"Step right there!
Don't change that channel."
One of the most iconic and prolific
microphones in the podcasting
and creator space is turning
50 this year, and is having a midlife
crisis. But like, the
good kind sure invites you to
celebrate the SN7B turning boomer age by
staying out with the old,
in with the new, and get
the hotter. The sleeker.
The louder. SN7DB today.
"That's right, it's magic!" Warning may
cause spontaneous eardrum parties.
Please mic
responsibly. "Got your pedicards?"
Originally debuting in 1973, the SM7 was
sure's big swing at making a
voiceover mic for television
and broadcast studios. While it remained
the broadcast industry's
secret weapon for a long
time, the internet is really bad at
keeping secrets, and it's now impossible
to listen to podcasts,
watch, YouTube videos, or livestreams
without seeing, or at least
hearing, the SM7B. The second
major revision to the mic from 2001. It's
an expensive microphone
for sure, and a piece of
kit that no one needs to succeed, but it
quickly became the
benchmark, or go-to, for high quality
audio for less than ideal recording
conditions. But the mic had, to many
users, a fatal flaw.
Now sure is upgrading the mic again,
addressing that flaw once and for all.
This is the SM7DB, the long-awaited
refresh of a legendary microphone.
Sound-wise, it's the same legendary
broadcast mic that has been
used around the world. It's
a dynamic microphone with incredible
noise rejection and
signal isolation, and a very,
very flat frequency response curve. It's
black, it's sleek, it's
easy to modify and repair,
and super easy to attach to a mic arm or
any mount point. But it's
also a little different. A little
louder. The SM7B required using a pen,
knife tip, or
screwdriver, something of the sort,
to adjust the switches on the back of the
mic, controlling the high-pass filter or
base roll-off filter, presence boost, and
so on. This time, we get
actual switches on the back here.
And like hardcore switches that won't
accidentally be flipped during use, but
you no longer need an
extra tool to change some settings on the
mic. These switches also
reveal the magic inside that
makes this DB revision so special. Shure
partnered with Cloud to
design a mic activator circuit
inside the microphone that takes 48 volts
of phantom power and
converts it to clean additional
gain for your capsule. You can choose
plus 18 decibels of gain,
plus 24 decibels of gain,
or to bypass the preamp circuit entirely
and keep the same normal
SM7B sound you're used to.
You see, as the SM7B permeated the indie
content creator in
broadcast scenes, a common complaint
continued to appear and echo through
YouTube comments, Twitter
replies, and forum posts.
Everywhere, the microphone requires too
much gain to get a
usable, clean signal with many
mixers or audio interfaces. Admittedly,
this is far less of a
problem nowadays than it was around
2014-ish when the mic really started
spiking in popularity, and a
proper gain stage audio chain,
like I showcased in my Perfect Stream
Audio Every Time video
here, more or less shows that
virtually any interface can get good
clean audio out of the mic
if you set it up properly.
But users still struggle with it, and
those audio chains don't
help people who want to do guest
spots, voice calls, and so on with
interfaces that don't have
onboard audio processing,
DSPs, VST runners, or whatever. This
update empowers users of
virtually any audio mixer or
interface to get loud enough signals from
the microphone without
cranking the gain to 11 and
introducing extra preamp noise and so on.
You just need to turn
phantom power on, as if it were a
condenser microphone, and you're good to
go. Just remember to either
unplug and turn off your audio
interface entirely, or disengage the
phantom power switch and
give it a moment to wind down
before unplugging or plugging in a
microphone with phantom power involved.
I have killed
microphones that way. You will too.
Many of you watching this might just be
wondering what is a
microphone for? It can be used for
everything from music performances,
before you came into my
life I missed you so bad,
I missed you so bad, I missed
you so so bad, to podcasting.
Despite our last two hours of airtime
being dedicated to
proving why the aliens presented
to Mexican congress were in fact
legitimate, it has just been announced
that they were in fact
gay. We'll be taking callers now. Yes,
caller on line one to
dramatic voiceover production.
And of course, live streaming.
Yeah man, all you gotta do in this game
is drift. There's no one in the game
better than me. No one
in the world better than me at this game.
If you think you're
better than me at this game,
you better challenge me. You're gonna get
fragged. That's all
there is to it. I'm sorry,
I wasn't paying attention to chat. I
wasn't paying attention to the game.
