(super duper chill groovy music) - Look, I found a bunch of fuzzy
animal friends in the park. (thompidy thomp angry dancy music) What is up people, Dunna here. And today, we're gonna be taking a look at what I like to call mini mics. And all of the options that
we're gonna be looking at today are under $100, so they
won't break the bank either. If you're someone who's just
starting out with YouTube, vlogging, TikTok,
whatever it happens to be, you're gonna wanna stick
around and check these out. Now, while there are a lot
of options in this category, I have five to show you today. Some of them have been
around for a little bit and some of them are newer. We've got the classic Rode VideoMicro, which is a favorite for a lot of people. We've got the brand new Deity D4 Mini. From Sennheiser, we've got the MKE 200. Also from Deity, we've got the D4 Duo. And finally, from a company I've never talked about on my channel before, from Movo, we've got the double mic. So, here's what we're
gonna do in this video. First of all, we're gonna
talk about this type of mic and why you might wanna use it. Then I'm gonna go over the functions and features of each of these microphones, because they're all just
a little bit different. Of course, we'll get to some
audio quality comparison so you can hear how these
microphones perform. And closer to the end, I'll give you my
recommendation on what I think might be a great choice for you if you're looking for a mic like this. And at any point, if you
want more information, there will be links to all these mics down in the description. And I mean, if you're
heading down there anyway, you might as well just like, you know, tap that little like button. (jazz upbeat music) Okay, so first things first, let's talk about mini mics as a whole, some of the reasons you
might want to get them, and some of the drawbacks of
using a microphone like this. Of course, as the name
that I've assigned them suggests they are small. If you're someone who does a
lot of traveling or hiking, or anything where you need to consider the size and weight of the equipment that you're bringing with you, then a mic like this might be an option. Another big factor, especially for people who are just getting started out and starting to buy gear is the price. Like I mentioned before, all of these microphones are under $100. So, if you're looking at these options, you're not necessarily
gonna have to break the bank to get decent quality audio. And the third factor
that I think really sets these microphones apart
from the other microphones that you might be looking
at for on-camera use, is the fact that they have no battery. No rechargeable battery,
no AAA, no AA, no nothing. They're just powered based
off of whatever your camera or phone can supply to them. But it's not all rainbows
and lollipops here, there is one major drawback that I've noticed from using
smaller microphones like this, and that is they can never
quite get them to sound as good as the larger microphones. And part of that goes
back to the battery thing, because if you put
power into a microphone, you can put more electronics
into it and they can do more with the quality that way. But I think also just the size is a factor in what they can do as
far as kind of tweaking the little things about the
audio quality coming out. That being said for most of the purposes that you would be using one
of these microphones for, they do sound pretty darn good. (jazz upbeat music) All right, let's talk
about some of the features and differences between
all of these microphones. Starting off with the Rode VideoMicro. It's $60, there's a $70 version that comes with an extra
cable that works with mobile, it's got its own little
Rycote shock mount, it comes with the windscreen,
and that's pretty much it. I've had this one for
a couple of years now and it served me great when I needed it. Couple of little notes,
the Rycote shock mount does start to sag a little bit, but if you take the
cable and you plug it in to these little kind of crevices
in the shock mount itself, then it will stay upright
a little bit better. So, if you have this microphone and you're struggling with that, there's already kind of
a fixed built into it. The other thing is that the windscreen is a little bit tough to work with. If you just kind of slip it
on, it's not actually on, you have to like pull it until it's over a bit of a groove there,
and now it's on tight. And then the only other thing is that the cable comes out the back. So, if you have it on top of your camera and you wanna put your
eye up to the viewfinder, that might hit you in the head. Next on the list, we've got the brand new
Deity V-Mic D4 Mini. It comes in at $50 and it already comes with the regular cable as
well as the mobile cable. It is very, very similar
to the VideoMicro, but it is a little bit smaller. The windscreen is slightly
smaller that comes with it. And it's got an extra input on here so you could actually input, let's say a lav mic or another microphone, which makes this a little
bit more interesting. What it does is, it splits
the left and right channel so that you can have two inputs. So, let's say you wanted to
talk from behind the camera, you could actually attach
another microphone to this or like I said, a lav mic. And then you don't have to worry about not being able to be heard
while you're showing something on camera and talking about it. I also noticed that getting
