Cloudlifters etc.

I have and use both the cloud lifter and the cathedral pipes durham. I haven’t tested them back to back, but they both sound great. I use them both frequently and wouldn’t hesitate to grab either to get the job done.

I really dig my Tierra Audio Pepper. I’d stay away from all the other flavors besides Salt. Pepper is like a Cloudlifter, but when things get really loud, you get some nice soft clipping to the peaks. I have a Triton too, sounds great, but it interacts weird with my tube preamps. The sound gets very thick and soft. A cool effect if you’re willing to commit!

I have a cloudlifter, I rarely use it.

There seems to be some distortion in using it that doesn't show up in the specs. Am I alone in hearing that?

It can be useful at times, but I find it present in use with most microphones and preamps

Haven't used either but I do have a comment.. I have a SM7A and a handful of ribbons and I can't say I've ever really felt the need to boost any of them. I can't remember a time that I turned any of the preamp gains up to what I felt was an abnormally high level..

What kind of configuration would require something like this?

I'll be honest - I don't understand the purposes of these devices. It seems to me to be guaranteed worse noise performance than a mic pre with sufficient gain and the correct input impedance.

If you want a lower noise floor put that money towards a mic with higher sensitivity or a better preamp. I don't think its ever a good idea to try a use an inline mic preamp that runs on 48V phantom power unless your main mic preamp is really terrible. Boosters always sound mediocre at best to me.

The in line preamps are great if I’m doing a very soft finger style guitar with a ribbon. The fet head does something to the high end on my sm7 that I really really like. It’s like thicker and smoother or something. Got the pepper thing out of curiosity. It’s great on acoustic guitars.

Granted getting the pre right from the get go is optimal, but I get it having one or 2 around for a quick boost of gain is handy.
Won’t lie I have considered picking up a pair used to throw in the gear bag, but I think these have become the an easy affordable solution for lazy gearpimps. It’s easier to sell a booster rather than remind the client “ remember I warned you that the SM7B needs lots of gain” the other thing is a really simple concept add another piece to the simplest of signal chains and your going to have to reduce the gain structure.

Use one onstage or any place full of bozos who might hot patch a ribbon to inadvertent phantom = mic condom

Use one with very long lines (100+ feet) to send more down the line, higher above the noize.

Sometimes by letting you use lower pre gain you can keep internal PSU hum components much lower.

Most modern digital consoles have pretty high Z pres already, higher than a cloudlifter. Yamaha and A&H are 7k, so a cloudlifter is a downgrade on that front.

I always thought the cloudlifter added noise when I used it.  For a SM7b, I suggest installing the Anser Mod Kit from Trace Audio.  


Anser Mod

I used to have a cloud back when i had a cheap stereo ribbon i used it with. I think it worked great. At the time I was pairing it up with a pre that didn't have quite the gain i needed for room miking with the blumlein. Never felt it added any noise to the already slightly noisy mic. If nothing else it protects your passive ribbon from accidental phantom 😜

The cheap Klark Teknik (Behringer) works fine. 7K input Z. There's a Polsen and Triton that are 22K input Z.