SM7B vs SM58 Mic SHOWDOWN

welcome back to dark corner studios my name is Aiden wolf in today it's the Battle of the SMS you've got the sm58 versus the sm7b and which one is better well I mean this one is costs a lot more money than this one it's also a lot sexier so not sexy what if I told you that these microphones are more similar than you think and they're more similar than the price would let on you want to dig in all right let's do this it's so not sexy so it's the Battle of the SMS you got the sm7b you've got the sm58 which one is better well you know if you want to look on the surface this sm7b outperforms the sm58 in every trial but does it really well kind of kind of not I mean this thing has become almost a pop-culture icon for music recording podcasts streamers everything under the Sun well the shure sm58 has become a pop culture icon for being a stage mic being able to hammer nails that's the thing but the two of them differ so greatly in price yet are almost the exact same microphone so how is that possible now we're going to get into some of the sound quality of both and maybe things you can do to try to make an sm58 sound a little closer to an sm7b but first we've got to go over some of the technical specs of the two and well I would like to pretend that I'm the all-knowing God that can rip these down and put them back together and fully understand the technical properties of both I usually like to defer that to a buddy of mine now this is super uber tech nerd Dylan he's kind of my go-to guy when I have a question about this stuff and he's gonna break down exactly what makes these two microphones tick so without further ado here's Dylan yes m7b yes I'm 58 what's the difference that's a question that gets asked a lot and there are actually some subtle differences between these two mics but in order to understand why those subtle differences are so important first we actually have to look at why they're similar so to help illustrate that I would just want to forget about the sm7b for a sec and focus just on the sm58 and specifically I want to compare the sm58 to one of its older cousins the sm57 the sm57 came out about 1965 and the 58 in about 1966 both of them if you ask most people are kind of the same Mike they're both dynamic cardioid mikes they're both sort of built in this rugged barrel-like design and both of them in fact are based on the same unit I'm three Mike capsule so why do we need both of them then well the Devils in the details and specifically in the application so looking at the 57 well you can already see here that the grille is sort of directional it's more slender doesn't really look like a vocal mic whereas the 58 has this sort of spherical vocal mic esque grille to it can probably see where I'm going with this the sm57 doesn't really have any plosive control on it and that there's no kind of foam underneath this grille to protect from wind or Gossett's err air burst or whatever whereas the 58 actually does have a little bit of foam on the inside to help protect from closest although anybody who's used to 58 will tell you it doesn't really honestly do all that much but that said it is there as an extra layer of protection also the capsule the actual cartridge of the 50 the sm57 does not have any kind of shock mounting on it really whereas in the 58 there is actually a little bit of pneumatic shock mounting to help guard from any seismic movement or whatever so why do we use these well the 57 essentially is considered like a suicide me knife of microphones if you have a sound source that you've never miked up before or whatever and you need something to sound half-decent on it 57 will do you pretty good you can use it on sound effects you can use it for instruments you can use it for vocals for singers what-have-you and the 57 will do a pretty good job the 58 just takes that and gives you a little bit more of a portable vibe the 58 is designed to be handheld microphone it's designed to be beat up it's designed to be screamed into it is like the 57 vert microphone but they specialized version for vocals so now that we have taken a look at those two mics now I want to bring the sm7b back into the equation the sm7b compared to these two fellows is actually a lot younger the SM seven originally came out about 1973 the SM 7a in 1999 and the sm7b the one that we've come to know and love from 2001 what we really want to talk about is why these two are so different or why they're not so different both of them again are based just like the sm57 are all based on the same unit I'm three mic cartridge the SM seven features superior shock absorption on the inside to protect the cartridge from any kind of seismic movement any kind of low-frequency Rumble from jostling around in addition the SM seven also features beefier onboard interference shielding so between radio frequency waves or mains power hum or just noise in general the SM seven has some good built-in safeguards built-in protection and shielding from that kind of thing so what else do we have well as you can see obviously the grill work on the top of the microphone is very different if you take off the mesh that comes with the SM seven will see that the grill is actually that the business end of the grill is a good two inches or so away from the actual mic element which helps to guard against two things one it helps with close of control obviously two it helps with eliminating something known as the proximity effect which is that low frequency boost you get really close up onto a microphone with the 58 also we can notice that the compared to the 57 where it's grill is actually very very very close to the actual mic element the 58 has about a half an inch between the top of the grill the business end of the grill and the actual mic element itself so the SM seven takes that idea and just sort of amplifies it and that's not a bad thing the SM seven comes by default