Which Boom Mics Do I Use? 2020 Edition

in this episode we'll talk about the boom microphones that are my favorites and what I'd choose in each category from camera top shotgun microphones to budget prosumer to professional [Music] I've used a decent number of boob microphones and so my goal here is really just to tell you my impressions of a variety of them which ones I generally choose when I have the choice obviously this does not include all boom microphones I there's so many in the world and I haven't had a chance to use all of them so we're just going to talk about the ones that I have the most experience with and which are my favorites in full disclosure I will put on the screen which of them I paid for with my own money versus those which were given to me free of charge and all of the links below again in full disclosure are affiliate links so if you purchase from one of them I earn a small commission now to clarify we are just talking about boom microphones here today we will have a separate episode that talks about lavalier microphones and other types of microphones say for example for voiceover now some people are surprised to learn that boom microphones are sometimes not shotgun microphones shotgun microphones indeed are boom microphones but they're not the only type of boom microphones are also what are often called in the music world pencil condenser microphones or what I like to refer to as cardioids and they're often used for indoor dialogue they are non shotgun microphones they do not have interference tubes which are the long skinny tubes that looks something like this they usually have the slits along them and they have a very special operating principle mostly for outdoor dialogue you can use them indoors although when you do use them indoors there is a very small risk that you can get some phase issues when the sound source comes from an odd angle so for example if the sound is coming from an angle like this relatively closely in most cases I find you'll get sort of a warbling sound which you can't really fix in post so there are some risks using shotgun microphones indoors but it's not forbidden and the microphone police aren't going to come arrest you if you do so first up let's take a look at the camera top shotgun microphones now these are really good if you are doing vlogging or if you do YouTube talking head types of videos like this and you don't want the microphone in the frame you can boom it up above the frame down at you or you can put on your camera now there's a risk if you do put it on your camera and the camera is say five or six feet away maybe one and a half to two meters away it's gonna sound far away it's not gonna sound super rich so if you are going to buy a camera top shotgun microphone you need to understand that it's great if you're vlogging and you're up nice and close to the camera within maybe a foot and a half or something like that but as soon as you get farther away than that it's gonna start to sound not as good however with these microphones you can boom them above you you can run an extension cable from your camera and put them on a microphone stand we've got a video up here that shows you how to do that for less than $30 us so let's talk about some of my favorites here first of all we're gonna talk about the tax Star SGC 598 yeah that's this one right here we reviewed this a long long time ago it runs on a single double-a battery it has a 3.5 millimeter connector to connect to your camera and so it just plugs into your camera's microphone input and for its price which is last time I checked somewhere in the maybe the 35 dollar range it does a surprisingly good job again it's gonna sound a whole lot better if you boom it just above your talent within say 18 inches maybe 30 to 40 centimeters but that's we're gonna get the best sound but if you do have to put on top of your camera it's better than nothing next in this category we also have the rode videomic pro plus again one of my favorites here this one has a variety of interesting features for example it does do dual channel recording so if you plug this into your camera again it has a 3.5 millimeter plug you can actually record one channel the left channel on your camera at the level that you set the game here and it also records to the right channel at a lower input level or a lower gain level and what that means is if you get too loud and the audio clips and distorts that secondary track will still be okay in most cases so it gives you a little bit more safety it does have a high-pass filter if you're operating out in the wind and it does have a couple of different gain settings at plus 20 DB or minus 10 DB we'll have links below for the reviews of each of these microphones so you can dive in more detail on each of the mics next up in this category is the DIA TV Mike d3 Pro now the difference between this one and the rode videomic pro plus the main difference I would say well there are a couple but then the videomic pro plus has a replaceable battery comes with a lithium-ion rechargeable battery in here but you can also put double-a batteries in there if you need to the d3 pro on the other hand has an inbuilt battery with a 51 hour rated powering time it does have this unique feature where you plug in the cable here run that out to your camera or mobile device or to whatever