in this video i'm going to be looking at the shure sm7b microphone so this is the microphone
right here we're going to be taking a look at this exact microphone you're likely familiar with it
you've probably seen it before you may have seen it on the joe rogan podcast who i think has made
it really popular for podcasts also post malone has recorded his record on this i'm going to
be kind of going through a bit of how it sounds but also i'm going to do some speaking examples
we're going to need some type of benchmark when we're going to compare it so i will compare it to
what i'm speaking on right now which is the rode nt1a microphone and i'll do some singing examples
of the shure sm7b versus the rode one nt1a in this video so let's first just go through build quality
of the sure sm7b let's talk about what these things are on the back the frequency response and
then we can do some examples of seeing examples so build quality super solid right out of the box
price, expensive this is around 400 it's not a really a beginner microphone this is more of an
intermediate advanced studio microphone and that's why i kind of dived right into price talking about
build qualities because it's expensive because of the build quality and the performance as well it's
super heavy like it's like a dumbbell right now in my hand um it's not that maybe not that much
it's super strong the like it just feels right you know when you hold a product just feels good this
is what it is okay let's talk about these things in the back here we have um when it comes to
frequency response the shure sm7b gives you three options to kind of like pre-process in a way your
vocals and you you kind of need like a just a pin some type of i have like a hair bobby pin here and
this is what a flat response looks like you can see like the bottom arrow here or actually in
your case it's going to be the top arrow right there it's a flat response i'm talking about
this thing right here that top line means a flat response so the sure sm7b is not going to affect
anything coming in it has an option to do a low cut frequency which is going to take some base
away and that would look like this i'm actually flipping that around now you can see it's like a
low cut it's like as if there's like a low cut eq and the other way is you can do a high boost so it
looks like that so i think i said two options it actually you have more options because you
can just do low cut and no high boost you can do no low cut and a high boost you can do a low cut
and a high boost or you can just do a flat so you have different options to to boost frequencies or
cut frequencies um personally for me i use this just flat i like to post process my vocals anyways
by doing my own low cuts and i don't need that extra boost unless i'm recording something that
i want the extra boost on i'll do the high end boost but if with my vocal i just record flat so
that's the option to get uh different frequencies coming in when you pre um record vocals also side
note of this this is a really popular microphone for podcasts and speaking i'm going to switch the
vocal uh sorry the microphone right now so you can hear just the difference of quality with the
rode nt1 a microphone how like so kind of like soak it into how my voice is sounding right now
because i'm just going to switch it over to here and you'll see just the difference in tone that
the shure has versus the rode nt1a i believe this was just a broadcast microphone before it became
popular as a studio microphone and it really i think became popular when it featured on
the michael jackson thriller album uh so uh but it wasn't the exact same model this is a
kind of a replica more modern model of the shirt sm7 i believe that's called don't quote me on any
names or things i'm kind of forgetful with that kind of stuff let's switch out the vocals now
so here's an example of me speaking with the frequency of the rode nt1a mic microphone and
this is an example of me speaking on the shure sm7b so i swapped the microphones you should be
able to tell a big difference between this row two nt-1a microphone and the sure m7b microphone so
they're they're really different microphones and i'm only comparing it to the rode nt18
just because it's the only other microphone i have right now so uh it's not that they're
similar microphones and they are quite different actually the rode nt1a is a condenser microphone
this is a dynamic cardioid microphone so the difference there is this microphone can is kind of
it picks up sound from a more broad range the shure sm7b microphone you need to be right in
front of it for the sound to pick up that's great both have their advantages and disadvantages
i mean all studios will have both you use both for many different things and with vocals as well
a key difference that i want to mention in this video is the with the shure sm7b there's no um it
doesn't it's not a phantom power microphone you can use it with phantom power but and you won't
break it if you use it with phantom power but it doesn't need phantom power this microphone
needs phantom power it's a condenser microphone which needs phantom power this microphone is
actually the gain is so low on it and that's why i use a pre-amp that's running through the xlr cable
it's just like one of them actually you can kind of see it here it just like thickens out the xlr
cable and just increases the gain a bit more for the microphone as soon as i take out this preamp
