- Two legendary microphones, but which one is the right one for you? Will the SM7B be the one that you choose or will you elect the
Electro-Voice RE20 for your voice? (logo_final_final_v2.mp4) And today, I'm going to
compare these two iconic or "mi-conic" microphones to help you decide which one you might want to get. Now, they share a lot of similarities, but there are also a lot of differences. They are both dynamic
cardioid microphones. You're not listening to
either of them right now, you're listening to the Rode VideoMic NTG, which is mounted overhead,
just out of frame. And we're going to switch to
these in just a moment. So, as I mentioned, these
are both dynamic microphones, and what that means is that they're pretty good at
rejecting environmental noise and pretty good at
isolating just the sound that's sort of around the microphone. It's that cardioid pickup pattern so mostly stuff that's in
front of the microphone, a little bit behind the microphone, not so much on the sides,
not so much in the distance. These do work better if they're
positioned close to you. But as dynamic microphones, they do tend to be a little bit quiet. The SM7B, specifically, is known for being a very,
very quiet microphone, which means that it does usually benefit from having some kind
of inline signal booster instead of just running it
directly into your mixer or your interface. So if you've heard or
seen these microphones in somebody else's set up and you liked it and you want it in your setup, chances are to make it sound as good
as you want it to sound, you're going to need some kind of booster. And so let's do a quick
comparison without the booster. And then we'll dive into
more of the details. I'm going to connect the SM7B first. It's running into the
RODECaster Pro with NOFX, no processing. The RODECaster is just acting
as an interface right now. It's not coloring the sound
of the microphone at all. The gain on the RODECaster
is set to 35 decibels and the channel's fader
is basically maxed out all the way at the top. You're listening to the VideoMic NTG, and now you're listening to the Shure SM7B directly into the RODECaster Pro with no Cloudlifter or
booster or anything like that. This is just the SM7B naturally. And I know that this
does not sound as good as this microphone can sound, but this is how it sounds
without a Cloudlifter. We'll do the exact same
thing with the RE20. So now, without changing any settings, all that I've done is plugged
this cable into the RE20. Now, you can hear this
microphone without a Cloudlifter. There's definitely a difference
in tone, in microphone tone, but you can also hear it
is a little bit louder, so the SM7B is quieter than the RE20. But it does have a design that includes a built-in pop filter or windscreen, I should say, which helps prevent those plosives. Peter Piper pitched a podcast. You can definitely
still do it if you want, but if you speak across the microphone, even if you're close to it, it's still going to sound pretty good. And what you might also notice is that there's not really
much of a proximity effect. You can hear more of the
room and the room reverb if I get far away from the microphone. If I get close to the
microphone that disappears, but my voice kind of stays the same. The SM7B is pretty well known
for its proximity effect, so if I get away from the microphone, it's not going to sound good, but if I get really close to it, then it starts to like
boost all those low ends and sound really, really rich.
(like a decadent chocolate cake) Some people like that
and some people don't. It can definitely be something
that's tough to deal with if you're moving around a lot and then the tone is totally changing, but some people love to be
right up on the microphone and having that like
really broadcasty sound. But in order to really give
you the best representation of how these microphones sound, I'm going to plug them into
the Cloudlifter CL-2, so they're both going to be running through
the exact same booster and they're both going to have
the exact same settings in the RODECaster Pro. And while the Cloudlifter is not necessarily my favorite
signal booster, I do like it because it doesn't really
color the sound at all, so you're gonna hear an
accurate representation of the mic. So this is the SM7B without a Cloudlifter. And this is the SM7B running
through the Cloudlifter. And this is the RE20
without a Cloudlifter. And this is the RE20 running
through the Cloudlifter. I was able to reduce the gain
to 27 decibels instead of 35. And I was able to lower
the faders on each channel to write about the unity mark, which is just above the halfway
point on the RODEcaster Pro so I'm not cranking everything and maxing it out as much as possible. Now, I think you're starting
to hear the microphone sound the way that they're really intended to, and probably the way that
you would want them to, if you were to buy either one of these. So again, this is the RE20
and this is the Shure SM7B. I'm certainly sure that
you can hear a difference between both of these microphones, but it doesn't necessarily mean that one is objectively
better than the other. You just kind of want to
think about which tone that you like. You can kind of use my
voice as a baseline example and how it might compare to your voice or whatever use you're planning
to use the microphones are. But this is the Shure
and this is the RE20. They both sound pretty awesome. So what I'm going to do right now is use each microphone to tell
you about each microphone. So this is the Shure SM7B, which was originally released in 1973. Would you believe it? And it's been basically
the same ever since, although it was refreshed in 2001 with some modifications to become the SM7B that we know today. Over the past few years, it's become pretty ubiquitous
for podcasting and streaming, but it's also a great
microphone for music, and you can even use it as
an instrument microphone for amplifiers, drums,
and that sort of thing. It's incredibly versatile and
its frequency response chart looks like this.