you're recording and it figures out what kind of device it is and it adapts its connection to work with that device it's a pretty cool feature this was actually one of the first camera top shotgun microphones that I know of to do that it also has a high pass filter at 75 Hertz 150 Hertz if you're working out in the wind and that is something important to say if you are going to be recording outdoors you really do need some wind protection and usually a foam wind cover is not really necessarily enough you may need one of the fur covered as well most of these have those available and if the company itself doesn't provide one you can usually buy one from a company called Rycote which you can find on B&H photo for example this comes with its own shock mount it's a very good shock mount and mike comes out of the shock mount as well which is nice so if for some reason you ever need to replace this you could certainly do that now a couple nice features about the shock mount that comes with it first of all you can adjust it to sit forward or not so forward on your camera aft I guess if you will and this allows you to a move it back if you're shooting with a really wide angle lens and you don't want the microphone in the shot or to move it forward if you're going to be using the viewfinder on your say mirrorless camera for example while you're shooting video so this gets out of the way so you can get your face or your eye right up to the viewfinder so nice to have that ability to adjust and on the bottom here not only do you have the shoe mount but you also have a 3/8 inch receiver which has threads in it so you can mount this on a standard microphone boom Pole if you want to do that as well again see the in-depth review if you're interested in this one down below the newest entry this category is the rode videomic ntg is very similar to the deity v mike these reproach we just looked at strikingly similar actually likewise it comes with this Rycote shock mount which is top-notch you can do the same thing where you can adjust the position of the shock mount forward or back to get it out of the way of your viewfinder or to get it out of the way of a wide-angle lens you have a 3.5 millimeter cable it also auto detects what you plug into you have USB C input for powering or charging the microphone it has an inbuilt battery that is rated to last 30 hours you do have a high-pass filter you have the safety track recording feature on this as well which is nice and you also have a minus 20 decibel pad so if you're going to be recording really really loud stuff that can be helpful as well both a dia TV mic d3 Pro and the rode videomic MTG have these dials on the back for setting the input level or gain which is really nice and there stepless so it's just a continuous very natural sounding way to set the input level on your microphone this one can also be used as a USB microphone directly into your computer so if you want to record directly to your computer you can do that as well the downsides of course it has an inbuilt battery for those concerned about the environment which is a valid concern I would say this becomes e-waste when it's done unless Road comes up with a battery replacement program and I don't believe they've said anything about that just yet hopefully they will and that'll make this a non-issue so which of these would I choose if I was only choosing one well that's a tough call I think it really depends if you want replaceable batteries user replaceable batteries the videomic pro plus is a good choice if you're on a super tight budget and you really can't afford more than $35 that's where the tax star comes in if you want one of the newer microphones it can be used in more situations these two here the d DV mic d3 pro and the videomic ntg or two good options if I could only choose one it's a tough one it's really tough but I think I'd probably go with the rode videomic and DG next up let's get into shotgun microphones that have XLR outputs so we're talking about microphones that you would connect to a professional-grade camcorder or cinema camera or to a dedicated audio recorder with XLR inputs so here we're moving up into more of the professional range but these are the really affordable options let's take a closer look at these one that was very popular a number of years ago was the road ntg-2 shotgun microphone this was actually my first shotgun microphone and this microphone has the ability to work with phantom power or you can pop a double-a battery in here and that will power it as well now this microphone was pretty decent it also has a high-pass filter but what I don't love about this microphone are a couple things number one for its price it's not a bad sounding microphone it's pretty good but it really requires a preamplifier that is a really strong preamplifier that can provide a lot of gain it didn't have a really hot output signal so that made it kind of a non-starter in a lot of ways from the standpoint that a lot of people buying a more budget oriented shotgun microphone also we're using a more budget oriented recorder or camera so in many cases this was not a great fit so for example the zoom h4n and this microphone not recommended at all if you get a really good pre amplifier then this can do a decent job but not my first choice in 2020 here we're talking about