Which RODE Mic Is The Best? | On-Camera Mic Comparison

not too long ago I reviewed the rode video micro 2 which is a fantastic little mic and in that video I kind of compared it to the original video micro talk about some of the design changes and did some audio examples and comparisons there so if that interests you I highly encourage you to check that video out I've got a lot of feedback in that video wanting to compare that microphone to the rode videomic go too which I thought was a pretty good idea so went to b h and um it was actually a few bucks off so went out and bought one of those to kind of compare to the video micro two and well I already had the videomic ntg laying around so figured I'd kind of throw that in the mix and kind of compare these three microphones and make a sort of rode videomic series on board shotgun microphone comparison video If you will so if that interests you then stick around and uh we'll kind of explore some of the similarities and differences and do some sound comparisons between all three of these mics and I'll leave chapter markers and stuff below so you can skip to whatever part that you want to that said let's go ahead and jump into the first thing and that is price so the rode video micro 2 comes in at 79 us the video mic go 2 at 99 us and the videomic NDG at 249 us but recently I've been seeing the video my go-to in the videomic ntg kind of go lower in price so that's something to consider prices always fluctuate so just be sure to check all the links in the description to get the most up-to-date pricing so with those prices what do you actually get with these microphones well with the video micro 2 you get a windscreen a furry windshield the ws12 a TRS cable a trrs cable and a shock mount the video might go to on the other hand comes with a windscreen a TRS cable and a shock mount but it does not come with the ws12 for a windscreen that comes with the rode video micro 2. as for the videomic ntg it comes with a shock mount windscreen a USB type-c two USB type c cable a USB type c to lightning cable and a three and a half mil to three and a half mil cable to be able to connect to your camera the other thing is it does not ship with with a furry windscreen so if you wanted to get a furry windscreen that's kind of like the dead cat thingy then you're gonna have to purchase that separately which also adds to the investment of the overall mic now as for design and build of these mics one thing that they all have in common is this annular tube design not only is it functional but it really helps with directionality and this design kind of comes from the their ntg5 which is more higher end microphone so they all kind of look similar they look really cool but they are all very functional now if you look at the very front of these microphones if I were to show it this way they look pretty much identical in diameter and actually if you look at Rhodes website the video might go to in the ntg say that they are 22 millimeters in diameter and the video micro tube is 21.6 millimeters in diameter so for all intents and purposes they are pretty much the same in diameter but the biggest difference you're going to find is in the length of these microphones all right real quick I want to talk about some of the features with these microphones don't worry we're going to get into the comparisons here in a second but I want to talk about some of the features that really stand out to me starting with the rode video micro 2. first of all it is the most simplistic design of the three it only has this three and a half mil output here so no other things you have to worry about it takes plug-in power meaning there's no battery that's in here that you have to charge or worry about dying out in the future means it's always going to be able to uh to run no matter what so it's super cool there the other great thing is it's the most affordable it's the smallest and the lightest microphone of the bunch and lastly it includes the furry windscreen when you purchase the mic which with the other two microphones you actually have to purchase the windscreen separately which is kind of a bummer now what the video might go to on the other hand it's just a little bit heavier and a little bit longer but the benefit here is you have a USB type-c port on the side in addition to the three and a half mil output here now the cool thing about this is you can actually plug this up to your computer and use this as a USB microphone for for your computer and then you can kind of use this as a direct monitoring source so you can plug headphones into this to be able to monitor what you're hearing and when you open up the rode Central app you can unlock more features with this microphone such as a high pass filter input gain and all that kind of stuff the only problem is there that you can't actually save those settings to the microphone so you can only access the settings when you're actually using it with the computer and lastly is the videomic ntg as you can see here or maybe from the b-rolls because it's all scuffed up and scratched it's because I've had it for a couple years and I've put this thing to a lot of use over the years and I've taken this thing all over through the mountains and everything and it has held up really really really good so it's a little bit longer than the other microphones and a bit heavier than the other two microphones but with that added weight in there you have actually have an internal battery and that helps kind of power it to kind of get more output out of it which is really nice and then you have things like this manual gain control knob on the back you have a high pass filter a pad a high frequency boost and you also have this little safety Channel which is really cool so basically what that means is when you send this into your camera if you have that safety channel on you're going to have a track and I can't remember exactly how many decibels lower the safety track is but that means if you have some you know really loud noise or something like that you actually have that safety track to pull from to be able to make sure that you don't have clipped audio or something like that so it's really cool that it has all these features built in and a lot of those things that you saw on the rode Central app that the video might go to can access the videomic NDG kind of has those settings built under the microphone so no