It's not because I suck y'all. Chat, get
out of here. Someone,
mods, ban them if they say I suck. Back
to your regularly scheduled program.
This update bumps the price of the
microphone up to $499, 100 more than the
current MSRP for the
SM7B. I'm pretty sure I've seen the SM7B
for $499 when I was first
considering buying it back in
the day, but as it became more popular
the price has naturally gone down a bit.
This price change is typical of new
product revisions and still nullifies
out the added cost of a separate external
mic preamp or pricey interface upgrade.
Of course, if you already have a SM7B,
the normal version, it would probably
make more sense just to
grab a cloud lifter, soya launcher, or
other higher-end preamp
as an upgrade rather than
wholly swapping mics. But for those who
haven't picked one up and
are considering it, the newer
DB model just makes more sense as a
choice. It gives you a lot more
flexibility. The preamp
itself doesn't directly impact how a mic
sounds in a meaningful way.
There are ones that do that,
like the soya launcher. Assuming noise
isn't being added to your
signal from your interface,
it will sound the same whichever mode
you're on. But here's a
comparison just to back that up.
3. Rings for the Elven Kings-under the
Sky? 7. For the Dwarf
Lords-in their Halls of Stone.
9. For the Mortal Men-Doomed to Die? 1.
For the Dark Lord-on His Dark Throne-in
the Land of Mordor-where the shadows lie
3. Rings for the
Elven Kings-under the Sky.
7. For the Dwarf Lords-in their Halls of
Stone. 9. For the Mortal man- doing to
Die? 1. For the Dark Lord-on His Dark
Throne-in the Land of
Mordor-where the shadows lie
3. Rings for the Elven Kings-under the
Sky? 7. For the Dwarf
Lords-in their Halls
of stone, 9 for the mortal man, doomed to
die, 1 for the dark
lord on his dark throne
in the land of Mordor
where the shadows lie.
Sure, also introduce a new
microphone arm for this launch.
It's licensed from Gator, but delivers
exactly what you need for
this kind of microphone.
Sturdy adjustable knobs for the angles,
and an extension rod
for the SM7B specifically
to accommodate the XLR position on this
unique set of microphones.
It's great though I do
have a couple complaints.
First, there's no lock for the spin
position with the clamp,
which many microphone arms
don't come with, but
the ones that do rock.
Secondly, this neat looking built in
cable channel that runs
along the top is not big
enough for virtually
any of my XLR cables.
Seems like an odd oversight, or I just
need to acquire much thinner cables.
Also, I hate logos on the mic arms.
That's just me.
But otherwise it's really solid and I
have no complaints with
how it handles the SM7B
or the SM7DB overall.
Just make sure you tighten
the knobs or this will happen.
It's a pretty stellar mic upgrade,
something that has been
long overdue, especially when
this microphone originally came out, but
I'm glad they're finally doing it.
If you're interested in options for
external preamps for your
microphones, let me know
in the comments below.
I've played with quite a few, I would
love to cover them because
one of them is my favorite
audio product ever and I
would still use it with this.
But overall, I would imagine that
potential buyers are still
kind of disappointed, some
of you out there, that they didn't do a
USB version of this.
A lot of companies have tried taking
their swing at USB SM7B
clones and have mostly just
ridiculously failed and it seemed kind of
hopeful that Schur
might do the same thing.
It might still come out, I don't know,
but this at least lets
you use anything from like
a $20 audio interface and still get good
clean audio out of this,
which is pretty impressive,
I would have to say.
Product links to everything will be in
the description below
if you are interested in
improving your audio quality more,
especially without spending money.
I have a whole playlist here of audio
improvement tips, everything from
technique to audio processing
to OBS specific effects and so on you
need to check out in
order to really get the most
out of the gear you're working with.
I'm Addy, apologies if I do sound weird
in this video, I was
sick as a dog today but
I wanted to...
I need to get this done and I'm close
enough that hopefully I sound okay?
Go check out my shop, Glitch.mov, you can
pick up my OBS
Definitive Guide course which
is an incredible value, it's currently on
sale for like $80 off.
You can also pick up photo prints, a
bunch of other assets
I've made, Glitch.mov is the
URL for that one.
Remember to be kind, rewind.