with the a 7ws windscreen which they call the close talk filter what have you it does darken up the sound a little bit but gives you even that much more plosive protection so if you're using this in a podcast situation and you're bringing in somebody who doesn't have any experience speaking into a microphone professionally and you think they're gonna be popping their pees all over the place probably a good idea to maybe toss the clothes off filter and it is a really nice feature that sure includes that with the sm7 bees so other than that you might expect that because of the price point and because the size difference that the sm7 has something in it that the sm58 does not and it's actually the other way around the sm7 does not have something in it that the sm58 and the sm57 do have and that is the presence of a transformer dynamic microphones traditionally come with built-in transformers because the output of the cartridge is very low so to help ease off of that a little bit and give people a fighting chance with some more compact and economical preamps most dynamic mics these days come with a built in transformer that just gives the signal a little bit of a boost so you can use a normal preamp with it within reason the sm7 does not have it why is that why did they omit the transformer with the sm7 well to be honest the one downside of a transformer is that it imparts its own little sonic flavor nothing that's inherently bad just very different in the case of the sm58 for example if we look at the frequency response graph we can sort of see there's a little presence bump past 2k and then there's a some base roll-off going on here as well that mostly has to do with the presence of the transformer if we compare to the SM sevens frequency response graph here we can see that the SM 7s curve it's a little bit more flat and as you might expect that largely has to do with the absence of that transformer which is good it means that the sound coming out of the SM seven is a little bit more pure a little bit cleaner but with that comes with one glaring major problem and that is that the output of the SM seven is infamously quiet and that you're going to need a pretty sizable preamp to juice this baby sure actually recommends a at least at least 60 decibels of amplification so then the question comes is it worth it well the sm7 in the sm58 and the sm57 for that matter are all very similar and if you're not really going to benefit from some of the practical advantages of the sm7 such as its plosive control shock absorption the built-in yoke system that they have installed on in here and the truth is it really all comes down to taste and preference you have to listen to the two of them back to back and make the decision for yourself for your needs for whatever you can be using it for for your ears it's all about taste so this is your sm58 it sounds decent it has a lot of the same characteristics as the sm7b it just it really doesn't look nice and you know what I kind of crap on this microphone a lot but this is the kind of microphone you have on stage this is the kind of microphone you see public speakers use but it's not really something that rings your bell when you're going to do a podcast or a stream this just isn't very attractive it has nothing about it that kind of screams perfect mic for my setup however the sound quality which a lot of people dismiss for a $99 microphone this is excellent sound quality for whether it be a podcast whether it be a YouTube video doesn't really matter this will actually get the job done for a very decent price and then we have the sm7b which requires even more gain than the sm58 so now you have these two microphones you can actually hear them just boosted but we're also going to go over exactly how they sound in post this is future Aiden and I was sitting down with some of this footage and some of the audio and I realized boy these mics are closed and sound so we're gonna have a little bit of fun here while I'm testing the two microphones I'm not gonna tell you which one you're listening to while you're listening to it okay so let's see if you can figure out is it the really expensive sm7b or is it the sm58 let's have a little bit of fun with this let me know down in the comments if you got it right now I'm gonna be switching between the two microphones but can you tell which one is the sm7b and which one is the sm58 remember they're both got their levels boosted and post and they both are being worked with dynamic processing a little bit of EQ n' and a few other rx-7 tricks so can you tell which is which they're switching back and forth while I talk so it should be pretty obvious which one is making the sound right not really they're actually closer than you think and well they're pretty much the same microphone with a few tweaks here and there so let me show you up on screen exactly which is which this one is the sm7b and this one is the sm58 so did you figure it out were you able to tell which one was which personally while I was going through I actually had to label them because I could not tell so if that's any indication anyways let me know what you think down in the comments is this way off line am i insulting your sm7b purchase or does this give you a little bit of reason for pause hmm anyways if you liked this video hit the like button get subscribed and I'll see you yes I will see you maybe till 1-2 in the next video who knows never know when Dylan comes around you

Channel: Dark Corner Studios

Views: 142,291

Keywords: SM58 vs sm7b, sm7b vs sm58, sm58, sm7b, mic comparison, tech, which mic is better, Dark Corner Studios, Microphone showdown, Mic Comparison, detailed breakdown, Which is BETTER? SM58 or SM7B? The answer may SHOCK YOU., sound quality, sm58 sound quality, sm7b sound quality, differences, SM7B vs SM58 Mic SHOWDOWN

Id: FPO8dfE9inY

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 12 2020