Hey there, so for today's video,
I wanted to talk about, uh,
a microphone that I got for my DSLR.
[soft instrumental]
♪
So this is the Aputure V-Mic D2.
It comes with a windscreen and it has built in pre-amp,
and there's a knob on the side here
which you can dial in from zero to ten,
which is how you're going to affect the gain.
There is also a high pass filter
and two LEDs,
one which indicates when you are at -12dB,
which is green, I guess, when you're not close to clipping,
and then over will be indicated
by a red LED to let you know you're clipping.
Uh, the way that the cabling system works
is there is a USB cable that connects the microphone
to the pre-amp here.
This comes separate and you install it,
but it comes in the box
and then... a braided...
1/8th inch cable that comes from the output here
that you plug into your camera.
And, uh, the cable quality of all these is pretty good,
which is important because the VideoMic Pro
often gets criticized for its cable quality
and for its build quality with the VideoMic Pro being,
I guess, the current gold standard for shotgun,
hotshoe mounted run and gun style microphones.
And although this one is mostly plastic as well,
it does have a nice finish with, sort of,
texturized, almost like silicone..
feel to the end of the plastic,
which I think will provide a little bit more resiliency.
So you got your hotshoe mount,
which is of decent quality too, it's metal,
and the rest of the body is all one piece,
and the stabilizer is right inside and it's pretty good.
Um, I've sort of beat the hell out of it
and I was pretty happy with how well is stabilizes.
Um, the only criticism, if anything,
that I can give about it is that
it's not perfectly straight.
So if I hold the, uh, pre-amp directly at the camera,
you'll see that the microphone,
kind of, veers just off a little bit to the left.
Now, it does move because of the stabilizer.
I don't think it's going to have that big of an effect
in the long run but I thought I'd just point that out.
Anyway, it's good, decent size,
I think it's a little bit bigger than the VideoMic Pro,
but it's not as big as the old VideoMic
and it doesn't look ridiculous and a feature
that I like too is that it's very easy to remove,
slide down...
battery cover and all it takes is two AAA batteries.
And that is fantastic because the VideoMic Pro
and that series that's 9V batteries,
which are harder to find, more expensive.
You can't get high-quality rechargables like Eneloops
to use so it's, kind of, silly, obviously.
Uh, it also comes with a nice cable management system
where you can run your braided cable
right into a little clip here,
so that when you plug it into the camera,
all your cables are nice and out of the way.
Okay, so let's do an audio comparison.
[smooth audio] This is an unboxing and review
by Gerald Undone of the Aputure V-Mic D2 sensitivity
adjustable directional condenser shotgun microphone.
[echoing audio] This is an unboxing and review
by Gerald Undone of the Aputure V-Mic D2 sensitivity
adjustable directional condenser shotgun microphone.
[clean audio] This is an unboxing review
by Gerald Undone of the Aputure V-Mic D2 sensitivity
adjustable directional condenser shotgun microphone.
[negligible echoing] This is an unboxing and review
by Gerald Undone of the Aputure V-Mic D2 sensitivity
adjustable directional condenser shotgun microphone.
One thing I wanted to say about these audio comparisons
is that there's no filters or editing done.
All I've actually done is equalize the levels in post.
So I brought them all up to the same volumes
so that you can hear which one introduces more noise.
So, what do you think sounded better?
Let me know in the comments below,
do you think the Aputure sounded better
or the VideoMic Pro?
I think, personally, that the Aputure had less noise
than the VideoMic Pro did
because its pre-amp is stronger and therefore
I was able to turn the camera's gain down even lower,
reducing more of the unwanted noise
and hiss from inside the camera.
Being able to turn your camera's internal gain down
as far as possible is so important
to producing a high quality sound.
If you can get the gain in the camera's pre-amp
to be as low as possible,
you will achieve very close to the same results
that you would get if you recorded externally.
To prove this, I'll compare two audio samples.