microphones that are less than 300 dollars a next one on the list would be the rode ntg-2 end up using it a lot it has some interesting features it has an inbuilt battery as well which I kind of have mixed feelings about however this does have a -10 DB pad a high pass filter it also has a high frequency boost so when you put this in wind protection the trick with wind protection is that wow it does do a good job of preventing the wind from blowing on the capsule and distorting the sound it does cut off some of the high frequencies so sound can start to sound a little bit muffled and so for example your s's and C's and things of that nature start to sound like the person has a lisp and so this high presence boost is kind of a nice feature from that standpoint it's a decent microphone it has a slightly stronger output signal than the rode ntg-2 but it's still not my favorite sounding microphone it sounds a little bit in the mid-range e so I don't necessarily recommend this one at this point next up of this category and I don't have this microphone anymore although I did have it for a while and I have used it a fair bit as the Asda Ness GM 250 it seemed to have a stronger output signal than the rode ntg-2 and the MTG for but it also had sort of a mid-range e sound to it so it wasn't my favorite but but it definitely works and again on all of these if you own one of these and I'm not saying that it's the most amazing microphone ever please don't take offense these are just my impressions after using a whole bunch of different microphones it biased with my own personal tastes and preferences doesn't mean that it's a bad microphone just means that's not my favorite and then finally is the sony ECM 674 this one has kind of a bright sound to it which means it's a little bit crisper a lot more s's and C's they're gonna come through in a very kind of emphasized sort of way it does have a high-pass filter on it it's a decent mic this one's a hard category here it's hard for me to choose a favorite here I don't really love any of these microphones in part of its because I've been spoiled I use much more expensive much more capable microphones but if you are operating in this range if I had to say choose one I'd probably go with the Sony ECM 674 or the as Dennis GM 250 at this point in 2020 personal preference other people may recommend others all of them are capable all of them will record audio and all of them will record decent audio I find with privacy so knee or the ads and actually the as den probably my first choice tough call in this category next up we'll talk about shotgun microphones in the 300 to $600 range now this is really the tipping point from my standpoint this is where you really start to see a lot of improved audio quality for the amount of money that you invested now when you get past this category past the $600 mark you're still going to get some improvements but you're gonna pay a lot of money for relatively smaller improvements so let's talk about the microphones in this category first up we have the deity s mic - this is a shotgun microphone here that looks very similar to something we're going to look at in the professional category it kind of is a Sennheiser MKH 416 clone in some ways it looks a lot like it and it actually sounds a lot like it - what's interesting about this microphone is that it doesn't have any switches there's no high-pass filter there's no high frequency boost there's no pad or anything of that nature so it's pretty straightforward that way but what's really interesting about it is that it is basically waterproof if you drop this in some water it may stop working for a short period of time but once you let it dry out it'll be good after that they've coated all of the circuit board and things of that nature so it's kind of interesting from that standpoint that's a nice feature to have if you are going to be working out in the elements it's made out of brass it does a good job at rejecting any sort of radio frequency interference which you can pick up on some of the less expensive mics especially those that are made out of aluminum bodies but this one holds up really nicely I've never picked up any sort of radio frequency interference on this so does a pretty good job in terms of overall sound again it sounds a lot like the Sennheiser I'm cage for 16 and I'll talk about the differences it's not exactly the same but similar it has good self noise performance it's not going to produce a whole lot of hiss and that's definitely what is you're going to start to see in this category you're gonna start to see a lot less self noise now the little brother to this one is the deity s mic to s which you can see here if we put them right next to each other about half the size basically so why would you want a short shotgun or what I would actually we used to call these short shotguns or at least medium shotguns now we have these newer ones they're quite a bit shorter well this offers you a few things it does have the water resistance it does have good sound it's not quite as focused a polar pattern that is to say you may if you're for example using this indoors or even outdoors if there's ambient sound around it you're gonna pick up a little bit more of the ambiance sound on this because there's a smaller interference tube and that can be okay I would say this is a really good all-rounder if you're gonna use a shotgun microphone both indoors and outdoors this one could be a really good choice in this category because with the shorter shotgun mic you're not as likely to run into that situation again where the sound is maybe coming from an off-axis position maybe you miss aimed it and didn't get a name just right you're less likely to get that warbling sound with a shorter shotgun microphone like this so for using both indoors and outdoors if you can only buy one mic and this is all the budget you've got this is a pretty good choice here the next one in this category is the as Dinesh 3,500 it's basically a very similar mic to the best mic to s it's a short shotgun microphone or what I would call maybe more of a micro shotgun microphone and it sounds very similar it didn't seem to perform quite as well as the s mic 2's in terms of self noise and its ability to reject ambience sound so I would probably pass on that one next up is the as didn't s GM 3500 Elvis is a longer version of the 3500 this one I quite liked this one's about $500 u.s. and you can see it's interference tube is quite long this one is really focused on capturing your sound source and rejecting anything that's off axis so it has a much more focused polar pattern which is going to give you a cleaner sound overall so this one actually was quite impressive if you're going to be shooting outdoors and you need to isolate the sound you want and reject the sound you don't want this one is a very good choice really quite liked the sound of it too very balanced very clean not a lot of self noise this one actually comes surprisingly to me actually recommended the Asda n s GM 3500 L and you can see here if we compare it to the deity s mic 2's its interference tube is a little bit longer and that's why it has that really good ability to focus the sound get the sound you want and reject the sound you don't want next up we have the rode ntg-2 actually surprised me and actually I really quite like this microphone so rode for a long time has had their ntg-3 and NT g8 and they are in the next price up category they're really popular microphones as well in particular the MT g3 and the reason that it's so popular is that it sounds really great it also uses a different technology for its capsule it uses what's called RF bias technology and that technology is really helpful because what it allows you to do is it tends to hold up a lot better when you're working in especially humid environments and that's actually something to consider one of the enemies of microphones is water if humidity or water condenses on the capsule of most microphones they will start distorting and sounding horrible and so basically you're kind of out of luck if you need to record sound RF bias microphones tend to be much more immune to humidity and even if some water does condense on their capsule they generally will continue to work and sound good and so that's where this kind of technology is really great and so I would say in this particular category this was probably my favorite microphone now you might ask well what about that aluminum body doesn't that mean it's a lot more susceptible to RF interference radio frequency interference and in my test it held up really well I didn't get any sort of radio frequency interference I don't know if it's the RF biased technology that prevents it from picking that up but for whatever reason it did really really well so this category the 300 to $600 range my pick is the MTG 5 now is this microphone for everybody no the one thing you do need to know about this microphone is is voicing the way it sounds to my ear is very natural that is to say there's not a lot of that rich bass boost if you're looking for that so if you're not looking for that and you're looking for something that sounds natural this is a good choice but if you're looking for a very broadcast e sound this may not be the best choice nevertheless in this category if I've got to choose a shotgun microphone this is the one I would choose and then in our next category is the pro level shotgun microphones now I have three of them here to talk about today these are going to be greater than $600 u.s. and in fact one of them significantly more than that let's dive in and take a look at those the first one we already mentioned a little bit before and that is the rode ntg3 this is a classic mic a lot of people put this to good use a lot of youtubers have used it and even professional location sound mixers sometimes use this microphone a lot of them for example will kind of consider this a crash mic and they'll use it in situations where they may be going into kind of some chaos they make it they may be for example recording in a locker room where there's champagne flying and things of that nature but in any case this microphone sounds fantastic it does kind of emphasize the bass quite a bit so if you're not looking for that kind of broadcast sound this may not be the best choice but a lot of people really like that sound and in fact in a lot of ways people consider this kind of the budget version of the Sennheiser MKH 416 which we'll talk about next great self noise performance great clean recordings I think it sounds very good the voicing is great again a lot of rich bass if you're looking for that overall a really great microphone next up we have a classic the Sennheiser MKH 416 this microphone was originally designed it's gone through a few different iterations but was originally designed back in the 1970s and it has been a staple of production and location sound mixers for many many years it's a great microphone it also uses the RF biased technology so those are the two main companies that I know of that use RF is or Sennheiser and rode and rode just uses it in some of their mics actually sennheiser has a larger line of microphones that use the RF bias technology and this is one of them this is a fantastic sounding mic again it does in my opinion kind of have a good bit of bass pickup so it has that rich low-end but this one relative to the rode ntg3 also has kind of a high presence boost again you have to remember that this microphone was designed back in the days when there was no digital recording was all recording just to tape and tape responds a little bit differently and so I think what they did here is they voiced it so that there was a little bit more high frequency response because tape had to generally kind of rolled off at the higher frequencies and so to get those high frequencies they they added a little bit of additional presence here so it's a really great sound a lot of people also use this for voice over and again it's super super sturdy and what's different about this versus the rode ntg3 is that this polar pattern is a little bit more focused so you're going to pick up a little bit less at the back of the mic versus the front of the mic relative to the rode ntg3 so a really good polar pattern that's very focused to get the sound you want and reject the sound you don't want I can't say anything bad about this microphone there's a reason why a lot of people love this microphone only downside of course is that it is a $1,000 purchase however it's a type of microphone that can carry you through an entire career so if you have the budget for it it is never a bad investment and then finally when I'm doing a paid location or production sound mixing job this is generally the microphone I choose this is the DPA 4017 with the B preamplifier you can see it's a pretty small microphone here's compared to the Asda Ness GM 3500 L and I believe this one has a an aluminum body as well this microphone sounds fantastic it is probably my favorite sounding shotgun microphone it also has a high-pass filter built in you'll note that the MT g3 and the Sennheiser MKH 416 did not so your recorder will need to have those if you need those features this also has a high frequency boost so again if you're putting it in some sort of wind protection you can boost those high frequencies to compensate for the fur or the foam reducing some of those frequencies so get a more balanced sound that way this microphone sounds absolutely fantastic all of these three microphones in this category have great self-noise performance that is to say they don't produce a lot of hiss they have hot fairly strong output signals so you don't need a preamplifier with a ton of gain to make them sound good and you'd really just can't go wrong it's been super durable really love this one now this one's interesting too because you can change the preamplifier that you use they also have a shorter preamplifier that does not have these two features and it comes in at a much shorter length as well so if you wanted to shorten this up some and you didn't need those features you can do that as well so that's the DPA 40 17 B this is my go-to mic when I'm doing a paid location job next up we'll talk about non shotgun microphones these I typically use for indoors they can be used outdoors if you put good wind protection on them as well but they're generally with a super cardioid or cardioid or hyper cardioid polar pattern so they vary a little bit in terms of how wide their polar pattern is and how focused it is but they all do a really nice job indoors they do not run into the same issue the shotgun microphones can sometimes indoors that I mentioned earlier where if the sound source is a little bit off axis from the front of the mic it can produce that warbling sound these don't have that issue whatsoever and that's why location and production sound mixers will choose these four indoors now the first in this category is a mic that I don't actually own that I borrowed for the review and that is the Samson co2 it actually comes in a set of two for only $100 u.s. or just about there and it's a really impressive value for the amount of money that you spend so for example if you're shooting a lot of interviews and you need two microphones to get the best pickup on both of the people in the interview Samson co2 can do a pretty nice job has a decent sound it's a little bit on the mid-range in terms of its focus it does have a little bit of self noise on the high end of the frequency range it does pretty well on a boom pole as well in terms of handling noise so if you are handling the boom pole and you happen to kind of rub your hand the wrong way on the boom pole this does a pretty decent job if you use a good shock mount from picking up that noise as well definitely a consideration if you're talking about a boom microphone and really overall again I think this is probably the best value for money if you're on a tight budget you want some XLR output microphones you're going to be doing interviews pretty good choice if you can only go about 120 dollars u.s. now in the next category the two hundred to five hundred dollar range you're going to start to see some pretty significant improvements in terms of audio quality and the first one I want to talk about here is the octave ah m'kay zero one two this is a russian-made microphone and this one runs about 220 dollars u.s. as I recall this particular one has the cardioid capsule which is not quite as focused but you can also get a hyper-cardioid capsule this one has a surprisingly great sound in fact it has a really rich low-end which a lot of people really like and overall just a very balanced sound beyond that when you get to the higher frequencies so it sounds really nice now the one downside with this microphone that I found is that it's very sensitive to handling noise and to movement so if you are going to put it on a boom pole that your hand operating you probably are going to need a really good shock mount so that's just one thing to keep in mind again really great sounding microphone a lot of indie filmmakers really love this one I like the sound of it I've used it a fair bit but you do need to invest in a good shock mount now again the nice thing about this one is it is a system it can take other capsules as well so even if you just bought one you can later buy the cardioid capsule it also has an omnidirectional capsule if you're going to do on Beyonc recordings or perhaps music recordings as well but for filmmaking probably the hyper-cardioid is a really good choice next up in this category is the onyx scx10 cardioid microphone as well I borrowed this one to do a review some time ago and really quite like to begin a very balanced sound good off axis rejection it does well with handling noise just overall a very good microphone now its output signal wasn't the hottest as I recall but if you've got a good pre amplifier behind it it is a really good microphone now my good pre amplifier I mean not a zoom h4n but if you get into the zoom F series like the zoom f4 zoom f8 zoom f6 or in the sound devices mix pre line you'll have plenty of gain to drive this microphone for very good recordings next up is the AKG blue line with the CK 93 capsule this is a hyper-cardioid capsule as well again it's a modular system so you can change out to different capsules if you choose to do that so you get a little more value for your money that way if you are going to do other types of recordings this one was a little bit cleaner than the Onyx in terms of its overall self noise and again a very balanced sound which I really liked and this one does very well with handling noise so you still need a shock mount for any microphone but I felt like you would run into fewer issues of picking up boom handling noise with this microphone versus the Audax and certainly versus the Octavia and finally while it wasn't actually made for recording dialogue it was really made for recording music as an overhead mic for drums or for other musical instruments is the rode NT v this has a cardioid polar pattern so it's not quite as focused but if you can use it in close it sounds really fantastic that's one of my favourite choices in the baby 220 dollar range and so I really like it so if I had to choose one in this category which would I choose for the overall sound I really really liked the Octavia and I like the fact that you can change out the capsules to hyper-cardioid cardioid omnidirectional it's great-sounding microphone but again just keep in mind you've got to invest in a good shockmount preferably something from Rycote or something in that price range so that's a significant investment so if you spent two hundred and twenty dollars on your microphone probably gonna have to spend at least a hundred dollars on your shock mount next we move into the professional category this is the $500 plus range of indoor boom microphones in this category the first one we're going to talk about is one of my favorites from the past this is the audio technica 84 to 53 B now when I say the past that just means that when I first invested in this microphone I used it almost exclusively because I do record mostly indoor dialogue doing corporate video and things of that nature and this one got a lot of use it's a great sounding mic it's a pleasing sort of balanced sound which sounds good on most voices great self noise performance better than any of those in the previous category that's where you're going to really start to see big improvements in terms of self noise is when you get up into this $500 plus category so that kind of is a guide perhaps if you're trying to figure out okay should I upgrade and you're saying well maybe should I upgrade from the Octavia to the AKG Blue Line or the road NT five you're not gonna see it necessarily a huge difference there but once you move up into this category I think you're gonna see a pretty substantial difference in terms of self noise this is a fantastic microphone in that price range in fact this is probably the least expensive one we're going to talk about in this price range that I feel like really qualifies as a professional-grade hyper-cardioid indoor boom microphone now it has a couple of things has both a high-pass filter anna has a -10 DB pad this one actually I think was probably designed for mostly recording instruments but I think it works beautifully on dialogue now it counts sound a little bit harsh on voices that have a lot of high frequency content so a lot of sibilants like when you say the letter S or C that kind of sizzling noise because this has a very balanced overall voicing it picks up all the different frequencies quite evenly it counts sound a little bit harsh on those voices but it's actually capturing what's there so anyway great sounding microphone if you're looking for something in about the $700 range this I think is a great choice next up we're going to talk about this Sennheiser MKH 50 now this microphone is a classic for indoor booming and it is part of the Sennheiser MKH line which means it is a RF bias microphone as well so we talked about those different technologies when we're talking about shotgun microphones this one fits in that same category so again if you're in high humidity situations this microphone will hold up well it's a super durable microphone it's been used on a ton of different movies and television shows so you've heard this microphone most likely before it's a it's a classic to me v the one thing that kind of characterizes this microphone is that it sounds aggressive to me it's something like you I think it's a great fit for like an action movie and things of that nature it can't sound a little bit too aggressive sometimes if you want a really smooth sound from my point of view but overall it's a great sound it has a very good focused polar pattern virtually no self noise and great microphones super durable great investment next Mike is the Sennheiser MKH 80 50 this is basically the new generation of the mkh 50 from my point of view they've done a couple things you can now actually replace the preamplifiers so you get a little bit more you get some options there you can get a preamplifier that also has I believe a high-pass filter on it but this is super tiny if you're gonna boom this on an end of a boom pole and you're gonna be booming all day long this one's a dream to use because it's so small and so light but it has a lot of the same characteristics the voicing is actually a little bit different than the original mkh 50 again I believe am cage 50 was designed in the analog recording day so it has kind of a little bit more of that high-frequency boost this microphone has a great sound to it too though a very very smooth warm sound it's not mid-range focuses it's probably actually there's a little bit of a cut in the mid-range I would guess very slight but enough that it sounds fantastic on most voices this is my go-to indoor boom microphone when I have the choice to use something a little bit more expensive obviously it's not going to fit everyone's budget I believe it ran about $1,200 when I got it don't know if the price is still the same now but it's a significant investment but when I do indoor booming this is almost always the microphone I reach for next up we have another classic in the location and production sound mixing world for film and video and that is the Shep's Colette CMC 641 it's a combination of the MK 41 capsule which is a super cardioid polar pattern which so is again a little bit tighter more focused than a standard cardioid but not so focused as a hyper-cardioid it sounds really really nicely in terms of its off axis sound and this is a microphone where the company ships is very focused on capturing a very flat frequency a very accurate sound and I think they've really accomplished that it's a great sounding microphone it can be a little bit harsh though if somebody has a harsh voice this is gonna record it harshly because it's a harsh voice but what it does very good at its capturing all the sound that's actually there very evenly and then in post you can do all sorts of EQ to really kind of fine-tune it and make it sound sweeter it has a pretty pricey microphone so it's definitely an investment at 1600 to 1700 dollars and a lot of again it gets kind of like a career microphone again if you buy this generally I haven't heard of a lot of people that were disappointed with his microphone these Shep's microphones tend to have a rough time when you get in really humid environments that's where the Sennheiser's are going to hold up a little bit better than some Heiser MK h microphones so that 8050 the 50 the 416 this one can't struggle a little bit and in fact it comes when you buy it in a kit it comes with a special little container you can put the capsule in if you are going to be moving into a humid environment and the idea is you leave it in that little container and it's an airtight container until things kind of equilibrate so for example if you're going outside by the beach you would leave this in that container until all the kind of water is condensed on it and it kind of gets up to temperature of where you're at you would take it out and put it on the microphone and generally you'll get good results that way but just something to keep in mind if you do shoot in those types of environments jungles rainforests beaches things of that nature now of these microphones in the pro grade indoor booming category which do I choose well I own the ones that I've talked about and my first choice is usually the Sennheiser MKH 8050 but of course I've got all of them so when I'm doing two or three person