Since I’ve covered a lot of microphones in the past, I get a lot of questions about
the kinds of microphones I haven’t really reviewed much - boom and shotgun microphones.
Should you choose one for YouTube, which one should you go with, what’s needed to power
them?
I think it’s time FOR ANOTHER MICROPHONE SHOWDOWNNNNNNNN!
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In the studio, I currently have SEVEN boom microphones, only one of which I’ve reviewed
before - the Sennheiser MKH-416.
Three of these are on loan from a subscriber named Pablo - many many thanks for such a
generous loan for me to make content.
Let’s start with a simple important question: When should you use a shotgun or boom microphone?
Some people will say to never use them indoors, but I don’t find that to be entirely true.
In a room that has tons of reverb and echo and isn’t sound treated, a shotgun mic will
not serve you well, they can start to sound warbly or just plain bad or weird.
In that kind of situation, you’ll get much cleaner audio out of a shirt-clipped lavalier
microphone or short cardioid boom - though please sound treat your recording sets.
A lav mic is also more useful if you or your video subject or host regularly moves around
out of the direction cone a shotgun mic would cover.
But if you’re using a sound-treated set where your host doesn’t move away from the
microphone much - like most of my talking head video shoots - a shotgun or cardioid
boom microphone is a fantastic choice.
You can leave it up on a mic arm, positioned to pick up great audio, and not have to worry
about charging a wireless mic, fumbling in your shirt, and so on.
Plus, I just personally prefer the sound of these microphones.
This video is going to focus on REAL boom microphones - big, professional studio microphones
that connect to an audio recorder or mixer via XLR - not the cheapo on-camera mics from
Rode and so on.
The VideoMic Pros, $40 mini shotguns like I reviewed before, etc. are great for quick
and dirty on-camera vlogging microphones, but don’t hold up for studio work when your
camera isn’t directly in your face.
Here we have the Sennheiser MKH416, Rode NTG-2, Aputure Deity S-Mic 2, Oktava MK-012-01, Audio
Technica AT875R, Azden SGM 1X, and Audix SCX-one.
The Rode NTG-2 was the first high-end mic for on-camera work I ever invested in, having
bought it in November of 2014 right before I made a full-time switch to tech videos.
The Sennheiser MKH416 I’ve already reviewed and was sent for review and use in my OBS
Master Class.
The Azden was a freebie from a buddie who got it from a local surplus sale.
The Aputure Deity S-Mic 2 is a review unit from Aputure.
The last 3 are on loan from Pablo, he wanted to know what I thought about them.
I wanted to weigh what viewers preferred out of the mic samples, so I uploaded some blind
tests to gather feedback, and I will feature some of those responses in this video.
All of my tests were recorded with the SoundDevices MixPre-3 audio recorder, using the FetHead
Phantom mic pre-amp to help reduce self-noise as much as possible.
These mics require phantom power, and this new version of the FetHead passes through
phantom power to the mic while also providing clean gain to help boost the levels.
I was also recording within a few feet of, and directly facing a Producer’s Choice
Sound Blanket to help reduce unwanted noise and reverb.
By far the crowd favorites from that round of testing are the Sennheiser MKH-416, which
was both sample E and G, and the Rode NTG-2.
Followed by the Oktava MK-012, sample A.
This makes sense and follows my own preferences.
The Sennheiser is a $1000 microphone - way more expensive than any other in the lot.
It sounds natural and clean, retaining some of the warmth and bass of my voice, while
not sounding quite as boomy as the Rode NTG-2.
The Sennheiser is expensive as heck for YouTube work, but an absolute workhorse and beast
of a shotgun mic.
You can check out my full review for more info.
The Rode NTG-2, on the other hand, is a very bass-friendly shotgun mic.
In fact, it’s identified as a condenser microphone, akin to side-address desktop condenser
microphones that many use for YouTube and streaming.
I was incredibly happy with it when I used it pretty much from 2014 to early 2017, due
to how well it picked up the natural bass and deepness of my voice, while still sounding
clean in the right conditions.
It accepts a single AA battery to provide its own self-power, if needed, and doesn’t
play well with the FetHead Phantom, but it sounds great.
Some might find it too colored and boomy, however.
The Oktava mic is also described as a condenser mic, a “Pencil condenser” to be exact.
This is usually sold in matched pairs for stereo work, though I’m only working with
one.
It has detachable capsules and you can even integrate different modules in the capsule
chain.
Mine came with an addition for a high pass filter, though I left it flat as with all
of these mics.
