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Looper's Delight
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The Shure SM-57 is a very good and dependable microphone. That being said and done (and all respect to Kris Hartung), it has a very uneven frequency reponse and has quite a pronounced 'proximity' effect (high roll on of bass frequencies) and a boost in the midranges that make it particularly advantageous for micing two really specific instruments: a very loud electric guitar cabinet and a snare drum. All of this is because it really can handle high SPLs (sound pressure levels) without feeding back under normal live monitoring cirumstances. A great microphone. Compared to a high quality condenser microhone or even the vastly improved Shure Beta SM 57, however and it is a fairly mediocre microphone for things like some human voice and percussion (or found sound). The trouble with condenser microphones is that they have a fairly omni directional pickup pattern which makes them highly susceptibale (sp?) to feedback under normal monitoring situations. One condenser microphone in particular, the AKG C1000S, has a special plastic 'focuser' that, when placed over the microphones element, narrows the pickup pattern to a very, very narrow cartoid pattern. This incredible focus of directionality of the microphone (something that makes the SM57 really good and the BETA SM57 fantastic) means that there is a lot less feedback potential in live situations. I used my brother's borrowed BETA SM57s a lot until I did a gig at the legendary Freight and Salvage Company performance venue in Berkeley, California with legendary finger styled/altered tuning guitarist Martin Simpson. I had a very difficult 'found sound' percussion instrument that I helped to innovate, called the Liquid Glass Ghatam. Fashioned out of a large four sided, clear glass flower vase filled with water (for pitch manipulation) it was a very difficult instrument to mic, let alone to loop live. It sounded like god in at this venue...................so much so that I sprung for two AKG C1000S in the next couple of months as I could afford them. This microphone is still problamatic when it comes to high SPLs with typical front monitoring live solutions so I eventually went to a rather cheap but elegant solution of using a Radio Shack Wirless Headpone system (run, directly off of my live mixing board). It really helps if you have multiple tracks to loop on, so that there is no grave danger of monitor leakage when you are recording new and multiple tracks. With the wireless headphones, this becomes a very high quality listening experience that I highly recommend (and trust me, I tried EVERY micing solution to make my frame drums and unusual percussion instruments sound really good , live). If you have typical monitoring solutions (normal stage monitors in front and underneath you), then I highly recommend that you use a BETA 57 (which I think is highly superior to the wonderful normal SM 57). One thing you can do to make it sound a little more pristine is to boost your treble or upper midranges by +3db on the returns of whatever looping solution you use. Even hard to mic Indian tablas sound good with this approach. Best of luck. Email me off list if you have any other solutions for micing or sound reinforcement ideas for your looping.