matter if you're plugged into a computer or your camera or whatever the case may be you have all those neat features built in and the last thing in my opinion is I think the videomic ntg is the best sounding mic out of all these however it is also the most expensive but that said let's go ahead jump into some comparisons listening to these three different microphones so you can make the Judgment call for yourself and what you think sounds the best okay real quick we'll do an indoor test kind of comparing these three microphones and they will be mounted on the a7s Mark III and you can see it's kind of about arm's length away from me as I am talking and now this would be a good time to talk about the sponsor of today's video which is Cuts clothing I'm super excited I just signed on with them as an ambassador for 2023 super pumped really dig their clothes and uh couldn't be happier about partnering with cuts now you may be wondering why I'm partnering with a clothing brand on a YouTube channel that is predominantly about filmmaking well the answer is simple number one I really like the clothes I really do their clothes but number two I think they're the perfect clothes to wear on set not only do they look professional but they're also really comfortable and I like it because they don't have a ton of branding all over the clothes so you kind of just blend into the set and you don't like stand out the last thing you want to do is you know stand out with flashing shirts and clothes and everything on set so it's really comfortable like this black shirt that I've got on right here I really like and it's got this nice kind of stretchier material but also like the way that it's cut no pun intended but it kind of is longer in the front and in the back and that's really good for you know if you're lifting up c-stand arms or something like that you're not gonna reveal uh any part of your body that you nobody else on set may want to see so that's awesome and then they just came out with these new pants that are super comfortable and um definitely going to wear these on set I just got these in and uh yeah so pretty stoked on Cuts clothing you'll hear a little bit more about them here in the coming months but um pretty stoked so far um that's pretty much it on Cuts clothing but how do you think the video might go to sounds in my opinion I think they found sound pretty similar to the rode video micro 2. all right now and lastly we got the videomic ntg here on the a7s Mark III and I've got the gain control knob cranked all the way up to Max so that I could bring the preamps on the camera down so previously I was at a setting of 10 gain volume on the a7s3 and now I've changed it down to three if you can see here that's no yeah it's too blurry you can't even see that so um now I'm at level three which is nice because it takes the the preamp noise of the camera down so now you can get an idea of how this sounds now in my opinion I personally think the ntg sounds the best out of the three but you also pay for that audio quality with the price tag being much higher than the video micro 2. so you kind of get an idea there like I said I think it sounds much richer and more full-bodied sounds like I'm describing a wine now so it's got hints of blueberry and Chestnut so um it's just a delicious sounding mic but all right in all seriousness um let's go outside let's talk about uh some of the handling noise when I talk about let's just show you the the handling noise of the shock mount see how well they do get the windscreens on and and we'll just kind of do some vloggy stuff and kind of get some off-axis rejection stuff and then after that we'll kind of talk about what I think about these different microphones and uh what I would recommend to anyone looking at these three microphones so that said let's head outside foreign that's super sketchy anyways oh oh there's one right there dang that's intense all right I am on the road video micro two right now I've boosted the gain in the camera back up to 10. so we can get kind of get good levels here so um yeah just kind of walking and vlogging I don't really know what to talk about during this part other than I think the rode video micro 2 sounds really good now there is some kind of headwind on me so I guess some Tailwind here on the uh on the road of video micro two so maybe get an idea of how that windscreen sounds so can I get an idea of that here's some handling noise you're kind of hearing the little Peak design straps here's some handling noise all right here now with the video might go to the seems like the wind kind of picked up a little bit so you can get an idea sorry I don't have any like City cars and all that kind of stuff but um in the suburbs so this is what you get but I'm not on a really cool open space next to some birds that with the AVM fluid apparently so that's depressing but again we got this wind kind of blowing in my face so you kind of get an idea of how the windscreen the furry windscreen is working now when I did my video micro 2 review I had the windscreen on but I realized that when I actually looked at it it wasn't actually pulled back all the way so I'm wondering if that was I had some wind noise in that video and I'm wondering if for some reason I didn't pull it all the way back and that's what was going on with uh the the wind noise and that so there's that I don't know if you can see but it's right over there the bird flu that's super intense anyways uh that's really sad but um now we got the video mic go-to on here like I said now here's some kind of like handling noise again [Music] some of those clicks were the little Peak design straps and stuff I purposely did not take those off because well this is how I would use this camera and a vlogging setup I always keep this little Peak design straps on here no matter what and I am super super duper out of breath right now okay now I'm on the videomic ntg so you can get an idea how this sounds outside got some of that breeze my head's probably blocking it so we'll turn this way so you get an idea I don't know how this is going to sound um I'm not trying to sell you one can or one microphone over the other all I'm trying to do is show you how it really works in the real world and you can kind of make the decision for yourself what sounds the best and all that good stuff so this is like I said the videomic ntg there's some handling noise there