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Has anyone had any luck getting the Shure MV7 USB Mic working with Ubuntu Linux?

I use Ubuntu as my primary computer, which I use a microphone for conference calls and tech podcasts on Linux. I currently use a RODE NT-USB for this purpose on Linux, but the NT-USB picks up a lot of ambient noise (since it's a condenser). When the Shure MV7 USB microphone came out, it was compelling to me because it's a high-quality dynamic USB microphone, that was touted to be able to cut out a lot of background noise. So I bought it.

However, I've been trying to use it with Ubuntu 20.04 (using the USB input) but have not been able to get it to work yet. I've also tried on another Ubuntu 16.04 system with the same results.

When I plug the Mic into the USB interface, it does show up as an available sound device in the settings. Unfortunately, the Mic reboots (alternating green and yellow lights on the device) every time I try to select the input device in the sound settings input dropdown, and then it becomes deselected after the mic reboot. Sometimes, I am able to get the selection to "stick", but no sound seems to be registered on the mic input.

This Microphone can be customized with a bit of software called Motive to configure some of the sound systems, but my understanding is that all of the settings are stored on the Mic itself (so you can use it on a computer without the software installed). While I fully expect that the Motiv software will not work on Linux, my hope is that since the settings are stored on the Mic itself, I was hoping that Linux would just detect it as a USB sound device. The mic also supposedly works on Android (which is Linux-based), IOS, and PS4, so I'd think that it would be using a pretty standard sound interface. I'm using firmware 1.1.0 on the MV7. My computer is a Dell Precision 7740.

Other USB mics (RODE NT-USB and a Logitech USB webcam/microphone) works perfectly on the same system, so I know the Linux sound system is working just fine. I'm really disappointed that the MV7 does not seem to work on Linux, where I've never had any issues with other sound devices.

I'm wondering what others have experienced with this Mic? Do you have any recommendations to get the MV7 to be usable by Linux?

arecord -l

**** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC289 Analog [ALC289 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: MV7 [Shure MV7], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
user unknown
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Joe J
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    I am facing the same issue, I was able to test the mic on my Android phone, but not on my Linux desktop. – vchuravy Nov 09 '20 at 18:23
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    I collected a few bits of information here https://github.com/alsa-project/alsa-lib/issues/98 – vchuravy Nov 09 '20 at 21:18

6 Answers6

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Pulseaudio seems to be interrogating the MV7 in a way that causes it to reset. As a test, try to pulseaudio --kill and then plug the MV7 in (while making sure that pulseaudio has not launched from any other sources) If you can manage switch the configuration within pavucontrol/Pulse Audio Volume Control so that it uses the profile "Multichannel Input" or "Mono Input", it should come up without going into the restart loop and let you use just about all of the mic's functions. The headphone monitor within the mic will still work, however, you will just not be able to send audio from other sources up into the mic.

Alex
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  • Would the same issues be present for those who use pipewire? (with pipewire-pulse) – erb Apr 28 '21 at 11:29
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    Yes, I have been using the MV7 successfully with PipeWire (since 0.3.14 through 0.3.26 and counting). The most consistent factor so far with the mic "not working in Linux" is where the mic plugs into the USB bus; if I plug the device in anywhere other than directly into a root_hub, I will see usb_set_interface failed (-19)/(-32)/(-71) through dmesg and the mic will not work.You may have some success with trying various usbcore.quirks in your kernel params, such as usbcore.quirks=14ED:1012:g. – Alex May 03 '21 at 11:45
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    @erb using pipewire with pipewire-pulse did the trick for me. No more mic reboots. – Gordon May 12 '21 at 17:28
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    Here just to say that PipeWire solved the issue for me as well. Works like a charm so far. – stefanmaric May 14 '21 at 22:15
  • Thanks a lot, it helped! One addition, though: if you want to record audio through JACK (for example, in Reaper), you can do this even with audio output via MV7, you just need to select it in the output. – rominf Aug 07 '21 at 21:17
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I got it working just fine on pop!_os (21.04) with pipewire instead of pulseaudio

the instruction to replace pulseaudio with pipewire is here https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/ofdalv/replaced_pulseaudio_with_pipewire_on_popos_2104_i/h4c5p6u/

After that, it just works after plugging in.

Tuan Anh Tran
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First, the MV7 worked fine on my desktop pc using Ubuntu (18.04).

After I re-plugged some USB devices, I had similar issues: connecting/disconnecting loop with the message:

1:1: usb_set_interface failed (-71)

Although the (USB) webcam and video streams were stuttering. I reverted the replugging and everything was fine again: The "fix" for me is, using a USB2 and NOT a USB3 slot for the MV7.

Looks like the USB3 issue is not only related to the MV7: https://askubuntu.com/a/1199300.

ThunderBird
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Some0ne
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  • That askubuntu question you linked to mentions USB 2 as the culprit, but you are saying USB 2 is the only one that works. Seems conflicting. – Victor Apr 10 '21 at 22:24
  • Hi Victor, I (tried) to link the answer of "Mike Trest", where he is saying, that using 1.x/2.x ports was fixing his issues too. – Some0ne Apr 13 '21 at 12:15
  • Plugging into a USB2 slot for me worked!! Mic stopped restarting, and the audio monitor started working too. – Mike Mar 18 '24 at 03:59
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I had the same issues on Ubuntu 22.04. What worked for me was switching to PipeWire using the following guide.

The beauty of this guide is that it does not relay on any external ppa and utilizes PipeWire packages that are already in the distribution so there's less chance for it to break in the future.

Emsi
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Another approach could be using an audio interface that has an XLR input. Many audio interfaces (USB connected) just work under Linux/ Ubuntu being it via Pulsaudio/Jack/Alsa. Then hook up the microphone through the XLR connector. (You would need to buy an XLR cable and Audio interface so that is an extra cost) I have just bought this microphone and having both USB and XLR connector was the determinig factor for me to go for this mike.

Fholst
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There is a utility for the MV7 on Linux called mv7config. You should add the udev rule in the res/ folder, which will set up the microphone as an hidraw device with user access.

For anyone looking to configure the Shure MVX2U—a recent addition to the MOTIV series—I am working on a similar CLI utility, although Shure has changed the communication protocol, so I need to sniff configuration packets and then try to replicate on a Linux PC. I'm having difficulty with the last few USB packets after changing any of the microphone adapter settings, but I can read the mic configuration and change at least one setting before needing to reset the USB connection.

(Feel free to pull request if you get progress on that second link, or think about porting to WebUSB/WebHID or Android/Apple!)

Brian Wright
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