you need a pre-amp with at least 55-60db of gain to run the SM7b well. budget?

Link555, post: 354845 wrote: budget?

This should do the trick:

I've read that the SM7b really needs a great preamp to get the great sound out of it...I don't think the Edirol was designed with that type of dynamic mic in mind....just doesn't have the gain....the condensers you were using are much more sensitive and phantom powered....so if you want to use the SM7b you will need a preamp that matches well. You would probably get better results with the Edirol using the SM58 or SM57.
I've heard good things about the UA Solo/610 preamp with the SM7b but that might be out of your price range. It seems people get really warm fat male vocals out of that combo which would be great for male announcers and male voice over work. And of course Michael Jackson made alot of records with that mic so there ya go.....
As far as a different interface goes there are so many options out there and plenty out there with good preamps but many users prefer separate preamps with a particular mic and then straight to A/D conversion into the DAW...so there's that to consider....
Sounds like your looking for a budget setup so there are real limitations as to what you can get....
RME, Apogee, Rosetta, SteinbergMR, ZEDR16 are all in the $2k price range for interfaces that start to have decent sound.

thanks for the feedback guys,

I'm liking the price of the onyx and the mackie name gives me confidence in it.......only downside is you can only record up to 48khz.....I like to record in 88.2......I know alot of people might argue you can't tell the difference........I can with my condensers at least.....and i just plain like knowing that I'm recording in higher quality lol.....but if it gives me clean gain for the SM7b......might be worth the trade off......it's looking like price wise, my next step up would be the profire if I do want higher than 48 khz

sampsoniter, post: 354874 wrote: I'm liking the price of the onyx and the mackie name gives me confidence in it.......only downside is you can only record up to 48khz.....

Really? I missed that. However, I'm prepared to bet that the Onyx will sound better at 44.1/48KHz than anything else in the price bracket would at 88.2/96KHz.

Another option would be to look for one of the older Onyx Satellites, which go up to 96KHz. These are discontinued, but you might still be able to find old stock going cheap, or second hand units. I have one myself and its served me well for years. Its worth bearing in mind that the 'Pod' unit will act as a standalone 2-channel pre-amp when not plugged into a firewire port, so you can still use the pre-amps with another interface should you choose to upgrade later on.

a quick look through the Blackjack manual implies that it can do the same: simply turn up the "To Mon" knob to route the inputs directly to the outputs in the analog domain. If I am right this makes the Blackjack a very cost-effective way to add a pair of quality preamps to a different interface...

does anyone think it understandable to be getting this hiss at high gain levels with the Edirol fa 101?.......guy from my local music store (long & mcquade) seemed to be surprised and said the Edirol is known to be very clean......

I don't know the Edirols so I can't really comment. However, in my experience budget mic pre-amps will usually hiss like a snake when the gain is maxed. The Mackies seem to be the honourable exception!

I've actually got 10 of those Onyx pres in my collection: 8 built into a 1620 mixer plus the pair in the Satellite. I tend to use my Drawmer / DAV pres in the studio, but I have done a lot of location recording using just the Mackies. I have often used them with my ribbon mics to record quiet acoustic sources, and had to max the gain on the preamps and then boost it even further in software: the noise floor of the room was always louder than the noise floor of the preamps.