Great for congas & Bongos

It's really exceptionally good on hi hats, it's incredibly useful as a drum vox mic. It blends well with a standard 57 on guitars.

And you can use it as a hammer in a pinch.

Easily worth the money

This thing is great for drummer vocals. It's also awesome for snare drums too. I like not having to have a clip for it also. It's easy to sneak into places. I have one of these, but really considering getting a second one.

As a live engineer I have several mics I use for snare and guitar, this one I like a lot for harder rock and metal bands. On snare it has great attack and I can usually recognise the Beta 56 or 57 snare sound. It's one of the industry standards for those genres and I use it that way too. Fits into tight drum setups easier than SM57 or Beta 57.
It wasn't designed as a vocal mic but it still works well and is an excellent choice for drummers who sing. It's compact with a great tone and the form factor is ideal, plus it's a supercardioid. A drumfill monitor speaker is usually at the drummer's side and a cardioid mic like an SM58 has best rejection at 180 degrees, but it won't be at 180 degrees to the drumfill. Beta 56 gets better resistance to feedback and doesn't get in the way, many drummers love this mic for vocals. As a sound guy I agree with them.
This mic also does a good job on guitar cab and again the compact form factor helps. Shure recommend it for toms with the A56D mounting but TBH I get a better toms sound with other mics like ND46.
I've seen occasional reliability issues with the clamp mechanism but usually they're fine. You can remove the grille to clean it.
I'm in Australia but it was still a better deal and far better customer support to go to Sweetwater - local stores here could learn a lot from you guys!

Purchased this after seeing Nick D'Virgillio's video demo on YouTube about great microphones for singing drummers. Works like a charm and sounds great! Really like not smacking the mic with drum sticks anymore! You gotta love that. Thank you Sweetwater and Josh Sackett for the awesome gear and always excellent service! Kudos to all at your company who get us our gear in a very timely manner.

After years of singing with a Crown311, my current band asked if I could use a regular mic, as I sing a lot while drumming. So for a year I used an sm58. After hitting my mic with my drumsticks one too many times, I bit the bullet and bought the Beta 56a. I switched the mic out and had no complaints from my soundman. Everything sounded just as good in my ears as with the 58, but with a lot less real estate. The top mounting xlr and showered body shave an easy 4 inches off the 58 setup. Perfect. Haven't hit it yet with my stick. I miss the freedom of a headset but there is no comparison to a stand alone mic over a headset. Wish I bought it sooner.

After searching around and reading the reviews, I decided to pick one up for the drummer in my wife's band. She really seems to like it. Takes up less space and picks up the less unwanted sound.

I can not tell from my own perspective but my bandmates all thought the mic functioned very well.

it is a cadilac version of the sm57...... for toms n snares they r good because u can hit them hard w/ a drum stick and the stick will break, not the mic......... sm52beta is good also... for the kick...... btw, i went to see Car;los Santana and his congo players were using these..... thats good enough for me

I have used many vocal mics, from a SM58, SM57, headset mics, and even the Beta57. This mic is billed as a compact Beta57 but for some reason my vocals just sound better using the Beta56a than using the Beta57. I use a boom that comes up behind me then drops over in front of me. The Beta56a does not stick out as far so more room to play and just looks better. Having used just about every different type of mic out there I can say this is the best of all of them.

I'm blending the Shure Beta 56a and the K&K pickup output of my Martin CEO7 via a Grace Felix. This supercardioid dynamic mic sounds full and lively without worries.

Great microphone for a drummer. It"s very small and stays out of your way while playing. Sounds great. Would recommend this microphone for any singing drummer.

I wanted a shorter vocal mic to replace my Beta 57 so I purchased the 56A. According to the specs these two mics should perform identically but I hear far less drums bleeding into the 56A when I use it. I'm on in-ears and use a kill switch to mute my mic when I'm not singing. When I punched in the 57 the drum bleed was pretty substantial regardless of how I positioned the mic. I get far less drum bleed with the 56A. Don't know why but I'm thrilled with the results.
The mic sounds great and it is built like a tank. If you're planning on using this with a boom stand be prepared to deal with the extra weight of the mic.

This mic is awesome on snare... I use it with an Audix snare clamp (the one with the goose neck) and it fits real good in between the tom and hats... really like the design, beats having the the cord sticking out the back the mic... liked it so much I got a second one!

When it comes to dynamic mics, the Shure Beta 57A or its right-angle equivalent, the Beta 56A, is the one I will reach for first, every time. Whether the application is guitars, drums, horns, or vocals, its hard to find a weak spot in the Beta 57A. If you want better, you have to get a condenser mic. No other dynamic does so many jobs so well, though there are some that do specific jobs as well. If you are still using SM57s or SM56s, replace them with Beta 57As or Beta 56As, and you will not be disappointed. You probably didn't realise a dynamic mic can sound this good.

I used to use nothing but 57As, but lately, I have returned to 58As (same element, different windscreen) to keep vocalists from spitting on my instrument mics, and moved to using 56As (same element, same windscreen) for instruments, just because the right-angle body helps with placement on guitar amps and drums.

Perfect microphone for the singing drummer. I was amazed at the sound and how much more freedom it provided for moving around the kit while singing.

As a lead vocalist and drummer for the Coco Blues Band mics are always in the way. I have been using a 58 beta which I love but its long and in the way. The shure beta 56 is working out nicely with a much smaller footprint.It needs a bit more gain and eq work but I have been quite pleased with its performance so far.

I was looking for a good, durable and affordable microphone to put in front of my Fender HRD to upgrade my sm57. First I looked at the Sennheiser e609 and it just didn't deliver the sound like I wanted no matter where I mic'd it. I asked around and found this, but I couldn't find any samples for guitar amps but I decided to try it because I love Shure Beta products....and I was completely blown away! It accurately captured and articulated what I heard coming out of the speakers, even more so than the sm57 I've been using for years. yeah it's about $50 more then the e609, but if you want something road-ready and of great quality, pick this baby up!

If you don't like tweaking a SM57 to death to find the sweet spot then this is the mic to buy. I record drums ALOT!!!!!! and really was looking for a snare mic that didn't require a ridiculous amount of eq. I discovered this mic after watching a particular drummer perform with it at the Modern Drummer 2005 weekend. Have used it ever since with great results.