Right now you're listening to me on the Sennheiser MKH 50, which is a condenser
microphone that I've been using as my main microphone on pretty much all
of my videos for the past two years.
This might be my all time favorite microphone, and I don't know of many
other tools that I've introduced into my workflow that have leveled up the quality
as intensely and immensely as the MKH 50.
The only downside to this microphone is that it is $1,200.
So while I think the microphone is worth its price, I also understand
not everyone, probably most people don't want to or shouldn't even
spend $1,200 on a microphone.
So what if I told you that now you're listening to me on a $250 microphone
that's positioned in the exact same place as the Sennheiser MKH 50.
And I think even though it sounds different, it also
sounds absolutely excellent.
This is one of the most underrated shotgun microphones that I've
ever used, and I feel bad that I haven't made this video before.
This is the Audio Technica AT897.
So now you're listening to me on the Audio Technica AT897,
which after 897 tries, I finally remembered the product name for it.
This microphone has an MSRP of $249, and it is a condenser shotgun microphone.
And I think it's really one of the underrated, just best overall values.
I've been using these microphones since 2012, so well over 10 years at this
point, and they're just incredibly solid.
When I was a high school Digital Media teacher, I set up several different
programs at different schools where we used a lot of these microphones.
I think I've ordered something like 20 or 25 of them over that period
of time that I was teaching, and they're just: one, being used by high
school students and not breaking.
So that's a good sign of reliability, but also delivering great results.
It's also just an incredibly versatile microphone and I
think just a really good value.
You do get this big box that comes with it, and you get kind of everything
you need, which is always nice.
You get the microphone itself, you do get this wind screen, which is
very useful and important to use, and it does help with plosives.
So Peter Piper pitched a podcast.
Peter Piper pitched a podcast.
Of course, the way I'm using the microphone right now, not really
how it's designed to be used, but I wanted you to see it on camera
and hear what it sounds like.
We'll test it out a lot later, don't worry.
But you also get a AA battery.
You get a microphone mount, a five eighths to three eighths adapter and these little
rings because the one thing I really don't like about Audio Technica shotgun mics is
they're just skinnier than other mics, so they don't fit in standard mic holders.
For example, the, the handle of my Sony FX3, it won't fit in here.
If you put these rubber rings around the microphone, then it
will fit into holders like this.
But it does come with its own proprietary, properly sized microphone holder.
Now I did mention that it comes with a AA battery.
This is a condenser microphone that requires power, and you
can do that one of two ways:
you can either use that AA battery, the microphone just unscrews and
the battery goes right in here.
There's no on or off switch or anything though.
Or you can run it off of phantom power.
I prefer to run it off of Phantom Power.
Like right now you're hearing it through the Rodecaster Pro II with no processing
and no effects, but yes, phantom power and my gain is at 35 decibels on the
Rodecaster Pro II to get this level.
If I add in a little bit of effects and processing now, that's
what it kind of sounds like.
It's sort of, it's a microphone that does work well when you add EQ and processing
to it, which is something you probably should be doing in your audio workflow.
But even if I take this off and just go back to the original sound,
I still think that this sounds pretty good, just out of the box.
It's a really great natural sounding microphone, but if you don't
have phantom power, most mixers do, but not every camera does.
So if you wanted to run this into a camera that does not have phantom
power, then you can just use a battery and you don't have to worry
about needing power from the camera.
The microphone has only one physical switch, which is a high pass
filter or a low roll-off filter.
So it will reduce some of those low frequencies, which is really good if
you're in an environment with lots of rumbling like wind or air conditioners,
or sometimes you're just recording someone with a really, really deep voice.
So this is the microphone, with this is the full microphone sound.
There's nothing cut off.
And if I flip that little switch now we have reduced some
of those low end frequencies.
I do have a couple fans on lights in here and I do have an air conditioner
going right now, so maybe some of that got reduced a little bit.
And we will be doing some more side-by-side comparisons and sound
comparisons in just a little bit.
I'm going to put that back with the full microphone sound
for the rest of this video.
I'm also going to put it back in the stand because you might've noticed it's
pretty susceptible to handling noise.
Now this is a really versatile microphone and I've used these in a lot of ways
over the past 10, 11 ish years that I've been working with them, including
like this, because the very first time that I put together a podcast
recording setup, it was actually based just around four of these microphones.
Running into an old mixer and then out into a Zoom H4n recorder.
And the reason I use these is just because they're what we had and we had no budget
for new equipment to set up the podcast.
And I think they sounded really good because we were in this big echoey
warehouse, non sound treated environment.
And because these microphones are so directional and they
were so close to the speakers, I thought they sounded really good.
In fact, a year later we were able to get a grant for better podcasting equipment.
