 The short MV7 podcast microphone is the microphone that I've been using on all of my YouTube videos since I started my channel just over a year ago. So consider this my one year review of the microphone and to cut a long story short, I've been really happy with it. One of the reasons that I bought this microphone in the first place is it has a feature which not too many other microphones have. There are a couple though, but it has both USB and XLR outputs, which means that you can plug it directly into your computer and I'll show you how that looks in moments. But then also you can use it over XLR if you're using an external audio device. So for example, right now I'm plugged in over XLR into the ROCASTER Pro 2. But you can see on the back here we've got the XLR cable, but then we've also got a USB socket and also a headphone socket for plugging in your in-ear monitors. But I'll talk about that in a little while. There is one thing that is slightly different that you may notice to the picture on the box or the picture that you may have seen, which is I have actually replaced the windshield. So this is the windshield that comes with it and I've replaced it with one that is slightly larger. And it is actually the windshield from the bigger brother, bigger sister of the MV7, the SM7B. And if I just pop this off for a moment, there you go, just muted it so you didn't get your ears blown off by the noise there. That is the comparison of the size of them. It does actually fit perfectly. So the key thing here is that the inner diameter here of the foam is exactly the same because the sort of capsule on the microphone is exactly the same on each as well. Now, one of the things that you'll notice about this is first of all, this feels a little bit denser in terms of the actual foam itself. It feels like a more sort of dense, you know, smaller gaps between the holes in the foam compared to this one. This one's a lot more sort of squidgy as well to use a technical term. This one also has a sort of plastic rim around the bottom. It's sort of bonded onto that. But the key thing is you can see the length. So what that means is the end of the foam is just that little bit further off the end of the capsule there. And what that means is it helps to stop those plosive sounds. The plosive sounds being things, you know, the sort of popping sound that you get from peas. So if I just pop the original one on for a moment, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, if I can get it out right. So there you can see the, you're really hearing the plosives there on the pea sound. But if I just swap it out for a moment, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. I can't get that in one go. I've got to think of something different to say. But there you go. You can see hopefully that there is a distinct difference. I'm no audiophile, but I can still clearly hear the difference between those two, just even now listening in my headphones. Those plosives have been definitely reduced by replacing the windshield there. So I'll leave a link to this windshield. The RK345 is the product number of it from Shure. And then also you'll find a link to the microphone down there in the description as well. So I think this is around about $10 or something like that for the windshield. So whether or not you think that is worthwhile investment or not is entirely up to you, of course. So as I say, at the moment, it is plugged into the ROCASTER Pro. And when you are running over XLR, basically you just have the single cable running out of it. And that's it. There's nothing to do with the setup in the microphone itself. Incidentally, in the ROCASTER Pro 2, if you are using one of those, then you can sort of set different presets for microphones. I'm just using the built-in preset in the ROCASTER Pro 2 for the SM7B. So they don't have a preset for the MV7 as such. I'm using them one for its bigger brother or sister. So that's just a point to note there. That's the settings that I've currently got in the ROCASTER Pro. Now, the cables that you get in the box for it, as I say, it is USB. It's actually a micro USB connector on the back of the microphone itself. But they do give you two separate cables. They give you one that goes from micro USB to USB-C and one that goes from micro USB to USB-A, you know, the sort of more traditional USB cable. Now, one thing that I noticed with the cable over after about, I would say, about a year, the one that I was using, which was the regular USB one, the actual connector, the micro USB connector on the end actually got slightly bent. And that was because of the way that I got it mounted in the arm and just moving it around all the time, you know, constantly, readjusting, moving things out of the way, moving it back. Obviously, putting any sort of pressure onto these cables can damage them. And so it did get damaged for me. And at some point, it simply stopped working or rather was rather intermittent. So that's just something to note that when you are positioning it, you need to make sure that, you know, you're not putting any undue strain on these. And certainly you don't want any cables where you're kind of bending them, you know, at any point, you know, too much in any case for any cable that goes for. But particularly make sure there's no strain on here. Fortunately, there was a spare one in the box, technically, because they gave you the USB-C one. So I was able to use that. But that's just something to note. As I say, it wasn't the connector, though, on the microphone itself. So it wasn't anything to do with the build quality of that. It was literally just the connector. So if you do ever have any audio issues with anything, always first port of call is to check the cables. So with that said, what I'll do is I will now just quickly pause and switch over to USB so that you can see how this sounds on USB. So now we are plugged in over USB. So I've basically just unplugged the XLR and I've now got the USB cable plugged into here. And I've also got my in-ear monitors are plugged directly into the microphone as well. Now, once you are plugged in over USB, what you'll notice is it just sort of come to life on the top here. So there is some lights here. There is a touch panel. So this is only something that you're going to use when you are plugged in over USB. And what this allows you to do is control things like the gain but also the volume in your headphones as well. And then also the balance between that as well. So let me just show you how this looks as well if I come over to this view for just one moment. So this is the short motive