Inline Microphone Gain Booster Battle (Cloudlifter CL-1, Fethead, Soyuz Launcher, Samson HighRise)
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
- In this video I review and compare 5 different inline gain boosters, including the Cloudlifter CL-1, Soyuz Microphones Launcher, Triton Audio Fethead and Fethead Transformer, and Samson HighRise.
Inline gain boosters, also known as mic activators, or inline preamps, increase the gain of your dynamic or passive ribbon microphone, without introducing any added noise.
Some are meant to be transparent, while others purposefully add color and character to the tone of your audio. Each one in surprisingly different in form and function, and one size doesn't necessarily fit all.
The Cloudlifter CL-1 has been the go-to inline gain booster for a long time, especially for microphones like the Shure SM7b, but is it still the best mic activator available?
Leave a comment and let me know which one you think is the best!
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== LINKS ==
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Cloudlifter CL-1 Mic Activator - geni.us/cloudl...
Triton Audio Fethead Inline Gain Booster - geni.us/triton...
Samson HighRise - geni.us/samson...
Soyuz Microphones Launcher - geni.us/soyuzl...
Fethead Transformer Inline Gain Booster - geni.us/fethea...
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== CONNECT ==
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What do you think? Are any of these a Cloudlifter killer? Or will the CL-1 still be your go-to inline gain booster/mic activator?
WOW! I loved the way the Soyuz and Fethead Transformer made the SM7b sound, was very noticeable in a good way, with the Soyuz being my favorite. I was honestly shocked at how inexpensive the HighRise is at $68, especially with all it's features. Samson definitely has a great product with the HighRise.
Your thought pretty much mirror my own! Definitely hard to say no to the HighRise at its price Vs. what we've been used to with the Cloudlifter.
I wish I would of known about the SM7DB!!!
It's a cool mic, but I think I'd rather but the SM7b + a booster instead because it's more flexible and can be used with other mics, etc.
@@NewLayer Thanks for this feedback! 😎
Would be cool to include Royer Dboost. By the way good battle!!
More and more of these are becoming available, so maybe I'll do a part two. There's also the gain boosters from sE Electronics and a couple others...
And for you, when you’re picking one to actually use, is it the souyuz?
I prefer a transparent sound for editing later, so I really like the Samson HighRise because of the price, and the low cut filter in certain scenarios.
For live sound, the Soyuz Launcher or one of the Fetheads would be my pick. Each one fits a certain workflow best, so it depends on how you plan to use it I think.
Normalising the audio basically negates what these do
To a small degree, that's kind of true. If you have a mic that you can get peaking audio around -18 to -15dB without a booster, then you normalize it to -3dB after the fact, it might not be worth getting one because the difference may be negligible. But if you're only hitting -30 to -25dB or something, then normalizing afterwards, the audio quality and noise level will be worse than using a booster.
Some noise comes from the mic itself, but a lot of noise comes from other components like your audio interface, so normalizing something from -30dB to -3dB will obviously boost the audio, but also the noise. Vs. an inline gain booster, which boosts the signal, while retaining the original noise floor. Getting the best signal to noise ratio is paramount for good audio quality.
Also, a lot of interfaces sound good when their gain is in the 50-75% range, but once you crank them up to 80-90% of their max, they introduce a TON of noise, so being able to set the preamps in your interface to only 30-40% with a booster Vs. 90% without a booster, will give you less noise.
You are also kind of screwed in a live setup if you can't get proper levels, because there's only so much you can do to boost the levels with software, and again, it won't be as clean.
If these were simply "hardware normalizers", they wouldn't be very useful, but it's not the same thing.
Have you ever tried the Klark Teknik CT 1? It gets the title of "budget king" from me
Nope, looks like it's got some decent ratings though! I think the big point is that you don't need to spend $199 on an inline gain booster anymore 😅
Does an in-line preamp provide enough boost to plug a mic into a line input? I don’t have enough mic inputs on my mixer and want to utilize the line input.
Doubtful, and you'd then have to buy a separate phantom power box, because the inline preamps need phantom power to operate, which the line input cannot provide.
@@NewLayer thanks, I appreciate the info.