Review: Shure MV7i smart microphone and interface

Recording is an increasingly mobile affair, and for good reason. Inspiration often strikes at inopportune times, and is most noticeably absent when we sit down to create something. The Shure MV7i, a smart microphone and interface, comes to market to solve this issue, providing world-class recording quality in a startlingly affordable and mobile package.

Let’s get right into it and detail some of the, uh… details, before we chat about how practical the MV7i really is. The MV7i borrows aesthetically from Shure’s famous SM7 and SM7B microphones, the larger chassis containing both microphone components as well as the AD/DA converter.

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The Shure MV7i serves as a microphone and audio interface, connected via USB, also featuring an onboard headphone output. The MV7i is capable of 24-bit/48kHz digital audio, and you’ll notice an additional mic input on the bottom of the mic, allowing for the MV7i’s onboard mic to be used in conjunction with an additional mic or line input, the MV7i having phantom power onboard, making it an equally great solution for musicians recording an instrument and vocal, as well as podcasters with a guest. Content creators can get creative with the mic for your voice and the additional input for stream audio and more!

The recording can be exported in three modes: Mixdown Mode, to merge audio into one mono track, Multi-track Mode for two separate mono tracks, and Stereo Mode offers a stereo export of both inputs; either to be preserved as a stereo file OR to be split up later.

What’s more, the Shure MV7i features onboard DSP to treat sound and provide pristine recordings at the source. Voice Isolation Technology, Real-Time Denoiser and the Digital Popper Stopper are used to treat sound, all reasonably self explanatory, with Adjustable Reverb available as well.

All of this is to say that the Shure MV7i is a great solution for music, content creation, broadcast and more, modern music creation often involving a little of all of those!

Straight out of the box, the MV7i is up and running in moments. Auto Level Mode helped me set healthy gain without having to fiddle around with too much, and I had great sounding, crystal clear audio on moments. Sonically, the MV7i is pretty transparent, exactly what you want for such a versatile setup. The onboard DSP isn’t too heavy handed either, instead simply providing a true to source sound, albeit with a little bit of polish.

MOTIV Mix, the included desktop software for this and other Shure mics, is intuitive and powerful enough to handle most jobs. MOTIV Mix allows you to use multiple audio sources, interfaces and converters.

From here you can adjust Gain and levels for DSP processing, as well as monitoring your input and output and choosing options for export and recording. MOTIV Mix also allows virtual soundcards to be used, for example during a podcast where you’re playing back video audio, for audio educators who need playback from their DAW, or streamers who need game audio as well as speech.

The MV7i features everything that made the MV series of microphones great, augmented further with the MV7i serving as a standalone interface for great sound on the go, the mic itself being bus powered. The advantage of using the MV7i alone, amongst other things, is for latency free monitoring. Digital recording and DAW software creates latency as the signal makes a round trip from the microphone, through conversion stages and out of our headphones or monitors. Even the tiniest delay can make a recording feel disjointed, yet the handy headphone output on the chassis allows you to monitor directly from the source without the round trip.

MOTIV Mix

Metering that input is simple via the MV7i’s LED meter strip and the MOTIV Mix app. Choose between different metering options, i.e. metering the MV7i itself OR using Split mode to monitor the two inputs at once. This LED strip also works as a handy mute button for one or both channels. The LED will switch to red, by default, when muted. This tech does away with the risk of a click, pop or noise sometimes associated with mute buttons, perfect for streaming and needing to mute for a moment without affecting audio quality. Thus mute can be locked as well, to prevent you from accidentally muting yourself when adjusting the mic.

Shure’s Soundcheck feature can help you to set gain correctly, the Soundcheck software monitoring your surrounding and environmental noise and more, the Shure MV7i is also capable of Auto Gain settings that allow the software to optimise your sound so you can focus on the creation! There’s also tone controls within the MOTIV Mix app.

All in all, the MV7i takes everything great about the growing MV range of products, and packages it up into an equally tidy design, all with an in-built audio interface. This reduces clutter, but also makes recording on the go easier than ever, without the need to cart around an additional audio interface. As well as serving as a mic and converter in a single unit, the MV7i allows for an additional input, either a mic or line input, perfect for a direct instrument or an additional microphone. Monitor this latency free via the MV7i’s chassis itself, and control the most important stuff on the mic’s LED itself, or dive deeper into more advanced and helpful settings on the desktop app.

A legacy of great sound behind them, and a forward thinking approach to tech, music making and more, Shure have nailed the MV7i smart microphone and interface.

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