app. This is the app that you're going to use on your computer to basically have some sort of control over the audio that you're getting out of your microphone. Let me make sure I'm pointing that the right way out my mouth for a change. That might help. So here is the short motive app. And there's a couple of things that you can do in here. So if you want to just use some preset levels, you can come into this section that says auto level. Oopsie-daisy. It might have just cut out on me for a moment there. It's done a little bit of an adjustment there to the audio volume, I think, but never mind. So what you can do here is you basically can just choose the microphone position. So whether you've got it close to you or whether it is further away. So obviously this is right next to my mouth more or less. So it would be this near one. And then also you've got this thing here. You can change the tone. So we can choose to make the tone dark, obviously slightly more deeper. The neutral or bright is going to just raise those high levels. You've also got the option on here, the live meters. This is these little light strips that you can see around the top. These are used to indicate a number of things. So the first thing is, you know, when you are switched over to the volume setting or the gain setting, it will show you the level of those. But you've also got here live meters. And that will then, as I'm talking, you may be able to see that these little LED lights, there's a sort of row of LED lights, and they are acting like a little, you know, sort of scale for you to a meter is the word for you to sort of see, you know, the levels that you've got on the microphone. There's also night mode, which basically just dims the lights down slightly. So you can toggle that one on and off for a hit from here. And this is basically the auto settings. Now you also have this monitor mix. This is for the audio that you're hearing in your ears, how much basically you are hearing of your own voice coming back from the mic versus how much is coming out from the system. So if you've got your, you know, any audio coming out from your computer or wherever coming out into this because this is set as both an input and an output, then this is sort of affecting, you know, the sort of balance of that. So if I move this all the way over here, I'm not hearing any of my own voice coming back in, but I'm hearing just only the audio from the system. Whereas if I move it back this way, then I'm hearing a lot more of my self coming back. So that is just how you change that. You can also mute the microphone in here as well. So you can just just like that. You can also do this on the microphone itself. So there is a little touch symbol here for microphone mute and I can just like that to mute the microphone. Let's have a look at the manual settings though, because here you've got a little bit more control. You have got the exact same mute button here, but then you've got the mic gain. So you can turn this up and down. That's going to control the gain from the microphone. You've got that same monitor mix as well, but then we've got a little bit more control over the actual sound that you're getting out of it. So first of all, we've got the EQ and then there's this one which is basically a high pass filter. So it's knocking out some of those lower tones. There's this one which they call a presence boost, which is boosting up some of the sort of mid to high end. And then also you've got this one which is high pass and presence boost, which is doing those two things together basically. There's also a limiter that you can turn on. So this is basically going to stop any excessive, excessive loud noises coming through. So it just actually put a limit on it. And then finally you've got down here the compressor. So compression is basically think of it like leveling everything out slightly. So it means that if you're talking loudly, then it will bring those down. But also if you're speaking quietly, then it will kind of bring those tones up to kind of level everything out really. So the compressor is off. If I turn it to light, this is how it sounds. Then we've got medium and then also heavy. So that's the difference. And if I just go from heavy compression down to off, you can see what that's doing. It's actually just sort of giving it a bit more of that radio sound. So whether you actually want all of these things on or off, you know, turning everything up to the max is not always the way to go. But that is just the level of control you've got over it. Whereas with that manual, it's basically you're just choosing whether it's near or far and you've got those three kind of presets. And then once again, you've got the live meters and night mode toggles on here as well. The other thing though that you've got is you have got control over this on the device itself. So on this side, we have got the little mute button, the touch screen mute. And then on this side, we've got one that has a picture of both the microphone and then also headphones. And this does two things. If I tap it once so I can see it. Now it's turned orange, which is for headphones. And now basically I'm controlling the volume in my headphones. If I press it again to switch over to the mic, then now what I'm controlling is the gain. So I can turn that up and down to control the gain. And then if I press and hold, press and hold, he says, then what I'm doing is I'm controlling the monitor mix. So that is the monitor mix that we've got over here. So you can control all of this that you're seeing in the app. Really, I rarely open the app once I've got the things set up as I had them. Then once I've got that set up, then I just do any sort of control from here or in fact more likely from the computer. So that is the sort of difference in sound that you can get between it on USB versus XLR. And yeah, overall, apart from that one minor thing about the cable having that slight issue, which was probably as I say more down to user error certainly not the manufacturing of the device. The device itself is really solid, really hard wearing. I've not had any difficulty with that or any issues with build quality or anything like that. So overall, I would say it is a really solid device. And certainly if you're just starting out on a YouTube channel and you want that versatility of being able to use it on USB and XLR, I can highly recommend it. Now, if you are thinking of using it with the ROCASTER Pro 2, you may be interested in some ROCASTER Pro 2 videos which are coming right up just over there on the right-hand side. So I'll see you in there.