- Do you need an inline preamp
like the Cloudlifter with the Shure MV7 dynamic microphone?
We're gonna answer that question in this video.
If you are looking for pricing or specs
for anything that you see in this video,
please check out the links down in the description below.
There we have current up-to-date pricing
at a variety of online retailers
to make sure that you're getting the best price possible
if you are looking at buying any of this equipment.
So first of all, if you are using the USB mode
of the Shure MV7, you don't need any type of Cloudlifter
or anything whatsoever.
In this video, we're just talking about
whether or not it's necessary
when you're using the XLR output like we are in this video.
So if you are hooking it up to an audio interface
or an audio mixer, we're gonna answer that question here.
But first of all, what does an inline preamp like this do?
The Shure MV7 is a dynamic microphone
which means that it does not need 48 volts of phantom power.
So what the Cloudlifter or any other inline preamp does
is if you do turn on 48 volts of phantom power,
it'll basically trade that for reduced gain,
somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 dB less gain.
Now some microphones like the Shure SM7B
are notorious for having very low sensitivity,
which means that you need a lot of gain
to power that microphone.
Here you can see with the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2,
that we have the gain set to about 75%.
Now, the reason that we use the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
is because it does have some of the lowest available gain
of audio interfaces and audio mixers in this price point.
It has 57 dB of gain in the preamp here,
but other audio interfaces in this category,
like the SSL2+ have 60 dB.
If you're using a Yamaha MG10, it has 64 dB.
If you're using something like a GoXLR, it has 70 plus dB.
So that's the reason that we're using this.
Now what can happen is even though this is on the lower end
of the dB availability on the preamp here,
you can see that it's only set to 75%.
That's a pretty safe range.
What I'm gonna do now is I'm just gonna pause
and I'm gonna turn this all the way up to 90%
and 100% just so you can hear the extra noise
that's coming in.
When I do that, I am gonna boost it.
I'm gonna leave a note down in the lower third here,
just so you can see how much I'm boosting it,
but I'm doing that so you can hear the difference here.
So we're gonna start with it at 75%
and then we're gonna go up to 100 and back to 75.
Now, if you were using headphones there,
you should have been able to hear quite a bit of hiss.
Now let's look over in Logic right now,
I'm using Logic Pro to record.
You can see that the way they gain is set at 75% there
that were coming in somewhere between minus 18 and minus 12
with our peak.
That's exactly where you should be recording.
That gives you enough headroom
so you can be dynamic and you don't risk clipping at all.
So what I would say here is for me and my voice,
as long as that preamp is set there to 75%,
we're not pushing it past 85, 90%,
there's not enough noise coming from this preamp
to justify something like a Cloudlifter.
A Cloudlifter would provide what is known as clean gain
and reduce the amount of that,
you have to turn this knob by about 25%.
So for me, I'm pretty happy without it
but I am gonna connect this just so you can hear it
with the cloud lifter
and then we'll compare the noise of both.
So right now I'm just gonna pause for a second
so we can hear the noise
without the Cloudlifter on this microphone.
And now we're gonna connect the Cloudlifter.
So now we have our gain set somewhere between 40 and 45%
on the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2.
We have our cloud lifter connected
and that's the difference there
of the reduced gain that the Cloudlifter provides.
We went from 75% to about 45%.
As we look over in Logic here
you can see that I'm peaking at about minus 15 dB,
which is absolutely perfect.
Again, very comparable to where we were.
Now, I'm gonna pause for a second
so you can hear how much noise there is
with the Cloudlifter plugged into the system.
And now we're gonna go back and forth between the version
of no Cloudlifter and then Cloudlifter.
And again, I'm gonna boost this just so you can try hear
the difference of the noise of the preamp.
So there shouldn't have been a very noticeable noise,
even if you do have high quality headphones
or anything like that.
So in my opinion here, I don't really think
that there's enough value of the Cloudlifter.
There's not enough noise reduction,
if any noise reduction at all,
that you can tell when you listen to those samples
back and forth.
But I don't think that it's worth 150 bucks
to use a Cloudlifter with this setup.
The Shure MV7 is not the SM7B.
It has a much higher sensitivity,
which means that you need less gain to drive it,
which means that you probably don't need the Cloudlifter
in your system to get more clean gain
or reduced noise in your recording.
So I don't think it's necessary for you
with your recording either.
Again, if you are looking for pricing or specs
for anything that you see in this video,
we do have current up-to-date pricing linked down
in the description below.
If you do have any questions about anything
that we covered in this video,
please leave a comment down in the comment section below.
And again, if you do wanna see more videos like this
in the future, please like and subscribe.
Thank you for watching
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