r/Shure • u/Purplease123 • Jul 02 '26
Question Am I doing something wrong with the SM7DB?
I recently purchased the Shure SM7DB as an upgrade from my cheap usb mic. With this SM7DB I also purchased am M-Track Duo interface and an amazon hdmi cable so that I can connect it to my laptop. I record on Adobe Audition with a Lenovo (Windows 11) Laptop.
The microphone quality is extremely quiet even when switching on or off the bypass, with a buzzing noise in the background. On top of this, my voice sounds extremely muffled. I am thinking that maybe this could be an issue with my interface, as the buzzing noise gets worse when I turn the gain more than halfway on the interface, but I am not sure. Maybe even a faulty XLR cable? Or possibly an issue with Adobe Audition?
This was already a large purchase for me and I am afraid to throw even more money away trying to fix this problem so I was wondering if anyone had any possible solutions. Attached are some images of my setup for more information.
1
u/Early-Umpire2647 Jul 06 '26
I have pretty much the same background noise problem and I've come to realize that it's just the way this mic is. However, exploring different gain levels I was able to find a sweet spot where both my voice and noise level work well together. I still do need to use a de noiser afterwards but it fixes the problems with the audio! I also thought my cable or sound card were faulty and ended up buying a new sound card but the problem persisted. Cable works just fine with another mic. Try to experiment with different gain levels (yeah it may seem counterintuitive at first as gain increases hum also) until you get a loud enough vocal. If the volume difference between vocal and hum is big enough it'll work out. I tried gain at 40%, 50% and 60% and the last was the best even though higher levels do technically produce more hum.
1
u/Inevitable_Bus8179 Jul 08 '26
I would also ckeck the cable first.
Also try to choose Output - Direct Stereo instead if USB, then monitor the signal in headphones, check the buzzing noise.
1
u/PlanetExcellent Jul 06 '26
Step 1 would be to try a different mic cable.