- The Shure SM7B is a super popular podcast microphone.
So many of the well known podcasters are using
this microphone.
In this video, I'm gonna show you
my ultimate RodeCaster Pro II settings
and some of my thoughts
and feedback on using this particular mic.
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By the end of the video, you're gonna be a Shure SM7B
and RodeCaster Pro II expert.
With that said Shure SM7B,
It's not something I use every day, day to day.
I've tested this out versus other microphones.
And I use other microphones in my day to day work.
But the Shure SM7B has a unique sound.
It's very good, it's dynamic, it rejects a lot of noise,
and it works perfectly for podcasters.
With that said, I am a fan
of using the bigger windshield on it
as opposed to the default thinner one that comes included
with the microphone.
Why is that?
Well, unfortunately, unlike other microphones
like the Electro-Voice RE20,
it hasn't really got a very good inbuilt pop filter.
So I find this windshield,
while reducing a few of the frequencies
in my voice, stops a little bit of that popping.
It's unfortunate, but I even hear it
on some of the really popular podcasts
that this microphone is a little popular, poppier,
and popular than other microphones.
Also, I wanted to let you know that on the back,
usually there are settings just here.
Just there, there are settings on the back
where you can roll off the low end
and you can do amplitude increase
and decrease and things like that.
I've left those settings on neutral, just so
there's no confusion as I show you some of these settings.
And finally, there's no need
for a booster like a DBX new chain
or a cloud lifter or a FetHead or anything like that.
The revolution preempts in the RodeCaster Pro II
are awesome and they do the job for you,
and actually adds really clean gain to the microphone.
Probably much cleaner
than you could get through analog gear.
So with that said, I'm here in the settings
for the microphone plugged into channel four
on my RodeCaster Pro II,
currently selected as a Rode pod mic.
So probably not the best setting.
I should probably scroll across and say dynamic.
Okay, there we go.
We're now a dynamic microphone.
It does take a few seconds once you select a new mic profile
for the audio to come back in.
Now you can see I'm rather quiet there.
I'm not hitting the green rails
and you need to hit that for all the effects to work.
Otherwise you're not gonna hit the threshold
for some of the effects like compression and DSing to work.
So I'm gonna need to do a bit of a gain boost.
Then we can do that.
We can make it much louder.
And here I'm gonna suggest a level increase
of let's go to 60dB.
At 60dB, actually, I'm a much louder
than I was at the start of the video.
And this microphone is really showing off its sound.
and sounding pretty good
with the default processing settings there
from the RodeCaster Pro II.
Obviously, you can play with depth, sparkle and punch
which just kind of improve your sound
if you're in a hurry to get a good sound.
I think the default neutral settings right here
on the RodeCaster Pro II are really good
and you probably don't need to tweak them much.
But if you are a tweaker,
then why not hit the advanced key over here.
And let's look at all the different processes we can add
to the Shure SM7B.
First of all, a high pass filter, we can roll off low end
and as I increase that, you'll hear my voice thin out
and then decrease it right the way down
and we get that boomy base.
You know, if you've ever listened to certain podcasts
and you're like, how have they got such a deep voice?
They're probably not doing any high pass filter.
So if that's your bag.
If you prefer to have the full frequencies in your voice,
make that neutral, make that absolutely nothing.
Make it the lowest value, which is 20 Hertz
but you can boost it up without impacting the voice up
to around, let's listen here,
probably around to around about 120
and still you retain most of the low end frequencies
in your voice, which is good.
And it will also reduce plosives.
So I suggest about 120 Hertz on this Shure SM7B.
Looking at the DE-ESSER,
it's kind of working, it's working quite nice.
We've got a frequency of 5,000 Hertz.
5,000 Hertz is pretty good.
If we go up too high
then 8,000 Hertz is not as effective and let's try there.
She sells seashells.
Okay, so we are looking at probably
for my voice on this mic about 5,500.
Now of course you can see in some of my other videos
on my YouTube channel, videos on exactly how
to set a DE-ESSER and look for those SE frequencies
inside the spectral frequency display
of software like Adobe Audition.
But for now, I'm gonna leave the DE-ESSER as that is.
Noise gate works well.
This microphone rejects a lot of background noise anyway
so you don't need to go too harsh with this.
If you really want to cut off the background
and have only your voice heard,
you can increase things such as the threshold.
So I can turn that up like this.
And we'll see that we're biting into my speech now.
And this is affected further
if I change the range setting over here
and make that a bigger range setting.
Now, when I go quiet, everything goes quiet.
As you can see that gate kicking in right there
on the processing there.
But if you notice your voice is getting cut off a bit,
go back to the threshold at the top
and just ease that off a little bit
so it's not cutting right into your speech.
Then you see that quite clearly
as you see your speech amplitude shown
in real time by a graph that's moving along.
I think that's a pretty good setting.
Minus 38.6dB and a range of 44dB on the Shure SM7B.
Let's move on.
We've got compression. This is pretty good.
Again, I might increase the ratio on this
and make this say three to one,
gives me a bit of extra punch.
And the threshold I can move down a little bit maybe
to minus 33.
And there we go.
Now we've got the red coming in,
showing that I'm having a little bit of gain reduction.
It's flattening out my voice
and making it a little more punchy.
We've also got equalizer.
I'm pretty happy with this
but if we want some more sparkle
I'll increase the high gain there.
And we can also change the frequency
on the high bell as well.
So we can move that down
and up depending on where we want to go.
I'd say somewhere around 10,000 Hertz is good.
The frequency response
of this microphone is actually really good.
So I wouldn't play with the frequencies too much
on the equalizer and I'd leave them as they are.
The exciter and the, we've got the big bottom
and the oral exciter,
they seem to be doing the job really well.
This is a really good neutral sounding podcast microphone
that once you've got the basic setup here and panning,
you obviously don't need to work on.
You don't wanna go left or right.
Unless you're doing a sort of stereo podcast with you coming
from the left and the right,
but I wouldn't advise that kind of thing.
So as you can see, this Shure SM7B
is really easy to set up in the RodeCaster Pro II.
You don't need any external analog hardware
or anything like that.
So a microphone that traditionally is really hard to boost
in volume is really easy to boost
in volume right inside the RodeCaster Pro II.
If indeed you do have any questions
on the settings or set up for your Shure SM7B
using the RodeCaster Pro II, do let me know
in the comments down below.
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