Hi! In my last video,
I tried to make my own wireless lavalier microphone which kind of failed due to the great latency of audio versus video
"And here's how I sound. Isn't it just a genius design?"
But fortunately, Røde microphones came to my rescue and put me out of my misery,
providing a shotgun microphone and a wireless lavalier microphone,
AND they provided extra to give away to my viewers and patrons at the end of the video back to my lavalier
design
I realized that the latency was due to the fact that I was using a smartphone as FM receiver the phone audio
codecs and software layers at around 300 milliseconds of delay to the audio
Using a dedicated FM receiver like this one, which I picked up for around $25 removes the latency see
See now there is no latency between the audio and video I can even plug this into the camera
Now the radio is plugged into cameras audio input see the quality is not awful and with some design improvements and for around
$50 this could be a poor man's Wireless lavalier
But the whole point of using a smart phone was to eliminate the need of an additional receiver and make a cheap and high-quality
Solution I almost even started a Kickstarter campaign on it in which case I would have ended up like
Musil's noise canceling system the project died in fetuses stage before I could scam the masses now
Let's see if road can in fact solve my issues mind you I'm not a sound engineer
But I'm an electrical engineer which makes me a God
A Person God. "I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse." Oh, that's a different movie. What am I talking about?! Anyway
Let's see if I can cram all the information and pass it out in a short time
My main problem was noise an echo there are two kind of noises in my opinion one of them is this white or pink noise
Or static that you hear is this 'Shhhh" in the background and the other one is environmental noise like cars and stuff
I guess you can consider echo as environmental noise too. Fortunately for me
The camera's white noise is so loud you can barely hear the street noise
First let's quickly go over the settings my camera provides
Which is a Canon t4i for sound recording it provides three modes auto manual and disabled in auto mode
There is a fixed audio gain unless the sound is too loud and the camera drops the gain to prevent audio clipping in
Manual mode there is only a fixed gain and the sound could clip if it is too loud when in manual mode you can select
The gain that's suitable for your audio level
And then there is a wind filter an attenuator if you enable the wind filter it gets rid of the low frequency
Wind noises and if you enable the attenuator it drops the gain no matter what mode you're in by I'm guessing around 10 to 12
DBS. Now I believe Wireless avalier will provide the best results, but let's check the shotgun first because it has very good benefits
Too let's check its controls this microphone can power with two double-a batteries, or its own rechargeable battery
then there is a power button for gain level you can have 0 DB plus 20 DB or
-10 DB if there is low-frequency noise you can cut it off below 75 Hertz or below
150 Hertz you can drop the gain on the right audio channel as a safety measure if you are worried that the sound is too
Loud and it might clip. Also you can boost the frequencies above 7 kilohertz if that's something you want now
I want to isolate the noises
That's why I came into my sophisticated sound room which is my closet and also I'm gonna talk softer
So you can go ahead and raise the volume and hear the noise better
Ok! Oh sorry...
No clapping. You may have to change the volume
Multiple times during the video to better understand what I'm saying raise the volume now to be comfortable with this
What you hear right now is the camera microphone at default settings listen to the noise
It's quite noisy now I have the camera attenuator on
You see that the noise is significantly lower, but at the same time my voice is also softer
so the signal-to-noise
Ratio is around the same if you want to hear me the same you have to change the volume on your side
Which returns the noise back to what it was the benefit of this is that now I can talk louder to increase the signal-to-noise
Ratio now let's add the rode shotgun to the mix. Now I added the shotgun at 0 DB listen to the noise
It's around the same
maybe a little bit different in spectrum the
Wouldn't go lower than what camera already adds in this mode anyways and my voice is around the same level
again if I talk loud I increase the signal-to-noise ratio, this is how I sound with a shotgun and
This is how I sound with the camera microphone of
Of course you can use an extension cord and bring the microphone closer
Which will significantly
Increase your sound level because the camera is in auto mode
It will drop its gain to prevent audio clipping and that will reduce the noise significantly as long as you keep talking
That's why a wireless lavalier can work better because the microphone sits close to the source
Unlike the shotgun sitting at the camera now
I don't know
Why somebody would use a -10 DB gain unless you're in a very loud environment that the background noise is not an issue
-10 DB gain would actually hurt the signal-to-noise ratio, so let's use the plus 20 DB gain. I'll have to talk very soft
Listen to the noise, it's larger but it's not huge considering we put 20DB gain on the microphone, this can serve two purposes.