I did run into some electrical feedback issues with this microphone, my first couple recordings
with it seemed like they had some grounding issues, but I’ve not had that issue again,
so maybe the cable was just loose.
This is a short mic designed to be as close as possible to the vocal source, though I
had all mics at the same distance.
As a result, in this position, I feel like it picks up more room reverb than the previous
two mics, but still performs very very well and has a very natural sound.
Very clean, though brighter than the others.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this if you’re going to be at any significant distances
from the camera and microphone, but for indoor vocals you can do some good work with it.
Let’s go on and knock out the Azden SGM-1X mic.
This one is quite long and can also be self-powered via a AAA battery, touting up to 1000 hours
of life from one battery.
It has a super cardioid pickup pattern, but it just… doesn’t sound great.
It had some popularity for a while due to its price - $150 to $170 for a proper shotgun
microphone is a decent deal, the cheapest in this lot along with the Audio Technica,
but it’s just… ehhhh.
It sounds muffled and compressed as if I’m talking behind something, and has a LOT of
hiss and self-noise.
Meanwhile, the Audio Technica AT875R for virtually the same price new sounds LEAGUES better.
It has much much less self-noise, if any, sounds very clear, if a bit focused on the
low end.
It’s shorter and picks up a little more reverb, but for a budget microphone I would
definitely put a strong recommendation behind this one.
It doesn’t stand out as anything special, but it sounds great and in most cases you
certainly won’t get any viewer complaints about your audio quality.
The last of the mics from Pablo is this Audix SCX-one with a hypercardioid capsule.
This is another short microphone designed for vocals and instruments aimed at keeping
a low noise floor.
I’m told this microphone is supposed to be a “poor man’s Schoeps CMC641” - I
haven’t used that mic, but listening to some samples of it, I guess I can see it?
In my testing setup for the blind samples, it wasn’t directly close to my mouth, and
not being a shotgun mic meant it picked up a bit more reverb and hiss once I normalized
the audio up.
Hopefully in this test setup that has been somewhat alleviated.
I really like how this microphone sounds overall, I just need to keep it closer to avoid some
of that reverb pickup, which can be a problem in some of my shooting scenarios.
And lastly we have a late entry to this project, the Aputure Deity S-Mic 2, a new shotgun microphone
from Aputure.
This supercardioid shotgun microphone has no self-power options nor a high pass filter,
but sounds pretty good for the price.
I feel like it’s not as clear in the high-end as my MKH-416, but still provides a natural
sound, even when you start getting off-axis, which is not super common.
It doesn’t have the most focused directional cone of pickup, it picks up the most reverb
in this shooting environment of all the shotgun mics I tested, sounding more like the cardioid
booms, oddly enough.
But for the price, this would definitely be a good starting point I’d recommend people
go with if you have a budget around $350.
So… final recommendation time.
First, you need to choose between a shotgun microphone, lavalier microphone, or a short
boom cardioid microphone.
If you plan on moving around a lot or have a shooting environment that can’t be treated,
a lavalier microphone might be your best bet.
If you’re shooting outdoors or indoors with a good amount of distance from your subject
to the mic and camera, but in a sound-treated environment without a lot of reverb, a shotgun
mic is a great choice.
If you’re able to keep the mic close to the speaker, you’ll be VERY satisfied with
the audio results from it.
Though honestly, I prefer the flexibility you can get from quality shotgun mics instead.
If you have a smaller budget, I’d recommend the Audio Technica AT875R boom mic or Rode
NTG-2 shotgun if you can go up a bit more in price and have a high quality recorder
or pre-amps.
Or if you want to hunt used deals, you can get the Oktava MK-012 cheaper than any of
these.
If you have a ~$400 budget, the Audix is a decent choice, though I’m not sure of the
upgrade value over the cheaper models, and the Deity S-Mic 2 provides more flexibility
in that price range.
Or if you can drop 1000 buckaroos on a mic, using the Sennheiser may make you never want
to go back, like me.
It’s just amazing.
There you have it.
Seven shotgun or boom microphones, all possible choices for YouTube audio work or small productions
- except maybe the Azden.
Avoid that one.
Affiliate product links for all of these microphones will be in the description as always.
Super duper thanks to Pablo for loaning me some of these to check out, and thanks to
those who gave feedback on the blind tests!
I’ll probably have individual reviews of the Rode NTG-2 and Deity S-Mic 2 on the channel
in due time.
Until then, subscribe for more tech education and consider joining us on Patreon where you
can get early access to content, behind the scenes peaks, special Q&A episodes and more.
I’m EposVox, I’ll see you next time.