The first will be audio that I've recorded
through my studio mic
into a Scarlett Solo pre-amp
directly into the computer
without being run through the camera's pre-amp at all
and then synced up in post
with nothing done to it but levels.
The other one that I'm going to do is I'll record
the same sound sample run through the Scarlett Solo,
but then, instead of into the computer,
directly into the camera's pre-amp,
set all the way down to one and record it that way.
And, we'll see which one introduces more noise
if there's, you know, lost audio quality,
if there's a difference.
In my opinion, there isn't one,
but we'll let you decide.
Feel free to post in the comments below
if you think it sounded cleaner to run it directly
into the computer and sync it up in post.
I'm also going to do a comparison
where I let the camera take control of the gain
with autogain and show you how important it is
to find a way to take control of that gain
and minimize it as much as possible.
[soft noise] This is an unboxing and review
by Gerald Undone of the Aputure V-Mic D2 sensitivity
adjustable directional condenser shotgun microphone.
[clean audio] This is an unboxing and review
by Gerald Undone of the Aputure V-Mic D2 sensitivity
adjustable directional condenser shotgun microphone.
[clean audio] This is an unboxing and review
by Gerald Undone of the Aputure V-Mic D2 sensitivity
adjustable directional condenser shotgun microphone.
♪
[regular, clean audio] So for this last test,
I'm going to blow some air at the camera
with the windscreen for the V-Mic D2 on and off
to see how effective the windscreen is
at reducing wind noise.
I have my DataVac Duster.
This thing is a fucking boss tool
for cleaning out computers and shit.
I'm going to wheel back a little bit
so that I don't damage anything
'cause this thing is pretty powerful.
-[duster blowing] -Okay, so here we go.
I'm talking quite loudly trying to talk over the wind noise,
and I'm going to bring the duster up
towards the microphone now.
[noise intensifying]
-[slight audio cracking] -So there we go now, the,
the duster's now blowing at the windscreen
and I'm trying to talk over the top of it.
This is a test of the windscreen
that comes with the Aputure V-Mic D2.
One, two, three.
[normal audio] Okay, so same thing,
but now I have the windscreen off.
So, I am going to do the exact same test, here we go.
[loud blowing]
[partial audio] This is a test of the Aputure V-Mic D2.
I'm trying to talk over the noise,
and now I'm going to bring the duster up
and blow it towards the camera.
Here we go.
[mic ruffling]
-[warped audio cracking] -...audio test... V-Mic D2.
[cracked audio]
So there we go, that was the test
of the windscreen on and off.
Uh, let me know in the comments below
how effective do you think this windscreen is,
compared to other ones and whether or not
you think that it's a good value add
for being included in the box for free.
So, I think this is great microphone
and compared to the VideoMic Pro,
which I also think is a great microphone,
but I think that the price, related to the build quality,
the fact that it really only has, you know, one purpose,
it's a hotshoe mounted run and gun microphone.
Now, yes, it is a shotgun mic.
You could mount it onto a boom, but it's not as good
for the money as if you bought just a dedicated shotgun mic,
but of course, that might require an XLR connection,
maybe phantom power, so you can't use a 9V battery
and plug it right into your camera, so let's face it,
the VideoMic Pro in these lines of run and gun microphones are,
sort of, a one purpose microphone.
So to pay, you know, $319, $329 and then with the,
with the dead cat, $389 Canadian...
for a single purpose microphone,
I was having a little bit of trouble with it.
When you add in the fact that it takes a 9V battery,
which is bizarre, the fact that
the build quality leaves a little bit to be desired,
I wasn't happy with my choices.
So, I'm thankful that the Aputure V-Mic D2
is pretty much all that and more.
The amplification is even better
than the VideoMic Pro for less money,
and it comes with the windshield included,
so I can feel better about spending money
on a single purpose item.
I feel, value wise, the Aputure V-Mic D2
is miles ahead of the Rode VideoMic Pro,
even though that is the standard.
I've put links in the description
for where you can buy the V-Mic D2.
I've also put links in the description for the other gear
that I used to make this video.
Thanks for watching!