And so of course I was like, "We're getting SM7B's and boom
arms, and all this stuff!"
And the SM7B's sounded so much worse because it, it wasn't the
best microphone for that situation.
We needed so much gain.
The space wasn't sound treated.
It was big, it was echoey and everything just sounded kind of bad through the SM7B.
The reason I tell you that story is because even though these are not
meant to be, you know, close up, handheld spoken word microphones.
They work pretty well that way, and it's a really, it's just a versatile microphone.
So especially if you're on a budget and you need a microphone that
can do more than one thing, this could be a really great option.
And again, the sound quality, I think this sounds really great, but let's
compare it to a more expensive option.
So here is my Sennheiser MKH 50.
This is my main microphone.
This microphone really is not made to be used close up like this.
So if I switch over to it, Hello?
Hello, hello.
This is me on the Sennheiser MKH 50.
A really lovely sounding microphone.
But I'm still kind of far away if I get close to it.
It's really a microphone that's designed to pick up sound from far away, and
it's also very susceptible to plosives.
So Peter Piper pitched a podcast.
That's usually not an issue because the microphone is far away and
there's, you're not hitting it with plosive air, but when you're close
to it, that could be a problem.
I definitely wouldn't recommend the MKH 50 for a close use application like this.
So we'll do some far away tests in just a second, but I want to talk about the
directionality and the sound quality.
So again, this is the Sennheiser MKH 50 a $1,200 microphone, and this is the
Audio Technica, AT897, A $249 microphone.
So in America, that's basically the sales tax of the MKH 50 in some places.
And in terms of directionality, they're both very directional.
I know they're not exactly the same thing.
This is a shotgun mic,
this is really more of a pencil condenser microphone.
But I'm making this video not for a Hollywood production studio.
Like if you are universal Pictures and you're watching this to figure out how to
run your audio, you need a lot more help.
For normal human beings who just want to get better audio in a
home or a small office type setup,
a lot of us just call these "shotgun microphones" or "boom microphones."
Any microphone that's on a boom suddenly becomes a boom microphone.
But I think for most people, when they think of that, they think of sort
of a longer microphone that's meant to pick up sound from a distance and
it's a bit more directional and reject sound that's not pointed directly at.
So without getting too audibly technical about the Audio Technica
here is some directionality.
If I talk directly into the microphone, this is what it sounds like.
And as I turn the microphone away, you can hear that my voice drops off
really quick behind the microphone.
It's hard to hear anything, and we come back around at the other side and now
pretty much from, what is this, like less than 45 degrees to dead
on to back over here, 30 degrees.
It's a pretty narrow pickup range in order for my voice to stand out the best.
Now the MKH 50 is also an incredibly directional microphone, so as
I turn this microphone away, my voice drops off pretty quick.
Almost to nothing as I'm behind the microphone.
And then we go all the way around and now my voice comes back.
And that's one of the things I really love about this microphone
is how directional it is.
Because even from a distance, It almost feels like it just zeroes in on the
source of the sound that you want.
And going back over here to the Audio Technica, it is also a
really well-built microphone.
It's entirely all metal.
Like I said, these have stood up to high school students using
and sometimes unintentionally or intentionally abusing them.
For years upon years upon years, and they just hold up really well.
So the Audio Technica AT897 is not the newest microphone.
It's not something that just came out and has all this crazy cutting edge tech.
It's just a solid, solid choice that has been around for a really long time.
But now while we're talking about how these microphones reject noise, I have
this very, very scientific device.
It is a white noise machine.
And this is great to have in a guest room or to take with
you on vacation, by the way.
But if I turn this on, It just makes white noise to help you sleep.
It's, it's really wonderful.
And let's just hear how this not only rejects my voice,
but also the white noise.
So right here we have a lot of white noise next to me, I think,
I bet if I turn on the noise gate on the Rodecaster, it might
start going a little crazy here.
Trying to cut.
Out the white noise.
So in theory, let's put this over here on my desk.
It's about an arm's length away.
Now it's running fully and it's, you know, not in the pickup
pattern of the microphone, but that's what it sounds like.
If there was a source of white noise in the room with me, and same
thing with the Audio Technica AT897.
This is what it sounds like with that source of white noise in the room
with me, but not in the directional pickup pattern of the microphone.
So now that we've looked at these two microphones, as I mentioned before,
they are not meant to be used this way.
This is not their intended use.
If it works, it works right?
But they are not designed to be held really close or used as like,
you know, interview microphones.
They are meant to be positioned on a boom pole, out of frame,
away from the source of the sound.
So let's do that right now.
And now you're listening to me on the Sennheiser MKH 50 boomed overhead
normally where I have it positioned in most of my videos.
So the audio for most of my videos over the past two
years has basically been this.