the windscreen on and off is a little bit more secure
feeling than it is on the Rode. Next on the list, we've
got the Sennheiser MKE 200. And if you've been watching my channel, you'll know that I talked
about its bigger sibling, the MKE 400 recently. But this is a much simpler microphone, but it's also one of the smallest and it's got some pretty
cool stuff going on. For example, inside here, you've got your shock mount built in as well as some wind protection. Then it also comes with
extra wind protection too. The cable goes in underneath
the front of the microphone where it's not taking up any extra space and it actually screws in too, so that you're not worried about it accidentally pulling out. Something to keep in mind is that the windscreen is really
annoying to get on and off. I just mostly leave it on, because it doesn't take up
a whole lot of extra room, like some of the other windscreens do. And this microphone also
comes with a carrying pouch as well as an extra cable for mobile. Going back into the world of Deity, we've got the V-Mic D4 Duo. And this microphone is really interesting because it's actually two microphones. One on the front and one on the back. This microphone comes in at $90, it does come with the windscreen as well. It's also got an extra input on the side that overrides the back microphone. So again, you can do that thing
where you plug in a lav mic or an extra microphone if you want. On the top of the microphone, there's a switch to allow you to choose just the front microphone or
the front and back microphone. And the way that that
works is, if you choose just the front microphone, it will go into the
left and right channels, making it feel like it's
coming up the middle. And then if you choose the
front and back microphones, it's gonna split those into
the left and right channels. And then in your post-processing software, you can split them apart and
do whatever you want with them. I have a whole video about this. If you wanna check it out up here, it's got a Rycote shock mount
and it comes with windscreens, which are not my favorite windscreens. They're a little bit difficult to get on, similar to the way that
the Rode VideoMicro is. And I have noticed myself
having some problem with wind with these, but we'll test that out a
little bit later as well. And finally, the last one on our list is the Movo DoubleMic. This one was really interesting to me. I've never actually used
a Movo microphone before, but I use Movo windscreens on
my Deity and Rode microphones. This microphone comes in at $60. And when I first got it, I thought, okay, this is going to be very
similar to the Deity D4 Duo but there are some differences. First and foremost, as you can see, it does come with windscreens. It also comes with little
like foamy windscreens that you can put on it, but I
try not to use those if I can. I find that these ones work better. Also, little thumb hat. Like the Deity D4 Duo, this has
a front and rear microphone. The cable is permanently
attached, which is interesting. I'm still trying to figure out
whether I like that or not. I don't often disconnect the cables, but I think I like having the option. But one thing that's really interesting, it only ships obviously
with the one cable, but there's a switch on
top of the microphone that allows you to switch it between mobile mode or DSLR camera mode. So, without having to have
an extra cable lying around, which I honestly just like
lose those mobile cables most of the time, you could
switch between the two modes without having to switch the cable. There is also a headphone output, which is kind of nice,
because if you have a camera that doesn't have a headphone output, you can actually monitor your audio before it gets to the camera. And on the top of the microphone, we've got a three-way switch. So, you can change it between
just the front microphone, just the rear microphone, or both. Now, the big difference between this one and the Deity D4 Duo, when you do switch it to front and rear, it's not splitting
between the two channels. It's not going between left and right. It's summing both the
front and rear microphone onto both channels, which
I think is a big mistake. Now, we'll hear the audio samples later and I'll try and describe
why I think it's a mistake. But the biggest thing is the fact that you don't have control
over each microphone separately. When you sum them together like that, you're always dealing with both. The Movo DoubleMic also comes with this little hard carrying
case, which is kind of cool, but it doesn't actually fit the microphone if the microphone is all built up. The other thing that I'm interested in is to see how these windscreens perform, because they're a lot smaller
than any of the other ones on the other microphones. And it seems like the
wind is going to oblige for my tests today. All right, let's do some
audio quality tests. I'm gonna do them all like this in the hot shoe of the camera. Kind of in a vlogging situation
about an arm's length away. I think that's just the most practical way to test all of these microphones, since that's the way that
you're going to be using them. Because some of the microphones
have different features, I'll be testing them slightly differently. And something that I've
never really done before is I'm going to show you
unprocessed and processed versions of the different microphones. And I'm gonna do that
by running it through the new ERA 6 bundle from accusonus. They've added a lot of things
