The Bulletizer is made by Greg Heumann of Blowsmeaway Productions. In a nutshell, it’s an easy-to-install add-on to a Shure SM57 or 545 mic that creates a Bullet-mic-style face for the mic, which in turn makes the mic behave more like a Bullet mic in terms of responsiveness to hand articulations.

Bulletizer on Shure SM57 mic;
photo courtesy of Blowsmeaway Productions












Short summary: the Bulletizer succeeds in its primary purpose, which is to make a Shure (or other stick vocal) mic behave much, much more like a Bullet. You can really hear the difference in tone when you open and close your hand cup. Cupping the mic tightly dramatically increases bass response–when you open the cup, it’s like a different mic entirely.

Ergonomically, it’s a lot easier to hold on to my Shure 545 with the Bulletizer installed. Fit and finish is excellent.

Here’s what the Bulletizer sounds like on my Shure 545SD, played through a Digitech RP355 using a Champ amp emulation that I created.

The clip is about 30 seconds long. It’s played on a Lee Oskar A harp in 2nd position using my Bulletizer-equipped Shure 545SD, which is running through a Digitech RP355 using a Champ amp emulation that I created, and finally into a Peavey KB2 keyboard amp. The amp EQ is set to slightly cut the frequencies around 100 hz and above 8 kHz. The clip was recorded using a Zoom H4 sitting on a chair about a foot in front of the Peavey, with the built in mics roughly at speaker level. The only editing done on the clip was to normalize the volume.

The first 5 seconds is played with a closed hand cup on the Bulletized mic; the next 5 seconds is the same phrase played with an open hand; then another 5 seconds of closed hand, and another 5 of open hand. In the last 10 seconds, I alternate closed and open hand articulations, which is what you’d probably do in performance.

By the way, I think the sound of the amp modeler coupled with the Peavey amp is pretty big. In fact, I think it produces a better tube amp sound than a lot of “real” tube amps I’ve played through. I plan to distribute this patch plus a few others I’ve developed lately to my customers. You can never have too many good blues harp sounds.

In general, and as per Greg Heumann’s other products, the Bulletizer works as advertised and is well worth the asking price of $49. I wouldn’t take my 545 to a gig without it.

Check it out at: