Help Me Podcast

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

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link. Thanks