 This is the Shure SM7B, a much loved mic amongst podcasters and singers alike, and whilst it certainly is a great mic, it has a problem. Hi folks, I'm Mike and I hope you're well. If you're thinking about buying an SM7B, I can certainly recommend it, it's got that characteristic smooth warm tone to it, and because it's a dynamic microphone, it's really great if you're working in a room without any acoustic treatment. It's because it's going to pick up more of your voice and less of the room. However, if you're using it with a typical home studio audio interface like this one, you'll often find the gain turned up all the way to the max. Today we're going to be discussing why that's such a problem, why the typical solution is also a problem in my opinion, and how to fix it well, properly. But first I'd like to thank the sponsor for this video, DistroKid. If you follow the VIP link in the description down below, you'll get 7% off an already amazing price to distribute your music. Let's discuss why it's a problem to use this with this. The main task of an audio interface is to convert analog signals from things like microphones or guitars into digital signals that can be used by your computer. And to be honest with you, most consumer level audio interfaces these days actually do a really good job of that. But before they do that, they have to amplify that signal to a usable level, and for that they use their built-in preamps. Now I sure recommend that you need to be using a mic preamp with at least 60 decibels of gain to be effective with the SM7B. The problem with this is that most consumer level devices only deliver gain in the 50s or so, which is why you'll have that gain control maxed out most of the time. Now in addition to this, they tend to have fairly low level outputs from their headphone amplifiers as well, and because you're now listening to a fairly quiet signal, you'll often find that that's also maxed out. Now whilst we can say that they do a great job in terms of analog to digital conversion, we have to say that in most cases, their preamps are good rather than great, and they can be rather exposed by a microphone like this. Because when you're using slightly lower quality preamps at their maximum level, you're far more likely to introduce noise, distortion and other artifacts. By far the most common solution presented for this on YouTube or on internet forums is to use this. This is called a cloudlifter. With this little box, you simply plug your microphone into one side, then run a cable from the other side to your audio interface, and then it uses the phantom power on your audio interface to boost the signal a little before it even reaches the preamps. You'll find that your preamp level is much, much lower when you're using this device, and therefore in theory will have less noise. So when I bought my SM7B, I followed the instructions on the internet and went ahead and bought one of these little devices as well. But I have to say I was disappointed. I kept getting this niggling feeling that this little box was actually introducing a little noise itself. And whilst you might not actually hear it while you're recording, I felt that it became exposed later, especially when I added compression to the signal. Because with compression, you're often boosting the quieter parts of the signal. But to be sure, I wanted to run some tests. The test involved recording some test tones at a fixed volume at a fixed distance, both with and without the cloud lifter. And I wanted to achieve a peak level of minus 6 dB, which is normally my target for vocals. However, the exact number doesn't really matter as long as the tests were consistent. Now when I wasn't using the cloud lifter, I had to have the gain set to 100% on the audio interface. And with the cloud lifter, it needed to be set to around about 65% or so. So it was doing its job. I then went ahead and deleted the test tone from the files so that we just left with the silence in between. And then I boosted them both equally so that we could clearly see what we were dealing with. The results confirmed what I had suspected. Several tests indicated that the cloud lifter was adding a little bit of noise. Now I want to be careful not to oversell this here, because of course I did have to boost this significantly in post so that we could visually see what was happening. In reality, the difference is rather small in terms of actual decibels, but for me at least still noticeable, especially later on when I compress the signal. So I set about looking for an alternative. Now before we dive into what I think is a superior solution, I just want to take a quick look at our sponsor DistroKid, who are also a great solution for distributing your music. By using DistroKid, you get to release your music directly to some of the best platforms on the planet. We're talking Spotify, iTunes, TikTok, Amazon, you know, all of the household names. And you don't need to open any accounts there because DistroKid does all of that for you. Now once you've created your master and your album artwork, it's as easy as filling in a friendly form, uploading them and DistroKid takes care of the rest. All for one flat annual fee and DistroKid takes none of your royalties. Sign up with my VIP link in the description and you'll get an extra 7% off. This is the Camden EC1 preamp and headphone mixer from Cranbourne Audio. Not only do it's award-winning preamps provide over 68 decibels of clean gain, but it has a powerful high quality reference grade headphone amp built in as well. As such, I hope that this will be a solution for both recording and monitoring. It also has a bunch of other handy features which we'll discuss later. So as suggested by Cranbourne Audio, I connected the output of the EC1 to an input on my interface. I then turned the gain on my interface down to minimum and engaged the pad. Basically the interface preamps were hardly doing anything so the EC1 can do all of the heavy lifting. I also connected some line outs from my interface to the EC1 so that I could use it as a headphone amp for monitoring. In order to achieve my target peak of minus 6 decibels for the test, I had to have the EC1's gain set to 90%. As you can see with the results here, the EC1 introduces far less noise than the other two methods. Now as well as being a great mic preamp and a great headphone amp as well, the EC1 has some other notable features. Of course, it has phantom power so it's great for other types of mics such as condensers and can be used as a preamp for line and instrument levels as well. Of course, not something a cloud lifter can do. And if you want to add some character, you can use its mojo feature for either transformer or tube style saturation. Also, the headphone amp gives you direct control over the mix between your direct signal and your door. Now tests like this are all very well if you want to confirm a suspicion like I had earlier. But I have to say for me, it's actually the user experience which is far more important. I have to say with the EC1 it's a far superior experience to the methods I was using earlier. Not only am I less distracted by noise I may be hearing from the preamp, but also I can monitor at a much healthier level with a higher quality of monitoring as well. So there's no doubt in my mind it's like chalk and cheese compared to the other methods. But at what cost? If this has taught me anything, it's the value of high quality mic preamps, especially when you're pushing them to their limits. The cloud lifter, to be honest with you, feels like a bit of a band aid solution. Yeah, if you just want to boost your signal, then it does that job for you. But if you want to maintain a high level of quality, then the EC1 is a much better solution. And I feel like later on if you outgrow your consumer level audio interface, the EC1 is still going to find a place in your studio. Let's be perfectly honest. When you're comparing something like the cloud lifter to the Camden EC1, you're talking about some very different beasts in terms of quality and features as well. And I think the price certainly reflects that. The EC1 is really for people who have a no compromise attitude towards their audio quality and are prepared to pay for it. Now I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have to be honest about this, because a lot of you I know want to buy this microphone. But I would seriously consider a solution beyond just using your consumer grade audio interface. At least check out the gain specifications before you buy it. Now earlier on I talked about the fact that often I will use compression with vocals. And to find out about one of my favorite compressors, you should watch this video right here.