It's an iFootage boom arm that's attached directly to my tripod head, so that way
the microphone is just about an arm's length away, about maybe a meter away from
me, and this is what that sounds like.
You can definitely hear more of the room tone than you could
when it was right next to me.
And then oftentimes what I'll do in Final Cut Pro is add in just
a little bit of voice isolation.
So this is without any of that.
And now this is what it sounds like after I usually add in a
little bit of voice isolation.
Again, there's no effects and no processing happening
in the Rodecaster Pro II.
This is all Final Cut.
And back to just the raw audio of the microphone.
The "rawdio" of the microphone.
This is the Sennheiser MKH 50 a $1,200 microphone mounted out of
frame, about one meter away, and this is now the Audio Technica AT897, a
$250 microphone mounted on the same, mount, the same distance away from me.
This is what that sounds like.
Again, with no processing, no eq, but if I add in a little voice isolation in Final
Cut Pro,, this is what that sounds like.
So again, when you're recording audio with a microphone, keeping in mind
that you probably might need to add a little bit of EQ and things like voice
isolation, just to make it pop in the perfect way is something to be aware of.
So this is the Audio Technica 8-9....
This is the Audio Technica microphone now with nothing, no voice isolation.
This is just how it sounds directly into the road.
Caster Pro two, and again, I am about one meter away, but if I take off
my headphones and I awkwardly move over here, now I'm probably a good,
I don't know, two or three meters ish away is about as far as I can get.
This is what it sounds like.
This is way too far, but this is what that sounds like, I guess.
We could try adding some voice isolation.
So this is what the Audio Technica sounds like from way too far away,
adding in some voice isolation.
And this is now what the Sennheiser MKH 50 sounds like from way too
far away with no voice isolation.
This is what it sounds like when I add in voice isolation to the Sennheiser.
Why am I?
There's plenty of room for me to stand up.
I guess I'm trying to angle my voice over here.
There's, this is what the MKH 50 sounds like with voice
isolation in Final Cut Pro.
Take off the voice isolation, come back over here and sit down like normal.
A little closer to the microphone.
This is the MKH 50, and this is the Audio Technica, the Audio Technica mic
without any voice isolation, just running directly into the Rodecaster Pro II.
Now another thing you might notice is because these microphones are further
away from me, there are no issues with plosives on either of them.
The Audio Technica, no explosive problems and the Sennheiser no plosive
problems because I'm so far away from them that it's not an issue
and that's how the microphones are intended to be used is from a distance.
So even though up close, they're very susceptible to plosives.
Far away they are not.
And back to the Audio Technica AT897.
Now as you can see, these microphones do have very different sound qualities.
They don't sound exactly the same, but neither one is better or worse.
They're just different.
So which one you prefer is just a matter of personal preference.
And again, you can EQ mics to suit different needs.
The thing about microphones and the same goes with camera reviews.
We'll go back to the Sennheiser now.
Is that sometimes what can happen is you can compare things and go, look, this
really cheap version can get the same quality as this really expensive version.
And that can be true, but a big part of that is how easy
it is to get that quality.
And one thing with the Sennheiser MKH 50 is since I started using it, it has become
so much easier to get high quality audio in my videos than it ever was before.
And normally I just run it into this audio handle of the Sony FX3, so I don't
even have to sync the audio or anything.
It's a very, very easy workflow.
Now over here on the Audio Technica microphone, A big problem sometimes when
you use the really cheap version of things is that even though the end result can be
fine, the road to get there, the "Rode"
to get there is a nightmare and it's like so much work and
it's such a clunky workflow.
That is not the case with the Audio Technica AT897, and that's why I
feel so bad that I just kind of took it for granted and totally forgot
about it as an option, which is why I really wanted to make this video,
to just point out that this is a really awesome, really underrated
option if you're looking for a good, solid, versatile shotgun microphone.
And while a microphone like the Sennheiser MKH 50 is has been kind of one of the most
revolutionary tools that I've introduced into my workflow ever, and I think that
it is worth every penny you pay for it.
It's also a lot of, that's a lot of pennies and maybe, maybe not everybody
wants to spend that on a microphone.
The Audio Technica AT897, that super catchy name is just a
really super solid choice.
And speaking of things that are super solid, thank you to everyone who helps
support my channel through Patreon and YouTube Channel Memberships.
The perks are the same between them, so if you'd like to support the channel,
whatever's easiest, whatever you prefer, if it's YouTube or if it's Patreon.
You get the same perks.
Either way it is GREATLY appreciated and helps me to do more of what I love to do.
And if you're interested in that Sennheiser MKH 50, check out my full
review along with the comparison of the MKH 50 versus the Sennheiser MKH
416, another legendary microphone.