The V-Mic D4 Mini from Deity is a compact on-camera microphone that is designed to be
an upgrade from the built-in microphone within your camera.
The microphone is plug and play and features a super-cardioid polar pattern and shock mount.
All the audio that you’ll be hearing in this review has been recorded by the V-Mic
D4 Mini.
If you’ve seen an on-camera microphone before, the design of the V-Mic D4 Mini will be familiar
to you, it has a tubular design with a metal build which makes it durable for use on the
go and, despite being metal, the microphone is also surprisingly lightweight.
The light weight is good to see as it not only means that using the microphone won’t
add much extra weight to your camera, but it will also sit nicely in the shock mount
and not be front-heavy.
The microphone features metal grilles on the front portion to help protect the capsule
but ensure that audio can still pass through.
The back of the microphone feature’s Deity’s yellow brand colour which I think looks pretty
slick with this black and yellow colour scheme that is seen across the microphone and its
accessories.
One interesting thing you’ll notice about this microphone is that it not only has an
output but also an input – this allows you to not only capture audio with the microphone
itself but also with a lav microphone, for example.
Using the input doesn’t make the microphone redundant, instead, it records the input audio
to the left audio channel and the microphone’s audio to the right audio channel.
This will require a bit of processing during editing to ensure that you separate the channels
afterwards, but it really is quite a slick way of doing it and offering two isolated
audio sources through one input.
This is something that I’ve not seen before on other microphones, so it does make Deity’s
stand out and have a unique selling point in comparison to the competition.
The microphone sits in a Rycote Lyre shock mount, which is the standard for on-camera
microphones – you’ll see a Rycote mount on on-camera microphones from companies such
as Rode and Joby, although this one has been tweaked and tailored for the V-Mic D4 Mini.
The shock mount sits sturdily, I think this is thanks to the design of the mount as it
isn’t just a U shape and instead also makes use of some depth to align the positioning
of the microphone with the mount.
The microphone sits on your camera with the cold-shoe mount built into the shock mount
but if you don’t want to mount it onto your camera, there are other ways to mount it.
The underside of the cold-shoe features a thread for use with a tripod head, or you
can take out this adapter thread and mount it directly onto a tripod – the flexibility
to mount this microphone on a variety of things is great.
The cold shoe also includes some cable management holes to stop the cable from shaking around
and causing unintentional noise during recording.
Both the input and output are 3.5mm and Deity includes a TRS and TRRS cable in the box so
you can use the microphone with a camera or mobile device.
The microphone is plug and play, so there’s no charging or batteries to worry about, just
plug it into your camera and you’re good to go.
The microphone also includes a fluffy windshield in the box that is well worth using if you
plan to use the microphone outdoors and it does a great job at reducing wind noise.
It’s nice to see that Deity has included a fluffy windshield with the V-Mic D4 Mini,
in comparison to a foam windshield, as this type of windshield is most effective at reducing
wind noise and this one specifically is rated in conditions of up to 20mph.
The microphone features a super-cardioid polar pattern which means that it focuses on the
sound that is coming from in front of it, but also a little from behind.
This makes the microphone great for vlogging or run-and-gun filming as it means that it’ll
be picking up sound from directly in front of it, but also can pick up a bit of narration
if you’re behind the camera – although Deity does have a V-Mic D4 Duo that is more
designed for this specific use case that I will have a review of in the next few weeks.
This microphone sounds very good for its form factor and price, which is priced at £50,
which makes it a worthwhile upgrade if you’re looking to improve the audio quality of your
videos.
The microphone was able to record my voice clearly in my tests and it also sounded good.
During my tests, I had the microphone mounted on top of my camera and held it at an arm’s
length away in a “vlogging” position.
I also noticed that there was very little audible white noise from the microphone, which
will also help provide a cleaner and higher quality recording.
This also checks out with Deity’s “low self-noise” point about the microphone and
the microphone also has RF shielding so nearby electronic devices shouldn’t cause any audible
interference with the microphone during use.
This is a test of the microphone with its wind muff on outdoors.
This should help reduce the sound of the wind around me as it is quite a windy day today.
So, this is how the microphone sounds in the wind with the windshield on.
Now I’ve removed the windshield from the microphone, so there’s nothing preventing
any of the wind noise being reduced from the microphone.
So, it should pick up a bit more wind noise in this situation.
The microphone is still on its same volume level so things shouldn’t sound too quiet
or loud in comparison.
But, as a result of the windshield being now off the microphone, you should hear a lot
more environmental noise from the wind.
Now this is how the V-Mic D4 Mini sounds indoors.
At the moment there’s very little sound absorption material in this room, so it’s
probably picking up a lot of reverb.
But also, as I am indoors, I’ve also taken off the wind muff as that’s not really required
when there’s no wind inside.
And of course, the volume level has been set to the same, so it is at the same level as
it was in my outdoor tests.
Like I do say in all my microphone reviews, microphone placement is key to getting a good
recording – so try to get your microphone within 30-60 centimetres of your sound source
for the best recording quality.
If you choose to place the camera across a room, those tripod thread mounts built into
the bottom of the microphone shock-mount will certainly come in handy to ensure that your
microphone can be placed in a suitable place separately from your camera.
If you’re still using the microphone built into your camera for audio when recording
video, the Deity V-Mic D4 Mini is a worthwhile upgrade that includes some handy features.
The ability to have a second microphone connected to this one is very nice and the microphone
is surprisingly lightweight for its metal build, which lets it be well balanced when
on a camera.
That’s been it for this video, if you liked it, please consider subscribing.
I will leave a link to the microphone in the description if you’re interested in getting
it for yourself.
Thanks for watching and I will see you in the next one.