Phantom Power through a Shure SM57

[blademaster]

While i was writing some stuff down on a sheet my hand accidentally hit the phantom power button for a channel and connected to that channel was a Shure SM57. after that happened the mic seemed to hardly produce high volumes of sound. i switched mics to a peavey p51 and it was back to norm. how was this caused? and how can i fix the shure?

[audioslavematt]

Phantom power should not hurt an SM57. Are you sure you didn't actually engage the pad?

[Eboy87]

The way phantom works, the mic wouldn't exactly "see" the phantom power. There'd still be voltage delivered to the mic, but it would cancel out. What board were you using? Like Matt said, perhaps you engaged the pad, or something else. There's a million reasons why you'd lose signal on a mic. Perhaps it may even be a bad XLR connection, or a problem with the board itself like a loose ribbon cable.

[BenFranske]

There are a lot of less expensive boards (Mackie and Behringer come to mind) where the entire board is phantom on or off and others where groups of channels are phantom on or off. In these cases you are often sending phantom power to dynamic mics so it's unlikely that your bumping the phantom switch damaged the mic.

[blademaster]

i still was getting a signal on it. but it was very faint. i switched mics to a peavey and it worked just fine. i am using a allen and heath gl2200 40ch sound board. i know for a fact that it wasnt the pad button because that was the first thing i checked after i noticed the issue.

how would the phantom cancel out?

[blademaster]

each individual channel has its own phantom power switch. and since this is a cardoid shure sm57 and not a dynamic mic like say the sm81.

[blademaster]

hey mat for the sake of CB why dont you put in your ideas that we talked about in here as well

[soundlight]

Originally Posted by blademaster

since this is a cardoid shure sm57 and not a dynamic mic like say the sm81.

No offense, but I'd read up on microphone terminology if I were you! A SM57 is dynamic and cardioid, dynamic refers to the element type and cardioid refers to the pickup pattern. A condenser mic requires phantom power. The SM81 is not dynamic, but rather condenser, but still has a cardioid polar pattern.

[audioslavematt]

I suppose, but the more I think about it, the more I think it's wrong.

There's a common modification that a lot of studio guys like to make to SM57s that involves removing the transformer. I've never tried the modification, but supposedly the low end is better. Transformers do not pass DC, so my theory was the previous owner modded it. I looked into it more and found this. http://www.churchmedia.net/CMN/audio...described.html

[blademaster]

i am sorry soundlight. my bad i have read up on it though not a lot recently, as well as dealing with various other stuff in my life has stressed me out. sorry. what i meant and thought of was condenser though the words didnt come out right.