"hank alrich" wrote in message
...
McQ went after that and nailed it. Facing reality, people paying
attention and who have hooked SM57's to good pres with transformer front
ends realize that the SM57 can deliver nicely in some contexts. Mark's
challenge was getting that without input iron, which would have driven
the cost above his target.
Yep. One only has to hook up a 57 with a Hardy M1 with Jensen 990s to find
an amazing microphone hidden deep in the 57. I don't know, but I believe
Mark may have decided to go after a superb 57 sound due to the fact that
most Mackie products don't do the mic justice. For a small fee, McQ makes
the 57 viable in a lot of studio and live situations. I don't know how
Shure did it what with most early 57s being pumped into Shure Vocalmasters
and little Bogens, but the mic certainly has more soul than most people will
know with the average mic pre these days.
And just to plug a little mixer, my Crest XR20 shows off a 57 very well. In
fact, most of my dynamics have taken a turn for the better since I bought
that beast 6+ years ago. JohnnyV and I have done all SM57 shows (by request
for vocals) and they can sound surprisingly full and natural. Far better
than a $99 price tag would suggest. So there are two mic pres I know of and
have used that show the true colors of inexpensive mics, so if the RNP fits
McQ's reputation for inexpensive quality products, I'd have to side with
Hank.
But, there's no guarantee that using one mic pre over another will do
anything good for you if attention isn't paid to other details like
placement.
--
Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio
"Is our children learning yet?" George W. Bush
http://blogs.salon.com/0004478/