Welcome to Help Me podcast, a show designed to help
you launch and grow your podcast. I am your host, Gino. And twice
a week, I will release a new episode with different tips and
trick for launching and growing your podcast. From audio engineering
to planning intentionally to growth tactics, each episode will be a bite
sized tip to help you podcast.
Welcome back to Help Me podcast. This is episode
73. And today, I wanna talk about a new piece of gear that just came
out last week from Shure. Shore is
the microphone company. They also make, you know, a bunch of other
audio related equipment. But they're best known in the
podcasting space anyways for the Shure SM seven
b. And if you've ever watched a podcast on
YouTube or, you know, seen a video podcast somewhere. You're probably
familiar with what the Shure SM seven b looks like. It's the
industry standard or one of the industry standard podcast
microphones and broadcast microphones. And it's actually the microphone that
I'm using right here today to record this podcast.
So Shure, who makes that microphone, came out with a new microphone last
week called the Shure s m seven d
b, and, we're gonna go into, you know, what
the differences are and that sort of thing. But, really, what Shure did
is they kinda fixed an issue that the Shure SM
seven b has had for years and kinda made everything
built in and in house. And I think it's really cool idea. And when I
first saw it last week, I saw, like, some article on my phone, and I
was like, oh, about, you know, about time they did that. So,
you know, something that kinda really makes sense and, exciting new piece
of gear for, for all of us podcasters.
So in order to talk about the s m seven d b, I wanna talk
about the s m seven b a little bit. And if you've ever used,
Shure SM seven d before, where, you you might be aware
of this problem. Actually, in episode 37
of this podcast, we talked about, the issue of the s
m seven b and how to fix it. So in case you didn't listen to
that episode, I'll go into a little bit of that issue. And, basically, when
you use the Shure SM seven b, it's a very gain
heavy microphone. It needs a lot of gain in order to be used.
And gain you know, another word could be power. Right? It
needs a lot of power in order to be used. So if you were
to just take the s m seven b and plug it directly into your
audio interface. You know, a a popular interface out there is a a
Focusrite or a Presonus or, you know, any of those kinda
like average, middle of the road type of interfaces. What ends up
happening is because the Shure SM seven b is so gain heavy,
it's actually, like, super quiet when you record. So, there's
a preamp on your audio interface, which is what provides the gain.
And on any audio interface, you'll see a knob that either says gain or maybe
it says volume or something like that where you can adjust it and turn
it up, then you can turn it down. But the issue with the s
m seven b is when you turn it pretty much all the way up, it's
still kinda really quiet. And it's just one of those things that's, like,
really frustrating. Because when you turn that gain all the way
up on your interface, now you're introducing noise because they're
not very expensive preamps and, you know, there's noise
that's generated from the cheaper electronics. And it kinda just, like,
sends you down the spiral of, like, oh, it's not loud enough or maybe it
is loud enough if I talk really loud into it, and then there's also this
noise now that's in the background. So It's a really frustrating
problem because you just spent, you know, $400 on this
really nice microphone, and now you can't even really use it very well.
And it's a it's a very frustrating issue. And I remember the 1st time it
happened to me. And actually, what I did to to solve the problem is
actually called Sweetwater where I bought the microphones from, and they have
really excellent customer service. And I remember I was
driving, talking to, like, one of their sales reps and being like, hey. I got
this problem. I got you know, I don't know what's happening. And immediately, he was
like, yep. You need an inline gain booster because that shore is
super gain hungry, and it needs a lot of gain. So
what he explained to me there was, basically, you just need
a source for Morgane. Right? And this could be
any sort of external preamp. The Cloudlifter is
one that's sold in conjunction with the SM seven a lot
of times. And the Cloudlifter is just a little blue box, and
you plug your microphone cable Intuit, and then you get
another microphone cable and plug it, the Cloudlifter, into your
interface. And then what that does is it just provides additional amount of
gain. And when you use that and and you have that
sort of setup, you got the microphone, you got the Cloudlifter, and then you have
your interface, then you have no issue. You got plenty of volume, and
you can go ahead and record just like with any normal microphone.
The game booster that I'm using is the SE Electronic d
m one dynamite stick, which I like a little bit better because it's
a lot smaller. It's literally like I don't know. It's like a little
cigar almost. It's like the same diameter as an XLR cable, and
it's maybe, like, 3 inches long. And you can kinda, like, plug
it into the back of the microphone or you can plug it into the front
of your interface. You don't need an extra microphone cable, which is a plus
to me. They're cheaper than the Cloudlifter. And I also
believe you get a little bit more gain. So, I've had nothing but good things
to say about the d m one dynamite stick. But, you know, it's another,
like I think they're I I think I paid a 100 for them, and I
think maybe they're, like, 90 now or something. But, you know, it's another $100 that
you gotta spend in order to use the microphone that you just spent, you know,
$400 on. So all that to say, like, it's
it was a frustrating process to buy the s m seven b and then have
to go through all this problem solving to, like, get this new piece of equipment.
And then even if you knew that going into it, you you know, you gotta
save up for the microphone, and then you gotta save up for the inline
gain booster or or whatever gain boost you're using in order to use the
microphone. So it's like you gotta buy 2 things in order to just use the
1 microphone. But sure, last week released
the SM seven dB, which has this
inline gain booster that we're talking about built into the microphone.
So now you have 1 microphone, 1 unit, and it's completely
self sufficient. It doesn't need to rely on an external
game booster anymore because what Shure did was they said, hey. You
know, instead of you going to a different company and giving them $100 for a
gain booster, a $150. Let's just put it in the mic and charge you
for it and keep the customers here. Right? Which is
genius and smart because they identified the problem, and then they
created a product to serve the customer that had the problem.
