Speaker 1: This, a very famous mic with lots of creds used in radio broadcasts, voice over, and music recordings, such as Michael Jackson's Thriller. Check it out. The Shure SM7B is a dynamic microphone with a cardioid polar pattern. Now, this is the Basic Filmmaker channel, so if you think you know all this info already, that's cool. Just skip to the overall look at this mic specifically and its uses in the time video thing that will pop up somewhere up here. Okay, this is a dynamic mic. What does that mean? Dynamic mics have magnetic coils like a speaker and the audio waves vibrate these coils. That makes it tough and durable and able to handle loud sounds. They don't need to use fan and power because there are no electrical components to power in the mic. The coils are always listening to the incoming audio signal, voice, and vibrating. You can plug a dynamic mic into a recorder and crank up the volume, but that's not how these are used and you would be introducing all that room noise by cranking the input volume up and introduce, no matter what mic or preamp you use, a lot of noise. So you use a preamplifier which, as the name says, amplifies or amps up the audio signal and for that you'll want something that does it cleanly. You can use something like a Cloudlifter which will give you 25 decibels of clean boost and a low noise floor, meaning it won't introduce that noise I was talking about when you jack up the input volume of your recorder for these types of mics. For my purposes, I like the all-in-one convenience of recording multiple inputs and outputs and preamplification with the MixPre-3, which is hands down the lowest cost pro audio gear you can get that has all the features of audio gear costing thousands of dollars and amazingly clean. I'm using the SM7B right now with that setup straight in the MixPre-3, no added effects, no post-processing, this is the raw sound. Let's switch to my shotgun mic, the Rode NTG-3, still one of my two all-time favorite shotgun mics, the other being the Deity S-Mic 2. This is not a dynamic mic, it's a condenser mic. What does that mean? It has an electronic plate with magnetic actuation, which is why it needs to be powered with 48 volt phantom power. Phantom power has been around since the 1900s when it was first used to power these rotary telephones through the telephone connecting wires. If this mic has no power, it doesn't turn on. Because of this design, it's very sensitive to loud sounds and it's going to cause the audio to clip, but that means it doesn't need a preamp to boost the incoming audio signal. They're used in film production as they have a very tight pickup pattern, picking up exactly what's in front and attempting to dismiss everything else. Envision a V or a tunnel shape for what this shotgun mic picks up on these cardioid mics, and a heart on these dynamic mics, which pick up more on the sides, and that's not a bad thing. What's the difference? As I move around this shotgun mic, it attempts to reject my voice, as it will with other sounds you don't necessarily want, but it's also prone to room noise and ambient sounds, which is why it works best in acoustically treated environments, like added sound pads and blankets to deaden everything. Back to the 7B, it's going to do a better job as I go around the mic from side to side, as it's much better in a non-acoustically treated environment. With dynamic mics, you usually have to have your mouth quite close to the mic to activate these coils. You've seen this when people are doing podcasting, live streams, or holding these types of mics when doing news reporting. When you move your mouth away from the mic, the volume and capture of the voice diminish quite quickly. Not a bad thing. That's how the mic was designed to get great voice audio quality. If you're doing mostly voice overs, audio book narrations, things like that, the SM7B or a cardioid mic is something to consider. If you're mostly doing interviews, YouTube videos, where you're a talking head, news gathering type, where the mic's on top of the camera and so on, you probably want to consider a shotgun cardioid mic. I do both YouTube videos, tutorials, interviews, voice overs, tutorial narrations, and an upcoming live stream, which is why I wanted both. To be fair, I think you can get away with, as I have done in the past, a good shotgun mic for voice overs, tutorials, and audio book narration. If you're on a budget and you can't afford both, I would recommend a good shotgun mic and a good audio recorder, such as the NTG-3, or the Deity S-Mic 2, or it's lower cost option, the Deity V-Mic 3. As I said, if you acoustically treat your space to handle reverberation and noise, these are great. But you're not going to go wrong with the Shure SM7B for vocals and voice recording, and for the quality and the price right now, it's my top pick for that application. And at this cost point, it's way better in acoustically untreated spaces. By the way, I paid for both of these mics out of my own pocket, just in case you're wondering. So now that you understand all that, let's take a look at this mic, the Shure SM7B. Right out of the box, you'll lift this mic, and you know you've got a super high quality build and a beast. It's great for voice overs. John looked at Mary, paused, grabbed his keys, and said, Goodbye, Mary. Live streaming and podcasting.

Speaker 2: Welcome to this podcast, it's May 2019, and the thing we're going to talk about today is having a bunch of musical instruments, like those where you spend a crap ton of money on them and never play them. Stay tuned.

Speaker 1: Singing and music, or a YouTube conversation like I'm doing right now and don't care about having the mic in the shot. More importantly, it's got a rich, wide sound, which means I can just use it raw as is with no post-processing. Frankly, nothing sounds better unless you get into the higher end and very much higher cost Neumann dynamic mics. Remember, you can save that 50 or 100 bucks on your mic, but you will have wished you just plunged the extra money into quality mic, or just waited a bit longer until you had all the extra cash. Then you're done eyeballing the next great possible, maybe it will be better mic, and move on to improving other aspects of what you create. As I mentioned, you'll need a clean way to boost the gain on this or any other dynamic microphone. I suggest the cheaper option of the Cloud Lifter, or better yet, drop the coin on the MixPre-3 and be done with your next best audio hunt, which in the long run ends up costing more cash than you thought. $399 for this mic is an incredible value for what you get compared to anything else on the market if this would meet your needs. See I'm done. Got my recorder, got my mics, no need to salivate over anything audio stuff for years to come and I can get on to creating stuff, I'm not tinkering with trying to get better audio. For the Shure SM7B, I give it a 5 out of 5, and I'm sorry I got all pros and no cons, but that's the way it is. Links to this and a ton of other stuff I love are in the description below the video. And don't forget to subscribe as this is my year of 100k subscribers and you can help with that. Leave a comment below on what you use, what you want, or anything really, I love to communicate with people who watch my videos. Or just leave a stupid joke that would make a 10 year old laugh my favorites. I hope that helps, thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time. So the steel worker walks into a bar.