Will A Cloudlifter Color My Sound?
WHAT IS AN IN-LINE PRE-AMP/ BOOSTER?
An in-line preamp, also known as a “booster” is a device that is often used to amplify the output of low-output microphones to increase the volume. A common application for a booster is to amplify the output of a large diaphragm dynamic broadcast microphone such as the ubiquitous Shure SM7B.
DO I NEED A BOOSTER FOR MY SHURE SM7B?
It’s important to have proper volume levels from your microphone while recording as it will affect your sound quality. Without a booster added to an SM7B or similar microphone, you’ll often find you’ll need to turn up the preamp on your audio interface or mixer to high levels. Unfortunately this can lead to noise which will affect the sound quality.
The best thing you can do is try an inline booster such as the Cloudlifer and record with and without it. Then listen to the tracks and see if there is a noticeable difference. This is what we have done below.
Will the booster colour my sound?
Below we have recorded a narration with a Shure SM7B running into a Focusrite Scarlett2i2(MK3) audio interface. We chose this interface because it is by far the most common interface you’ll see people use in an average recording scenario. In order to get proper levels without a booster we had to almost max out the preamp gain on the Scarlett. By contrast, when using the CL1 Cloudlifter we only had to have the preamp gain at 2PM.
Do you think the recording sounds better with the CL1 Cloudlifer? Vote and comment below.
Below are two multimedia playback decks. Use the picklist to select which items you would like to compare and click the ” START/ STOP ” button to listen. Click the “Compare” button to switch between the two sound sources to hear the differences.
Item A
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Item B
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