SHURE SM7B plugin doesn't work

Hello! first post ever around here, I’ve been an Audacity user for some years now and these days I’ve encountered a problem that I cannot solve… I do voice-overs and some time ago I found what it seemed to be a cool plugin that makes your Shure SM57 sound like a Shure SM7B (or quite similar at least) so I installed it but whenever I want to use it I got this error ‘‘Nyquist returned the value: 0’’.

So, is there a way to solve this? I am very interested to know.

Thanks in advance! : )

Can you point us to that plug-in.

I installed it but whenever I want to use it I got this error

So it’s never worked?

Koz

I have never come across the plugin you are referring to, as Steve wrote, a link would be helpful.

Looking around the interwebs, making the SM57 sound more like the SM7B seems to be rather popular.

From what I can gather, it mostly based on some EQ matching/compensation followed by some compression.
How much it will make it sound like the real “McCoy” is another matter, however depending on your level of expertise,
you have several options:

  1. Post a link to the original plugin and we can perhaps make changes/updates or make recommendations.

  2. Write your own Nyquist plugin to alter the freq response of the recordings, to mimic the SM7B.
    Using the “Eq-band” and “Eq-lowshelf” functions may be just the things you need.


  3. Use the “Equalization” curves in Audacity to do it and then save it as a preset.
    This will allow you to set frequency points and the required gain/loss.
    Screen Shot 2021-10-24 at 5.35.13 PM.png

  4. Use a multiband compressor plugin.
    Many available, and which you decide on is dependent on your tastes.

The EQ "compensation you need is something like this:
Screen Shot 2021-10-24 at 4.26.45 PM.png
The 5Q is equivalent to about 0.3 octaves, whilst 1Q is about 1.4 octaves.
LS = low shelf.
You don’t need to be ultra precise.

Due to attachment limitations, post continued below…

continued…

The frequency response of the SM57, 58 and 7B, shown below, from the Shure website.
The 7B has a few settings (shown as the solid and dashed lines, use the solid line as your reference).

The SM57’s reputation is for use in drums and other percussion. It’s bright, clean, and almost impossible to overload.

The SM58 is the Rock Band microphone. It has that instantly recognizable night club voice sound with the presence boost and again, it’s a dynamic (moving coil) microphone and almost impossible to overload.

The SM7B is more of a studio microphone and it depends on the user to be on top of their game. No help here. Joe Rogan used one for a long time with P-Popping that would knock the wine glass over and proximity effect that would sour milk. Someone figured it out and put a wind screen on it and either threw in the low cut filter (that downward dip on the left of the curve—switches on the bottom) or put in a stand-alone high pass filter.

Now he sounds like clear, Joe Rogan no matter how much he man-handles his microphone.

So you have two conversions. Out of SM57 and into SM7b and then SM7b into your actual job.

Koz

Antares makes [u]Mic Mod[/u] which is designed to make one mic sound like another but it doesn’t support Audacity and it’s not a Nyquist plug-in (It’s VST3, AAX, or AU).

…Both of those mics are low-output dynamic mics (although it’s the actual mic that matters) so you may need an interface with a high-gain preamp, or a “Cloudlifter” or a separate high-gain preamp.

Both of those mics are low-output dynamic mics

All three.

Screen Shot 2021-10-24 at 15.36.53.png
Koz

DVDdoug wrote:

Antares makes Mic Mod which is designed to make one mic sound like another but it doesn’t support Audacity and it’s not a Nyquist plug-in (It’s VST3, AAX, or AU).

Yep, know about the Antares product, think there is also one or two others by different companies, but the OP wrote:

…whenever I want to use it I got this error ‘‘Nyquist returned the value: 0’’.

Which makes be believe it’s a Nyquist plugin, as neither a VST or AU would cause that error.

Hey guys, thanks for the responses!

Here is the plugin that is, essentially, as some of you said before, a specific EQ curve to try to match the sound of the SM7B.

I can’t get it to work, it always gives me an error.
PLUGIN SHURE SM7B AUDACITY.ny (503 Bytes)

Thanks for the great response man.

I already attached the plugin that I tried to use, but I’m going to attach it here in this response too.

BTW which multiband compresor do you recommend for Audacity? I’m interested.

I’ve removed the duplicate to avoid confusion.

That plug-in has a typo in it. Here’s a fixed version:
PLUGIN SHURE SM7B AUDACITY.ny (509 Bytes)
The plug-in applies a series of EQ filters, which has an overall frequency response like this (“Normal” setting):

Below, an updated version of the plugin.

It now uses “version 4” syntax, added a high pass filter from 20 Hz and
a low pass filter from 18 KHz.
There is very little audio below and above these frequencies, so just filter them out.
Even a pretty good sub-woofer will struggle to reproduce anything below 20 Hz.
Screen Shot 2021-10-27 at 2.02.38 PM.png
And the response curves for each of the settings:




Does it make the audio sound like a real SM7B? No idea as don’t have a SM7B to compare against.
New version of the plugin:
Shure-SM-EQ-2.ny (766 Bytes)

rxx wrote:

BTW which multiband compresor do you recommend for Audacity? I’m interested.

I see that you are using Windows, so here is a good all-rounder:
Screen Shot 2021-10-27 at 2.21.12 PM.png
The download link is:

Make sure you select the correct one for your Audacity version.
If you are using Audacity 32 bits, then the plugin has to match and vice-versa for 64 bits.

which multiband compresor do you recommend for Audacity? I’m interested.

Chris’s Compressor. Chris is a Broadcast Simulation compressor. Whatever you put in comes out “even” and loudness compensated—similar to a broadcast transmitter. You don’t have to pre-adjust or pre-configer anything and it works with both voices and music. Chris wrote it so he could listen to opera in the car. I use it to even out the individual voices on a multi-performer podcast so I could listen in the car or running on the beach.

I change the first user setting Compress Ratio from the default 0.5 to 0.77 and it matches the local NPR radio stations. For a while, there was a show that appeared on both and I could compare them.

Chris has one known bug. It doesn’t like running off the end of a show, so I add some unimportant sound on the end to give Chris something to chew on, and then cut it off when Chris is done. This is unlikely to be fixed as Chris reached end-of-life.

Koz

Chris’s Compressor. Chris is a Broadcast Simulation compressor. Whatever you put in comes out “even” and loudness compensated—similar to a broadcast transmitter.

It however, does not re-EQ the audio which is key to emulating the SM7B.
With other multi-band compressors, one can adjust the response in each band (and bandwidth)
to tailor the audio to better match.

Chris’ compressor is wideband.
It works very well, but there are better candidates for this application.

It however, does not re-EQ the audio which is key to emulating the SM7B.

It’s not an equalizer. Whatever you put in comes out.

And as above, if you don’t have a studio, you’re going to spend time configuring your new SM7b for the performer and room. See Joe Rogan.

With other multi-band compressors, one can adjust the response in each band (and bandwidth)
to tailor the audio to better match.

Depends on the goal. How much time you want to devote to figuring out attack and release ratios? Do you have a studio sound system for analysis?

Koz

I think we are talking past each other.

Chris’s compressor, like you say, does not do EQ, but EQ is exactly what is required in this instance.

As for the attack and release ratios, there are no hard and fast rules.
Since the plugin is a VST, one can listen in real time whilst tweaking.
Stop when it sounds right, then save the settings in a preset.