Why the Shure SM7B + Cloudlifter Setup Makes No Sense (Save $500 with This Mic) - Microphone Review

so yesterday i gave you guys a pull and the pull was pretty simple you pick one microphone out of these four microphones and it's going to be the only microphone you can use so the choices were a sure sm7b a shure sm57 an electro voice re20 and the rode pro caster as expected you guys did not disappoint the sm7b blew the rest of them out of the water 50 of all the votes cast sm7b and that makes sense in my time here on youtube that was 100 the answer i expected but let me tell you why i disagree so whenever i started this channel i basically just thought i was going to be getting musicians because i was giving recording advice but i was shocked at the sheer amount of people that were streamers gamers voice over artists asmr artists even like radio hosts and stuff they all started tuning into the channel and that's awesome and i also started noticing a pattern with that whole side of the recording industry all of these industries and also like youtubers as well glorify this microphone i've never seen a microphone become trendy the way i see it a combination of really targeted marketing gear acquisition syndrome like just wanting to buy the best gear and also an over influx of content creators using this microphone have sort of manufactured a really high demand and a really high desirability for the sure sm7b and i get it it's a really alluring design it looks like a really professional broadcast microphone and also when you speak into it you just feel like you're saying something important so let me tell you why i think this microphone isn't the microphone you should be going after though especially if you are of a certain content creation demographic which i'm gonna touch on later now let me ask you two questions first one if you're using the sure sm7b what are you using it for now i'm pretty sure there's going to be basically two answers to this broadcast vocal recording and live vocal recording that's what the shure sm7b is known for second question what else are you going to need for this microphone and i'm sure a large portion of you just said cloud lifter or extra preamp gain whatever hardware device that happens to amount to and while i've made plenty of videos showing that you don't necessarily need a cloud lifter and it's a part of the marketing behind this microphone you can get by with just some slight preamp noise and you can even get rid of that with just some very simple mixing eq and even like a gate or something like that but a large portion of people buying an sm7b are still gonna buy a cloud lifter no matter what i say i'm just a small youtuber and all of that is gonna amount to around six hundred dollars essentially what i'm saying is this microphone is a six hundred dollar investment when all is said and done for a lot of people and that amount of investment for the audio quality that you're getting it's just not necessary and i'm not just going to leave you by saying oh you actually don't need to buy the suresome 7b it's actually not worth the price i want to show you a microphone that i think can do an extremely similar if not identical job for about a sixth the price so let's go back to those two questions the first one what are you going to use the microphone for with the sure sm7b broadcast recording and live vocal recording what if you could have a microphone that is also great at recording voiceover and also great at recording live vocals but also is known for snare guitar cabs acoustic guitar toms overheads it's essentially considered the most flexible microphone in the music recording industry and the second question what else are you going to need to buy okay i'm going to spare you guys the surprise i'm just going to tell you what it is the microphone i'm talking about is the shure sm57 it's the microphone i use in all my voiceovers if you know it's not about a specific microphone and the only thing you're going to need to buy with the shure sm57 if you're using it for like voice over gaming streaming things like that is a pop shield now there is one that sure actually sells himself i believe it's called the a2ws looks amazing fits impeccably or you could be like me and borrow a pop shield from a really cheap newer microphone and shove it on top of the clip until it fits rather snugly and no you don't need any external gain on the shure sm57 where the sure sm7b has around 60 dbs of game which is just outside the most common audio interfaces preamp gain levels the sure sm57 comes in at 56 dbs again which is going to set your preamp to probably around three o'clock and you're not going to get as much noise from your preamps with the shure sm57 again you can still use it i don't want you thinking that you need to purchase a 130 product to make your microphone usable but yes it will reduce the noise which is already relatively quiet on most interfaces and oh yeah it's a hundred dollars like 500 to 600 dollars a hundred dollars see here's the problem and here's my main takeaway from this video if you're not in a music studio if you're not a musician the shure sm57 isn't marketed towards you for gaming and streaming and content creation you guys are marketed essentially high-end usb microphones and then later down the lines like the rode pod mic the rode pro caster and at the very high end of the spectrum the sure sm7b and the electro voice re20 i mean if you've come here from a music background the fact that i'm bringing up a sure sm57 should not be surprising