(WOW!) The manufacturer's suggested
retail price or MSRP for the SM7B is $399, so we can just call it a $400 microphone. And in this corner, we've
got the Electro-Voice RE20, originally released in 1969. That's right, the RE20 is
actually older than the Shure. But it's also a dynamic
broadcast microphone and its frequency response
chart looks like this.
(🤯) And it's also an incredibly
versatile microphone that's not only great for voice, but also for instruments
and music as well. And the MSRP for RE20 is $449 so it is a little bit more
expensive than the SM7B. And most notably for me,
the Electro-Voice RE20 was the microphone used by Kelsey Grammer for 11 seasons on the TV show "Frasier". So that's just about the best
endorsement I could think of. And now we're back on
the Rode VideoMic NTG just because, since these microphones do share a lot of similar specifications,
but they are so different, I thought that this would be a good time to do some "scientific testing." So what I have devised is, up until this point in human history, the most accurate
measuring comparison device for two microphones. This is what's known as
the "Audio Uncertainty Cube." And when I press this
button and it activates, in here is where I can place a microphone and you won't be able to tell what it is... ...because it is a box that
covers up the microphone. So I've now placed a
microphone into this device. And right now, you're
listening to the VideoMic NTG. And now, you're listening
to the mystery microphone. Which microphone is this microphone? Could it be the SM7B or
are you are really sure that it's the RE20? But while I'm using this first microphone, it's a good time to tell
you about the sponsor of today's video: Cardboard Boxes. "Boxes, sometimes you need
to put stuff in them." (use promo code "BAG" for 82% off) And again, NOFX, no processing, nothing happening in this microphone here. And now, let's activate the Mystery Device
(I forgot the actual name) to go to our second microphone. All right, now we're on the
second mystery microphone. How does this one sound? How does it compare to the other one? Do you have any idea
which one this might be? Is it the Shure? Is it the Electro-Voice? I don't know. Actually, I totally know. And while I'm using this microphone, I can tell you about this
video's other sponsor: Cut-Up Boxes. "Cut-up boxes, because sometimes you need
a box to do other stuff too." (use promo code "WHY?!" for 2% off ) Now that we're wrapping up
this uncertainty experiment, let's see if you could guess
which microphone is which. If you said that the second
microphone was the SM7B, you would shure b wrong, because it is the Electro-Voice RE20. And that means based on
the process of elimination, the first microphone was the Shure SM7B. Thus, concluding our very
scientific experiment. So now that we've heard
some of the differences in sound quality between
these microphones, let's talk about some of the
design and feature differences, because there are quite a few
things that set them apart. The SM7B is probably a pretty
familiar-looking microphone where you've got the XLR
mount on the bottom here, right where it mounts
onto either a mic stand. These are just Samson tabletop mic stands. I found them on Amazon.
(I think the model number is MD5) They're awesome. And it also has a really
nice built-in shock mount, because if you notice, I'm
moving the microphone around and none of that sound is
really being picked up. If I tap on the mic stand and do this, you can kind of hear it. But for the most part, I mean, you're not hearing anything like this. So that's a great thing, whether this is mounted on
a stand or on a boom arm. And the SM7B does have some basic controls on the back to adjust sort
of the frequency response. This is now with the low, the
lows reduced a little bit. And this is with the highs
increased a little bit, so now I have much more of kind of that broadcast-like
compressed sound, even though I'm just doing that from directly within the microphone. Basically on the back, when you adjust the lows
and the highs up or down, you kind of then adjust this
little wave form diagram here. And the way it is right
now is kind of neutral. This is how it's gonna
be right out of the box when you get it, so that's
where I'm going to leave it for the rest of this video. So one of my favorite
things about the SM7B is no matter what your voice is like, you can probably find some
sort of setting in here that's gonna make it sound pretty good. If I remove the windscreen from the SM7B, then you kind of see
the capsules down here and there's this metal grill around it, which does help in itself
act like a windscreen, so it's not very susceptible to plosives, especially once you
have something on it then puh, puh, puh Peter Piper pitched a podcast. It's very easy to be
close to this microphone without having a ton of plosive sounds. And it does also come with
a much bigger windscreen that you can put on here. And then no matter what,
Peter Piper pitched a podcast, no matter how hard you
try to make a plosive pop, it just won't do it with
this giant windscreen on. However, one of my favorite things is to get these colored SM7B windscreens from reporterstore.com. As I mentioned previously, I am not associated with
reportestore.com in any way. I don't have affiliate links or anything.
