Shure SM7 really low gain?

[justinf]

Mine, which I bought new, requires about as much gain as does my Royer 121 to reach a decent recording level. Is my mic screwed or do all SM7s require this much gain?

[Luke]

That's how they are, I have to pretty much crank my Great River when using it for vocals. Great sounding mic though.
Good Luck

[tiger vomitt]

yup, same here. right down to a cranked great river

[Flight Feathers]

same here, through an N72, gain all the way up.

[justinf]

Cool, yeah the sound is great--just wanted to double check.
cheers, j

[junkstar]

Would it work with cheap pre's like my Aphex, ART or Presonus stuff? I have my eye on getting an SM7 in the coming weeks, but won't if it's going to dislike my gear.

[justinf]

I'm sure it will be fine, just crank up the pre.

[jspartz]

Crank it up, with an old school audio mutant module. sounds freak'n great on vocals!

Jason

[junkstar]

Phew. I've been selling stuff like crazy to save for this thing.

[Professor]

It's a large diphragm dynamic which means there is a lot of weight on from the diaphragm and coil that needs to move back and forth. Of course, if you're using it on kick drum, floor tom, trumpet, trombone or similar loud instruments, you'll probably see the gain coming down. If you have a pre that gets very noisy on the last couple of clicks then just record a little lower and bring up the gain in mixdown since at that point the mic pre would be the noisiest link in the chain.

-Jeremy

[headache9]

I use the old sm5 (early version of sm7) often for vox... yeah I usually have to crank the ua 610 pre all the way up. ...but it sounds great.

[Ryan Silva]

Would it work with cheap pre's like my Aphex, ART or Presonus stuff? I have my eye on getting an SM7 in the coming weeks, but won't if it's going to dislike my gear.

When I got my SM7 I tried it through a Presonus Blue Tube and I had to almost give it evreything it had. Which really sucks when you have cheap tube pre's, because there is so much nosie introduced. I got some DBX soild state pre's 760x. Same gain output but much less noise at high gain. So that was the only way I could make it work.
For the most part SM7's were designed for broadcast, and I have never seen a cheep pre-amp in any of the radio/TV stations I've been in. Apoge, Millenia, Great River ect. So ya don't worry.