Description
The Shure Level-Loc has achieved vintage / price-gouging / pimping notoriety thanks to a couple of high-profile users. The M267 has a similar Shure limiter in a 4-channel mic pre at a sensible price
The M267 is part of a dynasty of Shure preamps which have been used in the USA & round the world for forty-odd years. They’re definitely not audiophile units, but utilitarian devices for small-scale PA & location recording uses. Their appeal for recording lies in the transformer inputs and output limiter
The M267 has transformer-balanced inputs and outputs, low-cut filters on the inputs , a VU meter and a headphone output. It also has a built-in line up oscillator, switchable phantom power and three power sources (DC, battery or AC)
The limiter is post-channel and post-output control and does an excellent job of levelling the output signal and adding huge amounts of distortion. On some versions of the M267 the limiter threshold is adjustable, on this one it is fixed
“The limiter on that Shure mixer is awesome. You can get some great Level-Loc type sounds out of it.”
“One cool thing that they do is they have a level loc style of limiting ability when you hit the transformers hard enough”
“I have an M67 and an M267. Both are great color boxes and can make some really nice recordings”
“Whether being hardware or software, what’s your current go-to device to foul all kind of sound sources up beyond all repair?
“-Shure M267 microphone mixer. Has transformer love in and out. And features a levelloc style limiter. Nothing subtel about that machine”
“-Also Deltalab Effectron. Its a very early digital delay, with some esoteric A/D conversion, that fux the sound into lofi smile if you turn down the delay. Also it the delay feedback path somehow creeps itself into to the input limiter op-amp distortion, so you can further shape the destruction”
“Been wanting something like a #levelLoc to crush a room mic but dont wanna spend a lot? … #shure m267”
The M267 is in a small, portable steel case with XLR inputs & outputs on the rear and controls on the front. There’s also a battery compartment on the underside
Front panel has 4 channel level controls & lo-cut switches. Filter frequency is 120 Hz approx and response is 10 db down at 50 Hz. Input 1 has an oscillator switch providing a 1 kHz tone for gain staging & alignment purposes
The front panel also has a power on / off switch, battery check momentary switch, limiter in / out switch and a headphone socket with headphone level control
Back panel has ins & outs plus mic / line switches for inputs and output. The mic level output allows the M267 to be daisy-chained with other mic mixers if required. There’s a global phantom power on / off switch and phantom is 30 Volts. There are two terminal posts to connect an external DC power supply. Finally there is a VU meter sensitivity switch and a mix bus connector to link to another M267 or compatible device
Power input is 110 Volts with a fixed 3-core cable & US power plug. A transformer will be required for use in the UK / EU (not supplied). Power can also be supplied by three 9 Volt batteries in the battery compartment or by a DC source (27 V DC nominal)