One is to pick up sounds from far away.
Okay
Now I'm around 20 meters away from the microphone and you can still hear me clearly
This is due to the great noise performance of the road shotgun microphone
20 DB means hundred times higher voltage level
But clearly the noise level hasn't increased as much. The other use is to put the camera in manual mode and reduce the gain
significantly to avoid audio clipping and
There is no white noise anymore unfortunately for me my preferred level is +10 DB
Which this microphone doesn't provide separately 10 DB would be louder than 0 DB. So I can keep the camera in automatic attenuated mode.
I like the automatic mode because it prevents sound clipping to get to the 10 DB audio
You can separate the right channel in post-processing
But I hate post-processing and want to minimize it so I made a special cable
I put a switch on an audio extension cable so that I can select
Microphones either left or right channel and feed it to both my camera's input channels, so I can pick the 10 DB
Let's try it first. This is my camera's microphone and default settings which I've always used adjust your volume and listen to the noise
Now I'm using the shotgun at +10 DB and camera at attenuated auto mode
See the noise is significantly lower although it is still there
I'm sacrificing a bit of noise performance to keep my beloved' auto mode my voice is loud and the noise level is much lower than
Cameras stupid microphone default settings and what a lot of people do is to play music on their video
So it's almost impossible to hear background noise over the music so that's another trick
But if you're not afraid of clipping your sound using the microphone at plus 20 DB and
Camera at manual minimum gain gives you the best results for white noise
Now let's get to environmental noise
straight echo and stuff gain control do
Nothing when it comes to environmental noise because it's already mixed with your voice at the microphone
But a shotgun microphone
Greatly helps with such a noise because it's very
Directional and Attenuates the echo and noise that comes to the microphone from its sides or behind
Unfortunately for me
The f**ing window is right by me where the noise comes from and the shotgun can't do sh** about it
That's why soundproofing your room is very important. Well, I'm stuck here so boohoo.
There is a solution which is to bring your microphone close and reduce the game so that your voice is dominant over
Everything at the microphone, but unless you're a reporter
You don't want to carry your microphone around like a dork and that's when Rhodes wireless lavalier
Which is my favorite solution comes into picture the microphone is always closed so your voice is loudest
Let's check some of its features
the system comes with a nice lapel microphone transmitter
Has a gain of 0 + 10 or + 20 DBS and also a link button a power
slash mute button and a channel display the receiver has a gain of 0 - 10 or minus 20 DB power button a nice
Status display channel select button and a mute button and of course you plug it into cameras audio input this system only supports one
Transmitter so if you want to record more people you have to buy more of these or buy a system that supports multiple transmitters
Which becomes very expensive in such application a shotgun microphone becomes very cost effective because you can record as many people as you want
The noise performance of the system is very good and similar to their shotgun microphone right now. This is cameras microphone in default settings and
this is Road microphone at 0 DB with camera in attenuated auto mode
and of course you get the best noise performance with rode at plus 20 DB and camera in manual minimum gain.
And with this I can walk anywhere. I want and my sound quality remains the same
Ghawu! F**k!
Now a few things although keeping the microphone close is good bringing it all the way to your throat hurts the audio quality
So keeping it down there makes it sound much better
You can attach it on the side, but then if you move your head it will significantly affect the volume
Keeping it down there. Even if you move your head. The volume is not affected unless you drop your head like this.
Now Let's check the ambient noise and echo with different setups
I'm sitting opposite to the window so that the noise is behind the camera and I
And the window to increase the noise also, I change the camera to manual so the gain won't fluctuate
This is the camera microphone,
This is the shotgun microphone,
And This is the wireless lavalier.
Both these microphones have very good performance, and I would say wireless lavalier wins quality just because it's sits closer
Otherwise the shotgun is not far behind. It's easy to set up and also in some applications like recording multiple people
It's easily ahead either way, I have both.
GIVEAWAY TIME!
Thanks to Røde
I have one of each microphone to give away to my viewers and patrons of course patrons are automatically included
And they receive more rewards too.
(PLZ DONATE)
So if this is something you need make sure to subscribe to Røde
Microphones YouTube channel and also leave me a comment
So I know you need it. Something like "Put me on the Røde® to success!" or whatever be creative. No bonus points for creativity.