to the newest version of it, with like an audio clean-up
assistant, a deep breather. But what we're gonna be doing today is I'm just gonna be throwing
an automatic EQ on it. So, it's gonna automatically
analyze the audio and then EQ it, so you can
hear what it might sound like after you process it. If you wanna check out the ERA 6 bundle, there's a link in the description for you. All right, let's get to the test. ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ I really, really,
really wanna zigazag ah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ I really, really,
really wanna zigazag ah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ I really, really,
really wanna zigazag ah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ I really, really,
really want a zigazag ah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ I really, really,
really wanna zigazag ah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ I really, really,
really wanna zigazag ah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ I really, really,
really wanna zigazag ah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ I really, really,
really wanna zigazag ah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ I really, really,
really wanna zigazag ah ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ ♪ Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want ♪ Now, that we've heard the tests and we know what they sound like, I'm gonna let you know
kind of what my conclusions are as well as my other findings in just kind of using these microphones and give you what I think
is my recommendation if you're looking for a mini mic. First off, in audio quality, I thought the Rode VideoMicro
and the Deity D4 Mini sounded pretty darn close. The Rode VideoMicro was
a little bit brighter, but they both did a great job. I did notice that the
Rode let in a little bit less sound from the back of the microphone than the Deity did, but that's gonna come
back in a second here. The D4 duo sounded great
on both microphones. It was a little bit brighter
than the D4 mini again. And even when I was just
using the front microphone, I noticed that I was
getting a little bit more of the sound coming from
around the mic as well. So, it's maybe a little
bit less directional than the d4 mini. And I did notice that the
windscreens on the D4 duo didn't quite stand up as
well as the bigger one that you see on things like the D4 mini. The Sennheiser sounded pretty thin. And unfortunately, it was
probably my least favorite in the audio quality department. And the Movo DoubleMic was unfortunately kind of full of problems. The volume of the two
microphones was way different. So, you'd have to constantly be changing what your volume was on
the back of your camera. And then of course, when you put it into
that front and rear mode, it's sums them together. And depending on your situation, you're gonna get all sorts of
different phasing problems. What that means is that if you're speaking into the front of the mic, your voice might be bouncing
off the wall behind it and hitting that back microphone and they kind of end up
canceling each other out. So, depending on the
situation that you're in, your sound is constantly changing. I did try the double mic in a
couple of different situations in that front and rear mode, and it was just a real
problem to work with. So, which one do I recommend? Well, I think we can get
rid of the Movo DoubleMic and the Sennheiser based on the fact that the Movo has got a bunch of problems, the Sennheiser, I just really didn't think sounded that good, like it's
bigger sibling, the 400. The d4 duo does pretty good, especially if you're someone who talks into the back of the camera a lot. You just wanna be careful of wind when you're using the D4
duo, as well as, like I said, it kind of seemed to capture a little bit more of the sound around
the microphone as well. So, then we were down to two
and my top choice of the budge is the Deity D4 Mini. At $50 with that extra
input if you want it. It sounds great. It's a little bit smaller
than the Rode VideoMicro. And earlier I said that
the Rode VideoMicro blocked out better from
the back of the microphone, I actually found that to
be a bit of an advantage for the Deity D4 Mini, because you could talk into
the back of the microphone if you were in a pinch
and it would still work if something really quickly happened and you needed to be talking
into the back of the camera while you were showing what
was going on in front of you, it did actually work and
it sounded pretty decent. It is still ideal, of course, to plug something into that extra input or turn the microphone around if you can. But I did find it directional enough while still allowing you to talk into the back of the microphone
if you were in a pinch. I know that's kind of
a weird thing to say, but it worked out really well
for me in a practical sense. So, those are my thoughts, but as always, I wanna hear what you think, so make sure to leave
a comment down below. There are links to all the
mics down in the description if you wanna check them out more. And on your way down there,
make sure to hit that like, and subscribe button. Hit the bell notification, so you don't miss out on
future reviews and tutorials. Thank you so much for watching
and I'll see you next time. Definitely. What do I wanna say at the end? Figure out what you wanna
say and then say it. (jazz upbeat music)