interviews I've got a variety of choices and I can kind of tune the microphone or choose the microphone for the timbre of the voice that I'm trying to mic so if someone has a really bright voice I might put this in Heiser mkh 8050 on them someone's got a little bit of a darker voice I might put these ships on them so again if I could only choose one I'd probably choose my mkh 8050 now here's a little bit of a bonus in the professional category there's a relatively new microphone actually set of microphones these are the rode TF fives it comes in a stereo pair stereo matched pair so they are voiced pretty much identically they actually test them at the factory to make sure that they are voiced the same and so these are actually made for stereo recording and specifically they were designed for recording music that's why I put them in a bonus category here they're not necessarily something you would choose first for dialogue although they sound quite good on dialogue as well maybe a little bit on the bright side so this can be really useful for recording stereo ambience as well so if you're trying to record the interior ambience or maybe an exterior ambience if you put it in a good wind protection these can be a great choice for that really like these microphones I actually use them recently for recording a guitar one on the kind of the base of the fretboard and the other one closer to the body of the guitar and was able to mix those quite nicely to a very nice effect so I got the kind of the very good articulation on the strings but also kind of the rich bass from the body of the guitar beautifully recorded with these microphones so the question I get a whole lot is which of these microphones should I buy and I think it really depends but there are a few things that I would suggest that you consider number one do not go into debt to buy one of these microphones you can make some really good recordings you want some fairly affordable ones so for example on that camera top shotgun microphone category that tax star doesn't have the greatest shot isn't the most durable thing in the world it's not the greatest microphone in the world but if you learn how to use it and use the right techniques you can actually get some pretty good sound out of it so that's the first thing don't go into debt to do to purchase one of these microphones however on the flip side don't throw all of your money into a camera body or into lenses when you don't have decent audio recording equipment you need good audio recording equipment people say you know 50 percent of the experience is sound well and we've also heard a million times people are more willing to put up with bad visuals as long as the sound is good but as soon as there's bad sound they tune out they've their suspension of disbelief is lost and they're pulled out of the story so on and so forth so definitely need to record quality sound and to do that you need the right tools the good news is is that with audio recording gear - especially microphones those will last you a whole lot longer than any camera body will and I think in a lot of cases they probably will last longer than lenses maybe maybe not depends on how well you take care of them but overall microphones are great investments so that's something to consider now as for upgrades there are these thresholds that we talked about so I think for example with the shotgun microphones there appears to be a quality audio quality threshold at around three hundred dollars so once you bump up into that three hundred dollar range you can get some significantly better audio and then there's another bump once you get into that $500 plus range so definitely something to consider there if you're talking about upgrading from one microphone in the $300 category in less than $500 category to another in that same category you're not necessarily going to have a massive improvement in overall sound quality so that may not be a worthwhile investment if that's the goal but if you're just trying to get a second microphone to record interviews or something of that nature then that makes sense likewise for the indoor boom microphones it feels like there's a pretty significant difference once you get to the $200 plus range and then another threshold where you'll see a significant improvement in audio quality when you get to the $500 plus range so for example that audio technica 84 to 53 be really really substantial improvement from the lower category in my experience so if you want to get the most value for the money make sure you're upgrading beyond those little thresholds that I just pointed out here so overall I hope that was helpful for you get out there and make some great sound if you've got any questions go ahead and leave those down below and if you've not already subscribed make sure you do that and we'll be sure to get you more great videos on how to improve your lighting and sound for video talk to you soon [Music]

Channel: Curtis Judd

Views: 186,388

Keywords: Microphone, mic, mike, boom mic, boom mike, boom microphone, audio, video, sound for video, audio for video, video mic, video microphone, shotgun, shotgun microphone, RODE, Sennheiser, Schoeps, Azden, DEITY, Sony, DPA, Audix, AKG, Audio Technica

Id: q7rfwCFjBDg

Length: 41min 3sec (2463 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 12 2020