Accounts of its heroic toughness lie at the center of countless music-industry legends, most of which are perfectly true. What’s also true about the SM57 is that it sounds great on a wide variety of sources. A large percentage of the snare drums and many guitar cabinets and vocal tracks recorded in the last several decades owe their sound to the SM57. Try one and you’ll find out why live sound professionals and seasoned studio engineers swear by the Shure SM57 more than any microphone on the planet.