to you this video should almost seem obvious in reality all these microphones can be used as a crossover between all of these different things it's just a matter of marketing and the sm57 is an incredibly affordable cost for an incredibly usable and incredibly iconic sound and i've said this before in other videos i'll say it again the shure sm58 and the shure sm57 are essentially the same microphone one just has the more iconic round mesh grille on it and oftentimes i find people don't want to use that microphone just because the fact that it looks like a stereotypical microphone like the microphone we all draw when we're children if you slam a nice looking pop shield on top of the sure sm57 it's gonna look uh probably a little bit more appealing to you more broadcast aesthetic focused but yeah the overlap between the microphones that are marketed towards musicians and the microphones that are marketed towards like streamers and voice over artists the margin of similar microphones is rather thin but that shouldn't mean that you don't use these other microphones they're still perfectly usable yeah i want you to leave this video knowing this and honestly i'll probably make this into another video in the future there is a distinct marketing campaign for streamers and gamers and voice over artists that is distinctly different than the products that are marketed towards musicians i don't want you thinking that one microphone marketed towards streamers is going to be completely unusable for the music industry and you should take advantage of the fact that one of these microphones is legendary and iconic and extremely useful and one-sixth the price of the microphone that all of you have your eyes on all right quickly i want to talk about the anatomical differences between these two microphones to give you a better idea of where the sure sm57 sits when compared to the sure sm7b so the shure sm7b is known for having a really nice low end beefy sound which makes a lot of voices sound radio friendly and the reason is because of this large resonance chamber on the back of the microphone which builds up a lot of those low mid frequencies that people seem to find satisfying in addition to that this piece the foam pop filter the capsule the part that actually picks up sound is really far down it's actually more towards the middle of the microphone which means your mouth the source of the audio can only get so close to it this is going to reduce the proximity effect meaning the closer i get to the microphone the more bass frequencies you hear which leads to an uneven and inaccurate sound for the the sound source that you're recording so that prohibits the proximity effect from happening on the sure sm7b now the suresome 57 although it's based off of a very similar design and it's built by the exact same company has a few things it has a higher presence boost around the high mid-range and the high range and also you can put your mouth right up to the coil which means you might notice an increase in the proximity effect more bass in your voice but hey that might be desirable for you and also you're going to get like the low cuts and all the things that happen on the back of the shure sm7b there's there's nothing on the 57 but if you were that put off by the differences in how these two microphones sound enough to spend an extra 500 you can just eq the shure sm57 pretty easily to sound near identical to the shure sm7b if you're not an audio engineer it's not too difficult just google it julian krauss did a really amazing video on it i did a video on it it's not as good but i'm going to link it yeah and besides the different like roll offs and pads that you get on the back of the sure sm7b that's roughly the difference again the sm57 is a sixth of the price you're gonna pay if you're paying for a cloud lifter as well more flexible is going to be more user friendly for a lot of audio interfaces and arguably is the more iconic microphone i will defend this microphone until the end of days but hey these things are also indestructible let me give you some surprising facts about this very microphone this individual microphone it's been underwater i threw it into a mosh pit the other day i dropped it on the floor my tiled floor it cracked the tile it was fine it cracked the tile this done by a microphone are you kidding me it's indestructible in fact it's a danger to whatever it's hitting thank you for listening to me rant i hope i at least saved you some money if you're considering the sm7b if you like the sure sm57 i promise you're not gonna be disappointed it's just as flexible and if you put that really nice pop shield on it i think it looks just as good because let's be honest some of your opinion is going to be influenced by the aesthetic choices of the microphone thanks so much for watching follow me on instagram at real audiohaze if you want lessons email me at realaudiohays gmail.com that is all i'll see you in the next video [Music] you

Channel: AudioHaze

Views: 193,543

Keywords: shure sm7b microphone review, shure sm7b setup, shure sm7b, shure sm7b review, shure sm7b cloudlifter, shure sm7b cloudlifter setup, shure sm7b vs sm57, shure sm57 vs sm7b, shure sm57 microphone review, shure microphone review, shure microphone setup, shure microphone sm7b, Shure microphone, cloudlifter, cloudlifter sm7b, cloudlifter review, cloudlifter setup, cloudlifter shure sm7b setup, cloudlifter sm57, cloud lifter

Id: 9LOLkAkSlrQ

Length: 10min 21sec (621 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 15 2021