And, yeah. It just it made so much sense when I saw it. And I
was like, oh, wow. They. That I'm surprised they didn't come out with that, like,
years ago. So I I haven't used the mic or anything yet. It literally just
came out, like, you know, last week, I think. And and some
cool features about it is, you know, it's all built in. It's it looks like
it has the almost the same or the same exact housing as the s
m seven b. It might be a little bit longer or bigger, you know,
in diameter, but it looks very, very similar. And
everything's all built in, and you don't see any of it. So
it's essentially like you're just using the s m seven b and you
don't need anything else. So you should be able to plug that, you know,
directly into your interface and not have any issues.
So, right now, I just kinda wanna go through a little bit of
the specs of the microphone. I'm going to Shor's website right
now. And and yeah. If you if you look at the back of
the microphone, one thing that they included in this mic that I really like
is the ability to bypass the preamp. So you can
either keep the preamp on and have that additional gain boost, or
you can shut it off and, basically, you have an s m seven b.
So if there was an external preamp or something that you
would rather use. Maybe you had, like, a really expensive tube preamp that
you like. You can still do that with this mic. So the preamp
itself has actually 2 different settings, which I think is also
kinda cool. It's not just like a on or off. They have, 2
positions. 1 is 18 decibels gain and then 1 is
28 decibels gain. So it kinda gives you, like, a lower and a higher amount
of gain. And, you know, it's it's just really easy and simple. It's like a
switch on the back of the microphone. It seems to be very
simple and really easy to use, which, you know, is is appreciated.
And, it also looks like it comes with both of the standard s m
seven b, like, the windscreens. The the normal one
that's, like, kind of the sleeker looking one, and then the bigger one that's
kinda, you know, bubbly or like a puffy sort of thing. Looks
like a like a news broadcaster microphone. It's the
one that I use because it helps a little bit more with plosives. So
It's nice that they also include that. And, yeah, basically, the only difference
between the s m seven b and the s m seven d b, it you
know, price wise is the d b, the newer microphone with the
preamp built in is $100 more, which I think is more
than reasonable pricing. Because, you know, like we said earlier, if you're
gonna go buy an external preamp, you're probably gonna spend $100
anyways. So, you know, it's not like they're price gouging you. It's
a pretty fair assessment and, you know, you're gonna spend that
much with somebody else anyways. So, you know, maybe it makes sense
to just buy the whole thing in 1 unit, spend the extra $99 with
Shure instead of somebody else and have a simpler
setup. Because that's what this mic basically does for you at the end of the
day, is it gives you a simpler setup. You don't have to have anything else
plugged into the microphone. You don't have to have this, you know, Cloud Lifter blue
box sitting on your desk somewhere. You don't have to have multiple sets of
mic cables. You just plug from the mic right into your
interface, and you should be good to go, with the amount of gain boost that
you have. The last thing that I wanna note that I
just remembered that I want to know is the amount
of gain that the Shure preamp built
in provides versus, like, the Cloudlifter or the d m one dynamite stick.
So the Cloudlifter advertises that it gives you an extra
25 decibels of gain boost. And like we said, with the Shure
SM seven d b, you have an option for 18 decibels
of gain or 28 decibels of gain.
So, you know, that means the sure preamp actually
gives you 3 more decibels of
gain, than the Cloudlifter does. And the Cloudlifter, again, right now is
$150. So, you know, even just cost wise, if you're looking
at that, you get more bang for your buck with the Shure preamp. And And
then if you look at the d m one dynamite stick, they actually give you
28 decibels of gain for $99.
And And, you know, that's the same exact amount that I'm
getting through my d m one dynamite stick right now. And, you know, it's the
same price. So So, really, the the only difference is
being, like, everything's gonna be built into your mic or you have to, you know,
have this d m one dynamite stick sticking out of your mic or sticking out
of your interface. So, you know, decibels wise, I think that Shure
did a good job with providing enough decibels
of gain in their in line preamp. That would be, like, one of my
main concerns is, like, did they give you enough of gain boost with that built
in preamp? But they gave you as much as the d m one dynamite stick,
and I can tell you from using the d m one dynamite stick that the
28 decibels of gain is enough for this microphone, and it
works really well. If I'm looking at my interface right now, I got my
dynamite stick plugged in, and I got my gain on my Focusrite
interface just, like, directly at noon, 12 o'clock. So I got plenty of
headroom to crank it up if I need to. And, you know,
the 28 works really well. So, just wanted to make a note of that and
say, like, sure is not skimping on the, amount of gain that
they're giving you. They're actually giving you just as much as a d m one
dynamite stick. So I think that's really awesome. And, you know, hopefully, I'll
use 1 soon, and I'll be able to, like, test it out. The microphone
is $500. It's 4.99 for this new microphone,
and, look forward to seeing what people are saying about it. And hopefully, people are
enjoying it. And hopefully, it's a, you know, a good microphone. But thanks
for tuning in. If you, buy this microphone or if you if you're
using it, send me a message and let me know what you think about it.
I'd love to know, you know, what people are thinking of it. So thanks
for tuning in, and I will see you next time. We've reached the end of
the episode. And if you enjoyed this podcast or you got something
from it, you might be interested in my weekly newsletter that
I send out every Monday morning full of podcasting
tips, tricks, and news. So if you like this show, you might like
this newsletter. To sign up, just go to the show notes and click the
link. Thanks