you go all right now two other tests I want to do real quick number one I want to do a distance test and figure out how to do this somewhat scientifically and then an off-axis rejection test so you can get an idea of how that sounds and the reason why I want to do a distance test is I have a theory that the longer the microphone the better that it's going to sound further out so let's put that to test all right videomic ntg about arm's length away 16 millimeter on the A7 S3 to kind of give you some reference points for where we're at all right we're on the video mic go 2 now and about arm's length away so you can kind of get an idea if this sounds should sound pretty similar to the vlogging style uh walking around that we're doing and then video micro 2 arms length away get an idea how that sounds again should sound pretty similar to the video might go too so let's move 10 feet away ish this is how the video micro 2 sounds my guess is it doesn't sound quite as good as the video might go to but it might sound pretty similar who knows I haven't heard it yet I'm not talking any louder or any different this is just kind of normally how I feel like I should talk to a camera that's 10 feet away from me don't normally do this so um I feel about as awkward as you watching this right now probably wouldn't want to be any further away from uh my audio Source or dialogue whatever I'm trying to capture than this because uh otherwise it's going to start blending in okay now for some off access projection goodness and the only way I could seem to find a way to do this consistently out here is to play song this is on the music bed playlist I am subscribed hopefully this is on the subscription roster otherwise probably won't put this part in the video but now we are on the rode video micro two so let's see how this sounds [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] what about the video might go to let's hear [Music] like the song all right let me know in the comments which one you thought was best all right so my final thoughts on these microphones and kind of where I think they lie and who I think they should be for or not who they think they should be for I'm not gonna go tell someone what to do with their money but uh if it were me and how I would use these and what considerations I would make maybe that's a better way of putting it so uh if absolute sound quality and audio quality and features are important to you then I think the videomic ntg is the way to go it definitely has the best audio quality and there are some like safety features in there that just kind of make it a more versatile mic for kind of more serious filmmaking and you could even use it to like you know boom overhead for interviews and stuff like that so like you know working on like run and Gun mini docks and and all that kind of stuff and I've used this my quite a bit for mini docs and whatnot so I think for that kind of thing the video mic ntg is really where it's at the only consideration and really honestly with this mic well there's two number one the size and the other thing is you got to remember to to charge the battery up there has been uh one or two times where the microphone was dead and I couldn't use it luckily I had a backup microphone with me so that is one consideration to think about what the ntg now between the video micro and the video might go too honestly unless you need to use your microphone in your computer which I never do if I'm on a zoom call I'm just going to wear like air pods or something like that with my Mac so unless you need the the ability to plug into your computer honestly I would say go with the video micro too I think it's a better value you get the windscreen included with it so it's not an additional investment like you have what the video might go too and honestly I think they sound pretty similar and even if you look at like the frequency response and the polar pattern charts and everything on the website on Rhodes website they are basically identical I couldn't tell any difference between the two charts unless they like accidentally copied the chart from the video might go to into the video micro to a white paper or whatever so what that's telling me is they're pretty much identically identical mics and they sound almost exactly the same and in fact I did a quick little test on like loudness just to get an idea of if One mic was louder than the other one the case may be and what I found was the video micro 2 was actually just a little bit more sensitive a little bit louder than the video might go to not crazy amount different not like the videomic ntg loud difference or the difference of the original video micro versus the micro two but I was pretty surprised to see that the smaller shorter less expensive mic was a little bit more sensitive and if you go on their spec sheet and you look at the ohm impedance and thing I think that has to do with it but the ohm impedance is just a little bit just slightly higher on the video micro too than the video might go to so with all those considerations if you're looking for like just a vlog mic that you can just kind of go plug and play and everything honestly I think the video micro 2 is a better buy than that a video might go to I think they're both good microphones but honestly I don't see a big difference in sound quality and a good off-axis rejection test right now with the videomic MTG better dude keep us safe for whatever you're doing up there all right where was I yeah okay so the micro two honestly I think it's a better buy the only reason why I would maybe go for the video might go to is if you needed to plug it into your computer anyways I love all these microphones I think they're really good but that's just kind of what I think um so uh how's it going are you recording yourself yeah for YouTube well good luck thanks I need it I'm terrible at this all right well the guys thank you so much for watching this video I hope you have a fantastic day I hope this was helpful um or entertaining or something this is videos all over the place but anyways thanks so much for watching and I hope to see you in the next video peace [Music]

Channel: Tyler Edwards

Views: 20,064

Keywords: rode, rode mic, videomirco ii vs videomic go ii, rode videomicro ii, videomicro ii vs videomic ntg

Id: ojJCcC1EZqs

Length: 20min 42sec (1242 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 19 2023