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What is a Mic Activator?

A mic activator is an inline signal booster designed to provide 20-25 dB of clean gain to low output microphones.

What Problem Do Mic Activators Solve?

Dynamic and ribbon mics, which unlike condenser mics, do not use phantom power, are often lacking in adequate gain. Simply put, many of them produce a weak signal. The weak signal that they produce is often below “line-level” which is the standard signal strength that recording audio equipment communicates at.

Some of these mics have a more significant problem with this than others. For example, the popular Shure SM7B microphone is known to have this issue.

How Do Mic Activators Save the Day?

To solve this problem, a mic activator is placed between the mic and the audio interface in your signal chain and increases the signal strength of the microphone with clean gain that does not raise the noise floor.

Why is this important? Sometimes if you have a more affordable audio interface (and therefore not as high quality), cranking the gain way up can result in a poor sound, as the noise floor is raised as you approach maximum gain.

What are Some Top Mic Activators You Can Buy?

Some of the top mic activators are the Cloudlifter CL-1, Cloudlifter CL-2, and the Triton Audio Fethead.

If you have struggled with weak signal problems on dynamic or ribbon microphones, getting a mic activator may be a worthwhile investment.

Additional notes:

The mic activator needs the phantom power of the audio interface in order to work.

A mic activator may also be called a microphone booster or an inline pre-amp.

Whether you are starting out in home recording or just want to add a high quality, versatile microphone that can do a number of things well, there are several good choices that can record electric guitar and drums without breaking the bank. Some can even record vocals and acoustic guitar as well.

There is often crossover between mics that can be used to record electric guitar and mics that can be used to record snare drum in particular, but also toms, and sometimes bass drum.

Two of the top mics for miking electric guitar amps, the Shure SM57 and the Sennheiser MD421-II, are also two of the top microphones for recording snare drums. Both mics are also top microphones for recording toms. And in a pinch, you can even use the SM57 to record bass drum or use 2 of them for drum overheads. Some people have recorded their drum set entirely with SM57s.

Another top microphone for recording electric guitar, the Sennheiser e906, also does a good job on snare drum and toms.

All three of these microphones can also be used to record acoustic guitar although only one of them, the Shure SM57, is probably going to be on any top mics for recording acoustic guitar lists. The others do a solid job though.

Two of these mics, the Shure SM57 and the Sennheiser MD421-II could also be used to record vocals, and the SM57 can also used for vocals in a live setting. We would not recommend the e906 for vocals.

The price point of these microphones varies. The Shure SM57 is the most affordable, often hovering around $100. The e906 is usually available between $150-200. The Sennheiser MD421-II is the most expensive and will usually run between $300-400.