's on my interface (Steinberg UR44).
I've often have to turn the gain on my interface almost the way up (like 5 o' clock on the knobs) which means there's a little hiss from the hot preamps. How did you get such good and loud sounding vocals by plugging it directly into your interface?
Second, would you reccomend I buy and outboard preamp to solve this problem? I'm thinking of getting an A. R. T. Pro MPA II or their Voice channel to help with this.
Thanks in advance!
It's already on many famous recordings, or so they say. It's also commonly used on electric guitar, often as first choice.
I just have the SM57, sounds good to me!
You can literally do an entire album and mic every instrument, including cymbals, with SM57's and it'll work. We actually did that in college and I was amazed at how good it sounded.
@@FrightboxRecording Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I had an AKG, but it was messing up, so right now I only have SM57, 2pcs. Also runs acoustic guitar, as well as guitar amplifiers. I'm working on a mix right now, you and Jordan Valeriote is my favourite mixing engineers, I like your instructions and descriptions, you keep it simple.😎
Yes it does...my setup....sm57 into focusrite Isa one into Mytek Stereo 96ADC into Antelope discrete 4 via spidif into logic pro x, 90s style rap vocals, and wow so smooth!🫴
For my ear the vocals turned out to be too crispy. As for compression, I think that I'm starting to overdo it and use too many compressors, limiters and saturators, but I can't stop. And you have to have a good powerful computer to handle all of your processing. Great video, btw, as always!
Thank you for busting the myths Bobby!
Can we get a video on the rest of the chain? I really like how the effects sound. Sounds like there effects but very natural. I’m having issues with it sounding clear and natural (I am using sends for my reverb and delay).
This guy will make all of us great music producers. Yippee
I didn't watch the video yet but the answer is yes. The most successful song I ever worked on have beta57a on vocals.
Would a windscreen do the same as a pop filter?
what happens if i pass the sm57 through a neve pre amp for exemple
Great video man!
Hey Bobby! Great video, as always I find a lot of good information in your videos.
A quick question: the lead vocalist in my band has a rich, deep baritone voice. I want to roll off unwanted frequencies in the low end, but want to preserve the qualities that make his voice special. What are your thoughts?
Great question! Most of the frequencies below 150Hz are gonna be junk even on the deepest of deep voices. I'd start there.
@@FrightboxRecording Thanks, Bobby! It's probably the 'relative' frequencies that give the impression of fullness to the voice, rather than the actual low end, play with the mid range frequencies and see how it sounds... Am I on the right track...?
Is a Cloudlifter necessary with this mic?
Bro my computer keeps crashing I think because I only have 8GB but I think it's because of all the plugins I'm using when we are trying to stream through OBS. Is there a way I could still make a good mix with the RAM issue when it comes to streaming?
what Daw are you running on you 2012 Mac and how is even working ???? I still have mine and would love to still make use from it which version of macOS are you using???
Hey Bobby, got a question not related to this video, I’m struggling with the balance between having a fat low end on the bass and in some of your other videos you have recommended high pass filtering your bass up to 60/70hz above the kick, I’ve tried this but I feel like I’m loosing that blanket feel in the low end kind of hugging the mix, I’ve seen other people use plugins such as soothe or dynamic eq’s to quickly dip the specific sub frequencies in the bass when the kick hits, is this something you have experimented with or do you still stand by high passing the bass higher up? Cheers 👌🏻
I don't use soothe or dynamic EQ, just solid mixing strategies. Those tools are cool but unnecessary if you get the mix right. If you're having trouble with low-end, I recommend watching the training I mention at the end of this video.
WOW!!!! 😮😮😮the recording is 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 Bad boy!
Sounds great, I'm definitely impressed with the top end on that intro. I was expecting a 57 to be a bit more lispy, but the sheen on this is excellent.
I do think you've overdone the Melodyne: with a vocalist as talented as this, the vocals need to breathe more. That's just my opinion, man.
I know that you produce metal but I want to do "light" indie rock/indie pop. are your courses still worth for someone like me?
When i record my sm57 there is just to much noise and i cant get the mic loud and present to the mix, can some one help me how to get volume out of the 57 without cranking up the noise?
That doesn't sound right. SM57's are not noisy and have plenty of output...do you have an electrical issue in your studio?
How about behringer xm8000?
I have xm8500 mic it sounds great
I'm sure it'll get the job done just fine.
So keep up the great work Bobby. I love your channel. You are great. Too bad you don't have a real career. This industry used to work. It'll never come back the way it once was. Pro Audio is now a UA-cam Show. And there's lots of great programming to be had. Like you, Bobby. Rick Be Auto and Glenn Fricker. I love all you guys. But you are the best. I mean Warren is okay. He's a bit more esoteric. And he has a sleepy, SSL 4000. We don't see much anymore. He's moved away from it, largely. Everybody's doing the software thingy. The software video dance. The, Plug-in Hoedown. The rally around, transformer less, microphone pre-amps. Ugh! I mean they are usable. Don't get me wrong. But there's something about hearing your audio. Twirling around. Inside a transformer. Before it comes out, there. There's just something about that sound.
