Johan Segeborn tests 15 Greenback Clones and Reissues Compared to an Original 1968!

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I find also my vintage Unidyne SM57 is a lot less harsh than my recent made Shure SM57 fwiw, but I think both can have their place

Whenever I’vs tried recording without an SM57 involved it sounds like something is missing big in the mids and uppermids. I guess I’m just so used to it being there

I’m not a fan of harsh recorded sounds either, but it seems other mics can be even more harsh, especially the Sennheiser E906 I also have, even on dark mode
 
Soundstorm said:
It can be. It’s all about mic placement. On snare drums, guitar amps, and lots of other sources- it just works. It’ll always be an industry standard for that reason.
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Yes, you can negate some of the harshness by placing the mic closer towards the edge of the speaker cone, but I still find it more liberating to have more leeway with the placement when using a less harsh mic such as e906 with the hi cut switch on.
 
SpiderWars said:
To me the new production GB and the EVH GB have the old GB surrounded. The new one is brighter/crispier and the EVH is warmer/smoother. But both of them come pretty close. I liked those the most. The old one has the high mid presence and crunch better than all of them imo. The Emis were lol.
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I thought the Celestions 2015, 2022 and the 2022 EVH were respectable.....The Scumback sounded kinda dampened and less alive with no present bite.....that was my first gut response. I'll have to have another listen and see what I hear again.

I listened again the heard the same as my initial gut response.
 
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harddriver said:
I thought the Celestions were respectable.....The Scumback sounded kinda dampened and less alive.....that was my first gut response. I'll have to have another listen and see what I hear again.
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What is the Supro one? That one sounded cool af. I want one.
 
I think this test fails because the original 68 speaker has a repair... a big fat repair.

That said, too bad he didnt use a 6402 cone greenback from the 1990's.
 
psychodave said:
I think this test fails because the original 68 speaker has a repair... a big fat repair.

That said, too bad he didnt use a 6402 cone greenback from the 1990's.
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Yeah...... I didn't see the surround repair the first time but the cone must still be original so that's gotta count for something......
 
Johan thinks the Mojotone was the closest to the 68 greenback, I am almost inclined to agree with him. The Mojotone had the crunch, bite, mid attack yet still had a nice high end detail to it.

 
VESmedic said:
So you think “conversion” is the reason “57s sound harsh”???
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I think he's saying the higher quality replication of digital makes the 57 too harsh, because back in the days of tape, the tape somehow mellowed the high end? Or something?

Honestly all the experiences I've had recording live to tape, the high end has been more aggressive, not "smoothed over"

Maybe tape compression removes high end or something? I've never heard that recording with reels though
 
harddriver said:
Yeah...... I didn't see the surround repair the first time but the cone must still be original so that's gotta count for something......
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Cone is repaired as well. I guarantee this repair affects the sound of the speaker.

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DanTravis62 said:
I think he's saying the higher quality replication of digital makes the 57 too harsh, because back in the days of tape, the tape somehow mellowed the high end? Or something?

Honestly all the experiences I've had recording live to tape, the high end has been more aggressive, not "smoothed over"

Maybe tape compression removes high end or something? I've never heard that recording with reels though
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That’s kind of where I was going with this. Tape, Atleast on a master at 30ips etc, has always and I mean alwaysssss sounded brighter to me. Because it is. Tape always has this “sheen” and more aggressive top end to me. I knew where he was trying to go with this, I was just trying to get him to walk through my trap :D
 
VESmedic said:
That’s kind of where I was going with this. Tape, Atleast on a master at 30ips etc, has always and I mean alwaysssss sounded brighter to me. Because it is. Tape always has this “sheen” and more aggressive top end to me. I knew where he was trying to go with this, I was just trying to get him to walk through my trap :D
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I've only done "live to tape" with reels half a dozen times or something, so I'm not the most experienced in the world with it. But especially with the guitars we were trying to tame the high end, it was literally the opposite of this supposed mellowing effect that the analog realm has with 57s

I think this is probably some kind of subconscious bias people have from people always describing "analog" everything (as in, vinyl, cassettes, stompboxes, amps, etc) as "warm" - when everyone who's ever engineered with analog studio gear knows this isn't the case at all
 
VESmedic said:
So you think “conversion” is the reason “57s sound harsh”???
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The analog recording medium back in the day was not able to capture all the higher frequencies like the gear we have today is which is why the sm57 didn't sound so harsh back then.

For example Michael Wagener ditched both SM57 and analog tape early in his career for the reasons mentioned above.
 
phil b said:
Nahhh. been using one for 30 years without fail. Thats a tried and true mic. If ya cant get a good sound with one thats user error more than anything else.
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Probably depends what kind of an sound you're aiming for, I find it personally too harsh sounding.
 
gruggmanny said:
The analog recording medium back in the day was not able to capture all the higher frequencies like the gear we have today is which is why the sm57 didn't sound so harsh back then.

For example Michael Wagener ditched both SM57 and analog tape early in his career for the reasons mentioned above.
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You are just…plain wrong. I don’t know what else to say here. If you find guitar tones harsh nowadays, it ain’t the 57s fault. Those “higher frequencies” you refer to are not where harshness lives to the human ear anyways. Generally 2-4K is harsh city on guitars, which every damn form of conversion since the 70s has picked up just fine, and a frequency range tape replicated just fine as well. This is some of the biggest nonsense I’ve ever heard on this page, for sure.


So you are willing to tell me, if I gave you 10 tracks that were recorded in the last 20 years, you could tell me which was a 57 and which was some form of another dynamic mic (ribbon would be too easy)?????? Really? I’m gonna go with, a big no on that one.
 
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VESmedic said:
You are just…plain wrong. I don’t know what else to say here. If you find guitar tones harsh nowadays, it ain’t the 57s fault. Those “higher frequencies” you refer to are not where harshness lives to the human ear anyways. Generally 2-4K is harsh city on guitars, which every damn form of conversion since the 70s has picked up just fine, and a frequency range tape replicated just fine as well. This is some of the biggest nonsense I’ve ever heard on this page, for sure.


So you are willing to tell me, if I gave you 10 tracks that were recorded in the last 20 years, you could tell me which was a 57 and which was some form of another dynamic mic (ribbon would be too easy)?????? Really? I’m gonna go with, a big no on that one.
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I've watched enough comparisons between different instrument mics and videos in which SM57 is compared to other mics to be certain that it's a harsh mic. But you're entitled to think that I'm wrong and keep recording shitty guitar tones. 😚
 
I don't know which GB's are in my 1960BX, but the EVH 4X12 I have is just a touch smoother. They work very well when run together.
 
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