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No way do Scarlett pres have the amount of clean gain we're talking for SM7B or RE20 territory. Unless you really get an excellent interface/mixer I would go fo
by eon1 10y ago
No way do Scarlett pres have the amount of clean gain we're talking for SM7B or RE20 territory. Unless you really get an excellent interface/mixer I would go for external pres.
- eropple 10y agoTo be clear, this isn't just an opinion thing--the math is in 'eon1's favor. Scarlett's preamps can boost around ~55dB and a SM7B is something like -80dB with a normal speaking voice. Boosting that to -25dB will be audible, but it's not enough for most purposes and maxing out the preamp will generate some hiss.
- jdietrich 10y agoThe larger, non-bus-powered Scarlett interfaces provide perfectly good results with the SM7B. http://recordinghacks.com/2012/06/18/sm7b-audio-interface-shootout/ http://recordinghacks.com/2012/06/18/sm7b-audio-interface-sh...
- eropple 10y agoEven their 8i6 only boosts about 60dB, though. You can work with that, but that's a little low. I shoot for -14dB to -10dB for spoken stuff, and at that point you'd basically be eating the mic. The article you linked was using a Cloudlifter with the SM7B, which is a preamp on its own.
- hammock 10y agoI'm looking at the scarlet 18i8, I want four mic pres and will try with the 4-channel cloudlifter. 25db from the CL and another 25 from the interface ought to sound alright
- eropple 10y agoYeah, that should be completely fine. Presonus has a 8-channel preamp that's about the same price as the 4-channel Cloudlifter, too, btw.