Earlier today, I uploaded a video on the Deity
V-Mic D3 Pro, and I stand by most of everything
that I said in that video except for one thing.
I didn't actually record the video with the Deity
V-Mic D3 Pro even though I said I did.
Turns out I was using the built-in mic on the GH5.
So I'm gonna use this video to explain how that happened,
and hopefully warn users of the same configuration that
I'm using how to prevent that kind of thing from happening,
because I was completely surprised by it.
Let's get Undone.
[offbeat music] ♪ Gerald Undone ♪
♪ He's crazy ♪
What is happening, everybody? I'm Gerald Undone,
and today's video is gonna be pretty informal.
I'm not gonna do much editing because I just want
to get this stream of consciousness out there.
OK. I am positive that this video right now
is being recorded using the Deity V-Mic D3 Pro.
So if you saw the previous video-- which I recommend
that you do, because I'm not gonna repeat everything
that I said in that video-- because the value stuff,
the way that I think it places well and is a great mic,
the features that I like, a couple of the quirks
that I wasn't so positive on, I stand by all of those things,
and I think for the most part that video is correct.
It's just that the sound sample I was providing
throughout the video wasn't. And I think to better
understand that a little bit, you kind of have to
understand how at least I go about making a review.
I use the microphone and I test it, and I test it in
different situations, and then when I go to record the video,
I've already made my conclusions.
And so I'm just basically just saying my conclusions to you.
And I tried to record my conclusions
using the Deity V-Mic D3 Pro,
but that wasn't really part of the test,
and so I didn't find out until afterwards
when I was, you know, editing and I posted the video.
And when I was editing, I thought, “hmm, that sounds
a little bit more distant than I thought it should,
but maybe I just had it set up in a weird way.”
And this room is quite bad for shotgun mics in general,
because the way that shotgun mics kind of hone in
on a sound, if you have some kind of
weird standing wave or a boom, the shotgun mic can actually,
like, focus in on the boom and make it worse.
So I thought that's probably just what happened.
But I did feel it sounded a bit distant,
and then I was finally able to figure out what happened.
And to do that I had to disassemble my whole system.
So let's start off by explaining exactly
what the recording setup was for the video,
and how that was different, obviously, from my testing,
or else I would have noticed this earlier.
So I've got the GH5 here right now. And you'll also notice,
by the way, I have my HDMI info display up on the screen,
because that's gonna become important
later on in the video. I've got the GH5,
that's what's recording this right now.
And I'm recording it on the Atomos Ninja V,
and I'm using the HDMI info display out
so that you can see that information,
and I've got the Deity V-Mic D3 Pro
plugged directly into the GH5,
and then the audio from that is being put out
through the HDMI, and it's all being recorded in the Atomos.
Now, what happened was-- and this is something
you guys need to be aware of if you plan on using
this type of combination. Many hybrid cameras--
I tested this on the GH5, on the G9, on the a7 III--
they have this thing where when the recording
is being done to the SD card,
you can't hot-swap the microphone.
So if the camera’s in Standby Mode-- which this one
is right now, because I'm not recording on the GH5,
I'm recording with the Atomos-- so if you look up here,
you don't see that red blinking light.
That means this is in Standby Mode.
If I unplug the microphone, which I'm gonna do right now,
you're gonna see that-- where is it-- down here. You see that
little microphone symbol right there above the audio levels?
That means an external mic is plugged in
and you're getting those levels from the external mic.
Now look what happens when I unplug the external mic.
[muffled, tinny] See how it went away?
And now if I plug it back in...
[normally] See how the little--
see how the little microphone symbol came back?
You can hot-swap like that as long as you're in
Standby Mode, but as soon as you start to record,
and the timer on the SD card starts to tick down, you can't.
Now, to demonstrate that, I'm gonna have to stop
this recording and then start the recording
by pressing the “record” button on the GH5.
