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Comment by jamestomasino | Hacker News Reader

I was a bit surprised to see the recommendation of another inline preamp in the chain with the Focusrite. He recommends a TRITON AUDIO FetHead Filter in-Line Microphone Preamp. Does anyone have further experience with this setup? I've been using my MXL Mics 770 Cardioid Condenser Microphone with a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 with nothing in-between. I know I've got the gain dialed up pretty high but it never occurred to me to put something else in between them. I'd love to hear your experiences and recommendations. Is an in-line preamp worth it?

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I run a Shure SM57 - which is not exactly the same mic, but it's a very similar dynamic microphone that's also VERY quiet. I run it into a Scarlett 2i4 - and it was terrible before I bought the FetHead. The preamp in the Scarlett just can't bring that microphone up to reasonable levels without picking up a LOT of hiss and noise - it sounded like garbage. Adding the FetHead totally fixed that.

You're running a condenser mic that's going to be a lot "louder" on it's own. Running the gain pretty high is fine if it doesn't seem noisey to you. It was 100% obvious I needed to do something else when I first attached my mic directly to the Scarlett.

I don't see that recommendation in the article. Rather it's specific to the SM7B which is famously pretty quiet.

I use a Cloudlifter with my SM-58 just because the gain it provides is a lot cleaner than my interface (Audiobox iOne) seems to provide at the top end.

It also gives you a little more headroom for doing things like talking at a greater distance from the mic (e.g. talk at 6-10" from the mic and still get great signal).

Of course, if the room acoustics are horrible, that's not going to sound nearly as good as talking close to the mic, but if you have a decent sounding room it is freeing to not have to be close (and a good mic won't necessarily sound worse at slightly longer distances).

The preamps in your Focusrite are decent, and you have a condensor microphone which is probably louder than the dynamic microphone used for the video. You’re fine I’d say!

If you’d want more control over the sound before it goes into the computer, than a kind of channel strip unit with a preamp compressor and eq could make sense, although you can do all that in OBS as well.

I use Scarlett 4i4, Cloudlifter, and a Shure SM7B mic.

Before getting the Cloudlifter, my audio was whisper quiet even with the gain cranked all the way up. I highly recommend it for a SM7B.

I couldn't be happier with my current setup. It sounds fantastic now.

Maybe worth noting that SM7B is a dynamic microphone and notoriously quiet one.

It turns out the key for me was that my mic requires phantom power and that the Fethead blocks it from reaching the mic. There are apparently some versions of the Fethead that allow pass-through of phantom power, but not the one I tried. I guess I'm stuck with the gain from the mic & the 2i2 as-is.

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