Cloud Lifter or Mic Pre for boosting the SM7

C

CDRjayb

New member
HI all, first post, long time forum lurker. :)

I've recently purchased the Shure SM7B and now find I need to help boost the gain to get some good level out of it. I'm currently using a Focusrite Scarlet 18i20 interface and the available gain is just ok but I'd like more headroom.

I'm wondering if the Cloudlifter CL-1 is a good option or should I spend a little more and get a Mic Pre? Most Pre's are priced to high for my home studio needs but I came across the Golden Age Project PRE-573 today and it's priced low enough that I can justify shelling out a little more for it.

Any opinions on which option is best here?
 
One thing to watch...don't assume that every mic pre will automatically have any more clean gain than your Focusrite. I don't know the pre amp you mention so can't comment--but your interface is actually pretty good for gain.

You'll need to check the gain spec on your Focusrite then look for amps with enough extra gain to make it worthwhile.

Or buy a Cloudlifter.
 
Just did some checking. The 18i20 is either 55 or 60dB of gain at maximum (depending which part of their web site you believe). The Golden Age claims 70dB of gain so to get any extra, the pre amp would have to be near max as well.

Possibly you could do silly things like route the Golden Age to a mic input on the Focusrite and run them both turned down, but this sort of defeats the purpose of an expensive pre amp.
 
CDRjayb said:
HI all, first post, long time forum lurker. :)

I've recently purchased the Shure SM7B and now find I need to help boost the gain to get some good level out of it.
Click to expand...

That's not really a problem unless your preamps are noisy.
If there's no hiss, I don't think I'd bother looking for something with more gain.
 
I think you may have misinterpreted the meaning of headroom in recording CDRjayb.
 
Hmmm...

True. I guess before commenting we should have asked what level you're getting and where does the noise floor sit when you're at that level. (To roughly get the noise floor, make your room as quiet as possible and wrap the mic in a bunch of thickish cloth. Then record some audio at your normal mic pre setting and look at where the noise sits on your DAW...you may have to zoom in/change scale to get a meaningful number.

(Purists will argue with this method but it gets close enough to see what's going on.)
 
I have an 8i6 and its pre amps are very close for gain and noise to my NI KA6 and both of those are similar to my A&H ZED10 mixer's pres tho of course the latter has the potential for greater gain. (noise is however about the same)

Yes, I need the gain on the KA6 at max for picked acoustic guitar using an SM57 (LURVE a 7b slurp!) and even then that just about gets me -20dBFS but, If I shut up and even at 2am in this leafy suburb, I record a noise floor of around -70dBFS. Swapping the mic for a 200 Ohm termm'ed XLR gets me about -75/-80dBFS. So, short of spending £2000+ proofing the room, I can do no better*.

What is the OP recording? If any kind of singing I doubt that the F'rite is the limitation and easily enough level will be available (can we assume a DAW expectation of around -18dBFS?) Only for speech would the combination be compromised (a bit) and then a VERY low noise LDC pressed into service....But! It would need a VERY quiet room!

Headroom? Yup the level above operating level. With an SM7b I think you would need to be inside a click of a Saturn lifting off before its output caused "headroom" problems.

*Been a while since I did these checks. I have a spook juice PSU to test, will run them in...soonish.

Dave.
 
I took advantage of very quiet Sunday morning to do some tests.

Set the gain on my KA6 close to maximum and at 50mm "Rain in Spain" gave me -20dBFS average and -10dBFS on plosives.

Parked the mic in the hall behind a wall but with door open and the noise on Sam 8 meters fell to -75dBFS pk and -86rms*...You can see the result of my speech from my seat, some 2mtrs gob to SM57.

Pulling the plug from the KA6 mic input caused noise to descend to -82dBFS pk/ -94dBFS rms. I dare say if I was arsed to find/make a screened, terminated XLR plug it would be a few dB better still...As it is, I think this shows that it is random room noise that sets the noise floor for most recording purposes? Yes, an SM7b (again,,slurp) will be 6 or so dB worse but I think there is plenty of "noise floor" in hand?

The phantom power supply by the way made ABSOLUTELY no difference to the noise whether it was in circuit or not, not bad for 18quid!

*These are unweighted figures BTW and the vast majority of mnfcts quote weighted speccs. I think if you take the rms value as "wtd" you would be closer to the trade's figures.

Err? Jusfort. There is one downside to running a preamp at max gain, distortion. Some old, cheap designs had little or no NFB around the front end transistors in early hybrid designs but I doubt NI or F'rite use such crude circuits these days.

Dave.
 

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I use the CL-1 for both my SM-7B and EV RE20, into a Symetrix 528E. Clean gain and quiet for audiobook recording.
Dale
 
As someone who has the pre-73 (19" rack version of the 573) I can probably help? I have a pair that I use regularly and just got modded. As a note the 573 is a 500 series module and you'll need a 500 series rack for it.

The pre-73 WILL give you enough gain, but it will be in no-way 'clean'. The transformers start to very obviously saturate if you push the input up. It's sometimes lovely, but not always. The 73 gets very 'coloured', to the point where 'noise' is a bit of a moot point with all the transformer saturation it adds.

I didn't like the stock sound when you pushed it past a certain point (at lower levels it was nice, but it got too much sometimes) so I modded the pres. They have more sublte 'colour' and a bit more gain before it goes crazy on the saturation now, much nicer in my opinion and I'm happy to use the pres more regularly now, including for ribbon mics etc that need the gain cranking up a lot.

It's a completely different unit to getting a cloud lifter - there are other pre's more suited to 'clean gain' so if that's what you're after then the cloudlifter would probably be a better option. If you're looking for a preamp that adds character and makes a rather great DI box, then the pre-73 will probably do you well.
 
OP mentioned the GAP Pre-573 not the Pre-73 - I think it important to mention (judging by the rest of his post) that the Pre-573 is a 500 series pre... Will require an API style lunchbox to be useful... Quite an investment.

Pre-73 gets good reviews though (I fancy the PreQ-73 myself) but worth checking out Warm Audio's similarly priced offerings.
 
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