Now, the reason why this even came into be a problem
is because recently when I did those HDMI settings videos
and I went over all the quirks, I was showing how you can
use the devices to trigger the Atomos Ninja
if you want to just, like, press the “record” button
and then the Atomos also starts to record.
But this does something peculiar on the GH5.
It also makes the GH5 “record.”
It's not really recording,
because you can even see that the time,
which is located down over here on the little--
you can see how many minutes are left on the SD card?
That time won't tick down,
but it'll still be recording with the red light
up in that corner up there. So... this might be
kind of confusing, but what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna stop this recording and start it right away.
There's not gonna be any tricks going on.
So just give me one second.
OK, so I'm recording again, but this time I triggered it
with the GH5. The previous time,
the video you just saw, I had triggered it with the Atomos
by pressing “record” directly on the Atomos.
So now the GH5 is not in Standby Mode,
it is in Record Mode, and you can see that
because down here, the time is ticking down.
That's the time remaining on the SD card; it has nothing to
do with how much is on the Atomos. And if you look up
there now, you can see the recording light is blinking.
Now let's see what happens when I unplug the Deity.
[rustling]
[inaudible]
[rustling]
You weren't able to hear me anymore.
I know this for sure, because the audio meters
over here weren't moving up and down.
That's because it didn't switch over to the built-in mic.
And the same thing is true if you do the opposite.
I'm gonna pause the recording, unplug the mic,
start the recording again.
[echo] OK, so now I'm recording again, using the GH5.
I pressed the button which triggers the Atomos,
which is where you're seeing all this display info.
But the GH5 is also recording because, again,
you can see the time ticking down.
But I'm using the built-in mic, and this is the sound
that you were hearing in the previous video.
And the reason why I got into this problem
was because, again, I thought that the GH5
"wasn't recording," so I could hot-swap mics,
because I used to do that all the time.
But you can't in this current Atomos configuration.
So watch what happens when I plug the Deity mic in,
which is what I thought I was doing
when I was switching back and forth between
the Aputure D2 and the Deity D3.
So I'm gonna plug the Deity in right now
and keep recording, I’m just gonna plug it in.
So it's plugged in, but you'll see
the microphone symbol did not show up there,
and it's still using the built-in mic.
But to me, all I see is the audio levels moving
and I thought “we're good to go,”
because there's different audio levels
on the Atomos than there are on the GH5.
If I didn't have this info display up, all I would see
on the Atomos is that I was having levels.
It doesn't show me whether there's an external mic
connected or not. So in order to demonstrate this
and in order to test it and figure out what the problem
was, I had to display these mic levels over here--
[laughs] I just pointed in both directions--
these mic levels over here that show whether or not
there's a mic connected or not.
So this is that built-in distant sound
that we were experiencing in yesterday's video,
and it misrepresented the quality of the Deity mic,
‘cause I kept saying in the video, “Deity mic is good,
it's better than the Aputure V-Mic D2,”
but then you guys heard the V-Mic D2 and you're like,
“I think that was better!” Like, yeah, of course
it's better. It's better than the GH5’s built-in mic.
But the Deity V-Mic D3 Pro is better. It's better than
the Aputure, it's better than the RODE,
it's better than them all, but I just didn't
demonstrate that because this is what you were hearing.
Now in order to switch back to that mic, there's nothing
I can do: I have to stop the recording and go back in.
So I'm gonna do that now, and then I'm going to explain how
to work this around and show you another quirk about it.
[normal audio] OK, so now I'm back to recording only on
the Atomos. I pressed “record” manually on the Atomos,
I didn't use the record button on the GH5.
Now, I noticed further--
the reason why I know that it's not just about Standby Mode,
it's actually specific to the card being written.
