I tracked an entire song with only Shure SM57's and SM58's

Sounds great. I just recently used an SM 57 to mic a small tube amp. It sounded pretty good, but I recently heard material where a Royer 121 was used, and I just sort of got depressed - that Royer sounded so amazing, and nothing like my SM 57.

You used very good preamps and compressors for your recording, but I love when anyone tries to focus more on learning to use what you have - then spending tons of money. Well done, sir!

 

I remember reading an interview with Ric Ocasek some years back where he stated the SM57 is the mic he always goes to first when recording guitars. Its usually on any track he's produced, even if he has access to, and uses, much more expensive mics, he will still have an SM57 on that guitar track too.

 

Really nicely done.

 

Very nice. Also proves that really nice pre's and compressors make a huge difference Of course, this guy obviously has much skill and talent. That helps a bit too

 

Sounds good.

One of the legends around things is that Jack Endino did Nirvana's Bleach album with only Shure 57s and 58s.

I did this a few years ago, it was pretty much tracked live (including solo) with an older US Mackie mixer in an untreated garage some SM57s, 58s and a couple of AKG C1000s into a Tascam digital portastudio then a couple of overdubs and mixed on a PC. Only other pre-amp I had at the time and I used it on the bass and vocals at home was a ART Pro Channel. I used the ART with a Shure PG52 on the kick.

Probably a new set of heads on the toms and better drum tuning would have improved it in hindsight, but I think it turned out pretty well for what we had.

 

Very cool project, thanks for sharing.

It does sound rather midrangy to my ears and lacks bass.

I wondered about this then read the write up you provided:

I don’t have a dedicated bass cab so I just used my guitar cabs. I also used quite a bit of compression (up to 10dB of gain reduction) on the way in, as I always do.

That explains quite a bit.

 

Very nice all the way around. I appreciate you taking the time to do that.

But...I can't help but add a "yeah, but" in that you had $5,000 in two pieces of gear immediately after the vocal mic.

Honestly don't mean to detract from your efforts, and I know this will seem like I'm being a cynic.

But I think it would be way more realistic to the average home recorder if you used an SM57/58 into an inexpensive preamp/audio interface like a Focusrite Scarlett straight into a consumer DAW like Garageband or Logic Pro.

I'd really like to hear what someone with your studio skills could do with that level of gear. That would let us really hear what's possible if we learn how to max out the gear many of us are limited to using. Maybe even recorded in a normal home room or basement without pro wall treatment.

 

i did something just like this,
back in 1999,
using only a SM57.

turned out great,
most folks were stunned that you could get all that clarity and tone out of one crappy mic.


there's a lesson in there to be learned by many.

 

using only ONE mic like that,
WILL flavor all of your tracks with one sonic fingerprint, tho..

and the sm57 is pretty midrangy,
that's why it's so good as a elec gtr amp mic..

but if you know how to eq tracks for their best qualities,
you can work around it.


i have 6 mics now,
and would never limit myself to only one or two again.

there is too much to be gained, by using more than a couple.

 

Sounds great. Thanks for sharing your experiment.

 

The 57 and 58 are workhorses.
Did you know all presidential press conferences use SM 57's?
Many top stars still stick to hard wired SM58's.
Why not?

 

Could you share the entire signal chain on the guitar and vocal tracks, please? Like all the way from guitar (or mouth) through what preamps, etc. and what audio converter into what type computer and DAW?

Thanks.

 

Check the blog: https://joellisproducer.wordpress.co...nd-sm58s-pt-i/

He uses some pretty nice gear in the chain.

 

Yeah, I saw that. Didn't see anything about converters and/or interface. But I could've missed it.

 

To add comparison, the tracks in my sig were recorded entirely with an e835 and e609 (mostly the latter), through a focusrite saffire straight into logic 9, processed with the stock plugins (mostly just the fat eq, compressor and space designer)

Not sure if they're quite radio ready but the seem alright to me

 

Thanks for writing that up for us. Lots of good info.