I recently purchased a GAP Pre73 MKII and a Shure SM7. I'd like to use both of these to record vocals through my POD HD500, but I'm a little confused as to the proper way to set this up. Here's what I'm doing: My SM7 is going into the Pre73's Mic In via an XLR cable, and then the Pre73's output is going through a balanced TRS cable to the POD's Aux in. I read in the manual that the Aux In is unbalanced. Will this negatively affect my signal, or if I use a balanced TRS cable, will the signal stay balanced? Is there a better way to set this up, or a special configuration I need to use?
When I connect the SM7 to the POD directly, via XLR to the POD's Mic In, the level in my DAW seems great and the mic is sufficiently loud (and the SM7 is a notoriously quiet mic). When I use my aforementioned setup, the level in my DAW is very low, even though I have both knobs on my Pre73 cranked to max. This has led me to believe I am doing something wrong. For what it's worth, I am using high-quality Mogami cables.
As a somewhat-related sidenote, is it possible to run my Pre73 as part of an "fx loop"? Would there be a benefit to this? I'd like to use the Pre73 to warm up my bass and I figure that could be a way to do it, or should I simply plug the bass into the Pre73, and then the Pre73 into the POD?
Thanks for reading this and thanks for the help. The world of pro audio sometimes befuddles my brain, so I really appreciate it.