And again, this is the same, I believe,
for the Sony and for the other brands as well,
is because if you set it to a mode
that can't be recorded to the cards
but is still being triggered-- for instance, if I use the GH5
on 4K60 10-bit and then I try to press “record,”
it will still put up the little recording light
over here and it will still get out of Standby Mode,
but the time down here won't tick down
because it's not able to record to the card,
but it'll still trigger the Atomos,
and in that case, you can still switch out
the mics even though it's not in Standby Mode.
So it's solely just as long as the card
isn't being ticked down.
And I'm gonna show you how this is the case,
but I'm gonna actually physically remove
the cards from the GH5 right now,
while I'm still recording on the Atomos.
So... open up the door... pop, pop.
Now, you might be able to see on the screen--
I think it should record it-- it says “no memory card
1 and 2.” So there's no memory cards in this at all.
Now, what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna stop the recording
on the Atomos and press record on the GH5.
It's not gonna be able to record into the camera,
‘cause there's no cards in it, but it will trigger
the Atomos again. Let's do that right now.
So I'm stopping on the Atomos...
There we go. So now I'm recording back on the Atomos,
and it says “no memory card,” so obviously it can't record--
it can only record externally. And if you look up here,
you can see that the recording light is going,
we're no longer in Standby Mode, but there still
is the-- where is that? Over here?--
there still is that little mic symbol there.
And if I unplug the mic...
[echoey] It does switch to the built-in mic,
it doesn't just go silent,
and I can plug the mic back in...
and then wait-- [brief muting]
[normally] There. The symbol showed back up.
So now we're using the Deity mic again.
And now it is hot-swappable,
even though I triggered it, and even though it went over
and the camera isn't in standby,
and even though it's recording on the Atomos,
we can still hot-swap because, as you can see,
the time for the cards isn't ticking down.
As long as you're not recording to the cards,
you can swap out the mics. Now this is a weird quirk
and it may not come up for many people.
I pointed out before that usually it's only when
you make videos about gear, that you use the gear
in weird ways, that you find these weird kind of quirks.
It's possible that in a general workflow,
you never would have encountered this.
But I was concerned because I recommend the Atomos Ninja V,
I recommended the Deity V-Mic D3 Pro,
and I also recommend the GH5, so if you happen to own
all three of these-- or you can even swap these things out.
If you used a different external mic
or different camera but a different external recorder,
it's this combination of things that you might have thought
triggering it from the camera is a more efficient way
than recording on the external recorder,
so I'm gonna trigger it from the camera,
and if that happens to also be using--
or if you're doing duplicate writing
to the thing and writing externally--
but that triggering may stop your microphone
from being swappable. So if you started the recording
and your mic wasn't on, or you started recording
and you wanted to switch mics or change out an input
or switch to a lav or something like that,
you may still see the levels moving,
but you're not actually recording from that mic,
you’re recording from the built-in mic, because you
can't swap once the memory cards are ticking down.
So I hope this video is clear and helpful.
And I feel like I owe Deity an apology, because even though
I was saying positive things about them and the microphone
in the previous video, I wasn't providing a very good
representation of the quality of the mic in that video,
because I was using the built-in mic!
And so hopefully you can see with this video,
‘cause now that I'm showing you back and forth samples
between it and the built-in mic, that it does sound
a lot better than what I showed in the previous video,
and I do highly recommend this microphone,
even in my less-than-stellar environment here.
As you can see, it sounds a lot better
than my previous video did. So, to Deity,
I'm sorry for that, that was my mistake.
It's a weird-- I don't know if you wanna call it
a bug or a weird sort of configuration thing
that I didn't-- like, I was surprised that it came up,
but it is possible that other people would encounter
it too, and if you're gonna use external microphones
like the Deity V-Mic D3 Pro, make sure you're aware of that
if you're using an external recorder.
But that's gonna be it for me. I hope you found this video
helpful, or at least entertaining. And if you did,
make sure you leave it the old thumbs-up
and consider subscribing if you haven't already.
But if you did not find this video helpful
or entertaining, feel free to hit the dislike button twice.
Alright! I'm done.