my voice will be so really really quiet you don't necessarily need one but the advantage of using
a preamp plus the preamp in your interface is you'll just have you can have more gain to bump
the signal if i didn't use this one i would really have to crank the gain on my interface that's just
going to increase the noise floor of your room more so you really need a controlled environment
when you're recording with this type of microphone because it can pick up different things around it
however i say that the shure is really really good also at not picking out the things around
because it works in both ways and that's why they give you like the ability to low cut any like
blow hum that might be happening in your room i just like to cut that myself personally in
post-production you'll also notice i switched out this like fatter foam uh and it was this before
this is kind of like for speaking and singing i guess you could say this is more for speaking it's
just like it has a thicker foam so it's going to it's going to take away those plosives and
that comes from that kind of thing you don't necessarily i just think it's also a bit cool
so i like using it it makes me feel like more like a broadcaster and then when i'm singing i use this
so it can get more of that high end frequency to come through on the vocal let's actually
compare like speaking singing voices now um because although this is great for a podcast
i'm coming from it more from a singer songwriter musician perspective i use it to sing vocals i
use it to record guitar electric guitar out of my guitar amp i used to place it and record acoustic
guitar i record snaps and claps and percussion you can record anything with it it's a great
all-purpose microphone but however let's focus on vocals and i and now in logic here i'll show you
i recorded my vocal with the sherm 7b and then the same vocal with a rode nt1a just so you can
hear the difference in tone okay so this is the shure sm7b i've been trying to get to you there's
something bothering me i don't know what you've been through you give me nothing we can talk to
ever since i could ever since i could cause you never have we lost we can beat it if you want to
now the road on t1a i've been trying to get to you there's something bothering me i don't know
what you've been through you give me nothing we can talk to ever since i could ever since i could
cause you never have we lost we can beat it if you want to okay let's take off all the processing on
each and listen to each dry i've been trying to get to you there's something bothering me
i don't know what you've been through you give me nothing we can talk
there's something bothering me i don't know what you've been through
you give me nothing we can talk to now let's go back and forth a bit i'll just do some cuts here
let's listen to that i've been trying to get to you there's something bothering me
i don't know what you've been through give me nothing we can talk to ever since i could ever
big differences here right in the sure sm7b we're getting a lot of mids
uh and really picking up the richness of the low low mids of that vocal and then the wrote
n21a it's picking up a lot of the highs and the high mids both are good in my opinion they just
have really different tones that's the dries tone so if you found that the this sure sm7b
maybe this tone is too mid heavy maybe you want to go and actually bump up the high boost there
on the on the frequency response and then you can get a bit more of the high end you can also
post process the high end too um notice how there is just a bit more richness in the sm7b
versus the road to n21a but i find in this vocal recording the sm7b is missing some of that
sparkle that the nt1a has so different strokes for different folks right there's going to be
different styles of microphones you're going to want to use for different styles of music and
depends on what you what kind of vibe you want to go for the difference here
also could be the fact that when i recorded this sm7b because it's a dynamic cardioid i was
fairly close and you can hear that in the vocal just without any instrumental i've been trying
to get to you it's cool it's right in your ear i don't know what you've been through
if you want to back off a little bit more you could sing louder and i get bit a bit more sparkle
out there because i'm so close the closer you get like this you can really hear like right now that
the depth of my vocal when i go far away i can talk a bit louder and you can hear a bit more
fullness of the vocal in all the frequencies but here you're gonna it's really low those low mids
so that's something that needs to be like thought of when you record vocals too it really will
depend where you sit on the mic it's not always just the mic itself there's a lot of moving parts
not to mention we're not going to get into any of the the this chain i put on here um just because
i don't want to focus on that in this video all in all a great microphone to get if you consider
yourself being a producer singer songwriter for the long run i highly recommend this microphone to
be one you have and or carry with in your studio then you can pair it with another microphone that
maybe has a bit of a different flavor like the rode nt1a or any other type of microphone it's
the only one i was able to compare to because the only other one i really have that's good enough
thanks for watching guys as always feel free to subscribe and i hope to see you in the next video