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yoTrakkz « love shure mics »
Published on 10/20/11 at 21:06I've always known the Shure SM 48 was great, and have often used it for drums and guitar. But today I was in a session and the ONLY condenser I had brought started doing some goofy things. So I busted out a good old Shure 48, and recorded all the vocals, harmonies, and guitars with it. And it here is the kicker... it sounded Great. Not just good, but it blew me away. It DID take work though. For use on vocals you really have to crank up your upper mids (3k or so) to clean it up, roll off some lows, and maybe add a dash around 100Hz for some extra body. I used it through an LA-610... for money, it doesn't get any better than that. Don't buy into all the imitations out there. there are some good mics, but this is a workhorse.
OVERALL OPINION
A person could record a whole album with just SM48’s and it would sound pretty good. Anyway, if you're just starting out, buy this mic, its great for a beginner just getting into recording. It is far better than a condenser if you are working in an untreated space because it has a tight cardioid pattern that rejects most room noise and other problems. If you have a cheap preamp and are having trouble getting enough gain to this mic (or even if you're not), buy a Cloudlifter by Cloud Microphones, it uses phantom power to generate up to 25 db of super clean FET pre-preamplification...that gives any old dynamic or ribbon mics low noise and high gain and interfaces them perfectly with modern recording systems. If you're thinking (just as I was a week ago) that this mic is far too common and old to sound as good as some people say. Its pretty cheap as well, so its worth the buy and even if you don’t like it most stores will allow you to return it within 30 days.
OVERALL OPINION
A person could record a whole album with just SM48’s and it would sound pretty good. Anyway, if you're just starting out, buy this mic, its great for a beginner just getting into recording. It is far better than a condenser if you are working in an untreated space because it has a tight cardioid pattern that rejects most room noise and other problems. If you have a cheap preamp and are having trouble getting enough gain to this mic (or even if you're not), buy a Cloudlifter by Cloud Microphones, it uses phantom power to generate up to 25 db of super clean FET pre-preamplification...that gives any old dynamic or ribbon mics low noise and high gain and interfaces them perfectly with modern recording systems. If you're thinking (just as I was a week ago) that this mic is far too common and old to sound as good as some people say. Its pretty cheap as well, so its worth the buy and even if you don’t like it most stores will allow you to return it within 30 days.