(But I'd like one 😉) I've just bought a bunch
of windscreens from them and they're great. It doesn't have the plastic locking ring that the original has, but it's
otherwise the same quality. And it just slides
right on the microphone. Now, I've got a really nice
windscreen directly on the SM7B. So this is the
reporterstore.com windscreen. And this is the original windscreen. So you can see the sound
quality is not really affected because they're pretty much the same. This one might be slightly thicker. Now, moving on over to the RE20, there are quite a few differences. Obviously, the sound is different. The microphone is a little more expensive and as I'm moving it around on the stand, you probably notice a lot more
handling noise than the SM7B. It really does tend to pick up a lot. When you get the microphone,
it comes in this nice case. The SM7B doesn't come
in a case or anything. And it comes with this
little microphone mount here, but it's not really a shock mount. It's just sort of a mic mount. It doesn't come with a
windscreen or a pop filter, but it does have that built-in, you know, Peter Piper pitched a podcast. There's still some plosives there, but they're pretty well reduced, and I'm quite close to
the microphone right now. I move this one out of the way, you can see how close
I'm speaking to the RE20 and it's just slightly
off axis right here. This is the RE20-Black. They started coming out
with some new variations. The only difference between
this one and the original RE20 is that it is black.
(Shocking, right?) Now, as I mentioned earlier, this microphone is not super
prone to the proximity effect. It has what Electro-Voice
calls "Variable-D Technology," which is like variable
dynamic response technology. So even if I move a
little bit away from it or a little bit closer to it, there's certain things that
are impossible not to change, like how much of the room
reverb is getting picked up. But the actual tone of the sound
shouldn't change that much. If I go on the side of the microphone, you can hear it starting to
reject it if I go on this side. If I go behind it, it sounds weird. But if I'm basically near
the front of the microphone, no matter kind of where I'm going, it holds up pretty well. And so the Shure SM7B,
if I go off to the side, it stops picking up as clearly. If I go off to the side, these have basically the
exact same pickup pattern. Now, the one control
that the RE20 does have is a little switch right here, which is the bass rolloff switch, and so this is gonna reduce
some of the bass frequencies. This is without that being activated. And now, this is with the
bass rolloff being turned on. You probably heard a lot of the low end seem to sort of disappear right now. The reason you would want to use that is if you're somebody who
just has a super deep voice and you don't want to
emphasize that too much, if you're recording in a space
that has low rumbling sound, maybe you have wind noise
or an air conditioner or something, or if you're
recording deep bass instruments, like a bass or a bass drum, or some sort of musical device
that has a low frequency, and you don't want to just have those bass frequencies overloaded, you can turn off the bass. But generally speaking for spoken word, you would want to leave that turned off so you get the full
richness of the microphone. Now, I do happen to have this, which is the Electro-Voice
309A shock mount. And this is shockingly massive, but it's a really good shock mount. So this is the handling
noise with the RE20, just on a mic stand. And this is almost comically huge, but now you can hear the difference in how much the handling
noise has been reduced with this giant shock mount. I'm really shaking it and moving around, and the microphone's moving, but it's not really picking
up much of that sound. So this can be really helpful. I think this is kind of insane looking, but I also kind of love it. So if you want to know my take on this, I think these are both
excellent microphones. What I love is that they both have very, very different sound profiles. They do not sound similar, but they're both extremely high quality so you can't go wrong with either one. It just comes down to
which sound you like best and which one you think is
gonna work best for you. There's also simple stuff, like the SM7B coming
with the built-in yoke, makes it really easy mount in a studio. It's a little smaller,
a little more compact. I haven't made a video
about this microphone yet, but this is the Shure MV7X. It's the XLR-only version of the MV7, and it retails for under $200. Sometimes you can even
find it as low as $150. And it's quite similar to the SM7B. Here's the MV7X. And here's the SM7B. It's not exactly the same, but it's also not super-duper different, and it is less than half
the price of the SM7B. That being said, both of these are very
versatile microphones. If you do really want one of these, don't buy a bunch of
1 and $200 microphones trying to make up for it. Like, just invest the
money in the microphone that you really want. But I think that both of these microphones do sound pretty darn good. And speaking of things
that are pretty darn good, thank you to everyone who
helped support my channel through Patreon and YouTube
channel memberships. I greatly appreciate that as always. And now this RE20. If this hasn't helped
you make up your mind, I do have an entire playlist
of microphone reviews and comparisons that
will hopefully guide you to the microphone that's right for you. (Thanks for sticking around all the way to the end!)