Personally all you really need. There's a couple of, Neve, microphone input transformers. That's the sound. Of those boards. Primarily. As they later moved to, integrated circuit chips. There are cheap. With the same transformers.
So get a couple of microphone input transformers. Get a couple of output transformers. And tell everybody you have a Neve console. They will hear that it's true. It's a recognizable sound. Largely due to the Transformers Rupert Neve designed.
So the 57 with the Neve input transformer. And you've got the whole, shebang going. For just pennies on the dollar. And it really really works. It's only $9.95 from Ronco. Audio Operators, standing by. It really is that easy to get that sound. Just keep watching Bobby here. He won't leave you wrong.
Yeah I'm not just anybody. I'm retired. With multiple major music award nominations. And additionally 20 years with a major American network. So I gotten around. Bobby is 100% right here. This is the sound. Of that microphone. You thought you could never afford. But it's only $100 new. About $50 used. But make no mistake.
There are many Chinese counterfeits. Of this here microphone. That is indistinguishable. Visually. Except for the sound. They don't sound anything like a 57. But they look like them. If you like them. They have the same printing on them. They are horrible Chinese counterfeits. Usually available for around $20. Don't waste your money unless you are desperate. They will work. They will not provide the sound you seek. They are garbage. And can be used in a pinch. But only in a pinch. Because they are crap. Through and through. Make certain they are the real deal made in America. You won't find them for much less than $50 used. Lucky when you can find a good one for $40. I found one at a flea market that was like new. I could hardly believe it. I wasn't even shopping for one. But I got it. I was like is this for real? Yup. Sold. You can never have too many. Have a, 58 but want a 57? Screw the metal mesh ball and Voilà! Same microphone. Once you unscrew the ball. 2 microphones in one. And then 3 microphones in one. When you get the big foam pop filter. And make it sound like a SM-7.
So, there you go. From an old retired, FART. I am 100% with Bobby on this one. He's not as stupid as the rest of you. And providing a very good solid salad advice. You just can't go wrong with this microphone. Even excellent on drum, overheads. I had to use them once. When my, A KG 414 broke. And I was like crap! Dave, grab me a pair of 57's. And the drums sounded really good. For the live broadcast. It was broadcast. Coast-to-coast. As that failed just before broadcast. They work great on everything. You don't need anything else. It's a Primary. Everything else is just everything else. When you don't have enough, 57's.
There were 2 other models that used to the same cartridge capsule and that was the SM-56 and the SM-5. I miss both of those, models. 56's great on drums. They screw directly to the microphone stand. The 5 is just a 57. With a big outer blimp of foam. There was no visible metal. It was just a big chunk of foam. With a 57 inside. So it was really just a 57. In an internal shock mount. Inside the outer foam housing. Popular for radio announcers, mostly. Or recording studio singers. As they screwed directly to the microphone stands. And there was that nice big blob of black foam. The SM-5. The same as the 7. The same as the 56, 57 and 58.
And so the joke is on everybody. That wastes their money on the SM-7's. Paying $300-$400 more. And they are all largely, dummies. Wasting extra hundreds of dollars they don't have to. But they want you to think. They know something professionally. I mean they, no, something, professionally. And they'll look like morons jerks to me. They must know something? They spent 300-$400 more! They did not need to spend. But they wanted to look important and authoritative. Then they had their headphones on. So they could hear themselves talk. Because they are not on the air live. But they want you to think they are. Because they want to be important. They want to be Famous. For wearing their headphones and having a SM-7. They look so smart that way. You don't see Bobby do that often. Because he is actually smart, talented and seasoned.
So I take all the things I said about Bobby, back. He's really not stupid! And he is into heavy metal music. Not my cup of tea for more than 10 minutes a day. But I appreciate it. As an art form. And those that do it well. Like Bobby.
I don't think I would know, Hispanic heavy metal if I heard it?
RemyRAD
What is the name of the song she is singing and where can i find it???
It's a song called "Fathom". I don't think it's released yet, but stay tuned!
If the vocalist is good, you can record with any mic and it will sounds great. 😊🙏
I 100% agree
Shure SM57 is a wonderful vocal mic. One of Peter Gabriel’s favorite mics that he recorded most of his early solo stuff with
I’m using a sm57 straight to my scarlett 2i2. When I record, the vocals are just so quiet. The only way I hear the them is if i turn the gain all the way up and if I basically have the mic inside my mouth. Lol
Anybody know why this happens? Am I suppose to use a plugin to boost the vocals? Or am I doing something else wrong?
Newbie here. Just trying to learn. Thank you!
Do you have your mic pad engaged without noticing it? It's normal for the vocals to sound quiet if you're not compressing them while monitoring. As long as you're peaking anywhere around the -5dB range, you should be fine.
Kudos, bro...
Is a scarlett 2i2 okay?
Definitely!
Hate to sound negative here, but 'album quality' is subjective, and to me that vocal sounds hollow and almost sounds like it's coming from the bathroom or another room. There's no intimacy, and it's severely lacking detail. I can tell that singer has a great voice and I'd like to hear her right up close and intimate.
The SM57 is a workhorse and can get many jobs done. That singer would sound a lot better even with just a made in japan Audio Technica 3035 which is insanely affordable. I'd even argue that an SM7b targeted a little at her chest would give her recorded performance a heckuva lot more body and throatiness.
Most of the time it's a placebo effect. I'd be willing to bet that if I told you this was recorded with a U87 you'd love it. I see this happen all the time with guitar players in the studio. They love the tone they hear until they find out that it's an amp sim and not their expensive amp.
Yes.
Given that the Sun Sessions were recorded on one mic straight to vinyl and they're amongst some of the best recordings ever made. It's not really about the gear.
THREE COMPRESSORS?!
"I don't care if I am recording someone going raswawoooraraawa or if I'm recording Celion DIIIIIION"
only comment is that on delicate vocals there was more background noise, i think if youre a singer like billie eilish for example...or lana del rey....condenser is the way to go
Any background noise that you're hearing is coming from my mic from the tutorial, her track is 100% free of noise.
I've never listened to any vocals in any genre and wandered, " what mic did they use" utter nonsense. Fully support this one
Oh really? You never wondered how singers like Adele, Dua Lipa, etc. achieve those tones? 'cause those aren't dynamic mics. Dua did use an SM7b once, and it sounded wooly and nowhere near as high quality as her other work.
You never wondered which songs Chino Moreno used handheld SM58's on, and which were condensers?
Probably just all the same to you.
Yes. Yes, it can.
Not too bad. To the first song, The EQ'd vocal sounds unnatural, "meatless" and thin, "hollow" if you will. All that compression seems unnecessary as well. To my ears the vocal sounds very artificially processed. The second songs vocal sounds better though.
Spindrift is the best!
It Shure is
😂
I wonder......
Yes it can! also a sm58, and the copies!🙄
SM57, SM58, SM7b, SM81...all great mics. All you really need.
Pros have been recording with 57's for decades. It's not really a secret.
imagine if this is so good, why does everyone buy expensive gear? no hate, genuine question
Remove the 57 transformer and unlock even more 57 potential.
... unlock the potential to sound too quiet ... then only use on drums!
@@MrAdopado That's what preamps are for. A transformerless 57 is a favorite do everything mic around here. Even vocals. Has been for over 20 years. Cheers.
@@jimp.7286 Yes, good preamp needed. First 57 I bought some years back turned out to be a fake! I took it apart and it actually "pretended" to have a transformer ... they had gone to the trouble of burying a little transformer core in the translucent silicone but it had no windings! Amazingly it didn't sound bad at all despite not being Shure.
@@MrAdopado I've heard about the transformerless 57 copies from china. I know they exist. The pacific rim copies many things these days but often take short-cuts. As for mine, a good low noise preamp brings the mic right up to where it would've been with transformer. Many folks say they're way down after the removal. Not true. Only a few db. If one can't make a hit album with a transformer-less 57 - they have other problems. We use ours on multiple sources for over twenty years now, ( a favorite snare drum mic as well ),. I've seen the wave form plot comparisons between transformer-less 57 and sm7. They look virtually identical meaning the capsule is likely the same or just about. Cheers again.
yeah, but here's the thing many girls & bands in her age bracket all sing the same she sings like she talks in my opinion & sings in one key.. she doesn't have any real range at all in my opinion .. just my opinion she's not a good singer/// just my opinion she's not singing on her vowels & where vowels consonants? I don't feel it..
I don't agree at all. She's an amazing singer.
I've got bad news. If you can't sing, you just can't sing😢
Gorilla has nothing to do with guerrilla. Guerrilla is Spanish for 'little war'. Just so you know.
Guerrilla also has nothing to do with glowing green-eyed Sasquatches either 😂
P pops
interesting video but a metal vocal is hardly a good test of the quality of a vocal microphone.
I love metal (and produce a lot of it), but I agree with you. That's why I used this band for this video, she's an amazing singer.
pee
Mic is fine. TOO MUCH COMPRESSION taking all the life out of the vocal. Too much volume and high mids on buzzy guitars blocking the voice and forcing you to put even more high mids on the vocal.
You can do anything with enough processing. That doesn't mean you should use shitty gear and fix everything in post. If that's all you can afford, do what you gotta do, but this doesn't mean a 57 is a good vocal mic lol
There are plenty of mics in the same price range that are better suited for the job.
Drums and guitar cabs? Yes, 57s all the way.
You can even mod one for better low end response
That's true, it doesn't mean it is, but in this case... it IS a good vocal mic :)
Why ma comment was deleted Bobby?About a mike I am using?
I haven't deleted any comments, are you sure it posted?