- Hey, my name is Matt Johnson with whoismatt.com,
and this is the Sony ECM-B1M
Shotgun Microphone.
And in this video, I'm gonna be telling you three reasons
why I think that if you film with a Sony camera,
this microphone is one of the best
on-camera microphones that you can buy
for wedding filmmaking.
So yes, this will be a positive review of this microphone,
but to be clear, I'm not being paid or sponsored
by Sony to make this video.
I rented this mic with my own money
using my Sony PRO Support membership,
because I've heard good things about it
and I wanted to try it out at a wedding
and see how it performed.
Getting right into it, the first reason
that I love this microphone
also happens to be probably the first thing
that you will notice about it,
and that is, this thing is tiny,
and you can't tell from the video,
but it's also very lightweight.
When I first took it out of its case,
I was a bit taken aback by how small it was,
because I typically use a RODE VideoMic Pro+,
which is one of the larger on-camera
shotgun mics you can buy.
My first thought was, this is it?
Is this tiny little thing really going to compete
with the larger RODE mic?
If I had to compare the size of this microphone,
it looks a little bigger than RODE's VideoMicro,
or Deity Mic's new D4 Mini shotgun mic.
Unfortunately, I don't have either those
to put up next to this,
but just know that as far as dimensions go,
this Sony mic is 3.9 inches long,
while the RODE VideoMicro and D4 Mini are 3.1 inches long.
Now, the reason those RODE and Deity mics are so small
is because they're low-powered microphones
that just sip at the little power
the 3.5 millimeter mic jack on your camera can give them.
Don't get me wrong, the audio they will record
is definitely an upgrade over the built-in mic
in your camera, but not necessarily
a huge upgrade overall.
Up until recently, this meant that if you really
wanted to significantly upgrade your camera and audio,
you needed to invest in a powered microphone
like the RODE VideoMic Pro+,
or this Shure on-camera mic,
or this Deity V-Mic D3 Pro,
all of which are battery-powered.
They're gonna give you much better sounding audio
with the major con being that this is one more battery
for you to remember to keep charged.
And while the battery life is significantly longer
with all these mics than even the longest wedding day,
it can still be a pain if you forget to charge them,
or you don't have fresh batteries
to put in them when they die.
And when those batteries die, you're in trouble,
because if you're not actively checking
your audio levels often and your battery dies,
suddenly you aren't recording any on-camera audio
until you notice and recharge or replace the battery,
which sucks and has happened to me a few times.
So let's bring it back to the Sony ECM-B1M now
and back to what I love about this microphone,
because it does not have any internal battery,
and it is instead powered directly
by the camera's hot shoe.
Yes, your Sony camera has a tiny set
of electrical contacts in the hot shoe
that interface with these electrical contacts
in the microphone to power it.
And if you have a newer Sony camera,
like the a7S III, a1, a7R IV, et cetera,
I will link to a full list down below,
these newer Sony cameras can use
a digital audio interface,
which basically means that the audio
passing through the camera's hot shoe
is cleaner with less noise than audio that has to pass
through a 3.5 millimeter audio cable.
If you have a newer Sony camera,
you can set this switch on the back to digital
for the digital audio interface,
or if you have an older camera,
set the switch to analog.
So, I think this is pretty magical
because Sony is essentially giving you
the best of both worlds with a shotgun microphone
that is incredibly small and lightweight,
like the RODE VideoMicro and Deity D4,
but this mic still gives you all of the power
and performance of a much larger
battery-powered microphone,
like the RODE VideoMic Pro+,
except you don't need a battery anymore.
It's great.
I love it.
Now, all this ties into the second reason
that I love this Sony shotgun microphone,
and that has to do with the 3.5 millimeter audio jack,
or lack thereof.
Look at anyone who has used
an on-camera microphone for a while.
In this case, we're gonna go away from weddings
and we'll look at a vlogger,
for example, like Casey Neistat.
And one of his biggest complaints that he had
whenever it comes to an on-camera shotgun mic,
is how fragile the 3.5 millimeter
mic jack is on most cameras.
I remember watching Casey's vlogs
where he's broken multiple mic jacks
on his cameras over the years.
I've always tried to be very mindful and careful
whenever I'm using an on-camera microphone,
but I've still bumped this jack a few times
and terrified myself that my camera could be broken.
It's to the point that if I ever have to lay my camera down,
say if it's on a monopod and I wanna leave
the monopod down with the camera still on it,
I always lay the camera down on the opposite side
from the mic jack to make sure there isn't
any pressure on it if I'm using an on-camera mic.
Thankfully with this Sony mic,
there is no cord or mic jack,
so I'm not worried about breaking it.
The only connection this microphone has to your camera
is with the robust hot shoe,
which if you break that,
dang, your camera probably has other problems.
Moving on.
The last thing that I love
about this microphone is the controls.
See, because this microphone is made by Sony
and interfaces directly with the Sony camera,
it can do some really cool things
that other microphones can't.
We already talked about the digital audio interface
you get with Sony's newer cameras,
but there's more cool stuff.
Namely, as soon as you slide this microphone
into the camera's hot shoe,
it immediately turns on and starts working.
Anytime you turn the camera off and turn it back on,
this mic is immediately powered and replaces your camera's
internal microphone as the main audio source.
Now there are other microphones that will
turn off and on whenever you use them,
namely the RODE VideoMic Pro+ has this feature,
which is one of the main reasons that I purchased it.
But if you don't have this specific microphone
and you're not used to this feature,
it's really nice to have and will definitely save you
if you're someone that forgets to turn on their microphone,
like I've done in the past.
Now let's talk more about these controls on the back.
And one of the first that I want to draw your attention to
is that this microphone has an auto level setting.
If you're filming in an environment
where you know that the audio levels
will be changing from quiet or loud often,
and you're too busy to constantly monitor your audio
and make sure it's at the correct level,
just flip this switch from manual to auto and press record.
No need to worry about your audio levels anymore.
The microphone will handle all that
and make sure that they don't peak.
Here's an example now if you want to hear
how auto leveled audio sounds with the Sony mic.
And outside now, doing a little outdoor testing,
little walking testing here.
Just set up for the reception.
Things are looking good.
I was really impressed by this audio quality,
but here's another example with the microphone
set to a manual audio level.
On the back of the mic, there's a dial that you can rotate
to adjust the gain level of the microphone,
and in this case, this dial was set to level four.
Alrighty, now the audio levels are off auto,
set to manual at about level four, I'd say.
I think this sounds great, too.
And what's really cool is that when you have
this switch set to manual, your audio gain
is now completely controlled by this dial
on the back of the mic.
You don't have to dive into your camera's menu
to adjust your gain anymore.
It's all on the dial.
I love the simplicity of it.
Lastly, you have other controls back here.
You have something called ATT,
which I believe stands for attenuate,
and this switch will help reduce the volume
of the audio you are recording.
If your audio is too loud,
you can lower the audio levels being recorded
by 10 or 20 decibels.
In my experience, I never needed to turn this on,
but it's really nice to have.
Next, you have a switch called Filter,
which has two settings, LC and NC.
LC stands for low cut filter,
and NC stands for noise cut filter.
Typically a low cut filter will remove
the lower rumble sounds that you may record with your audio.
Think if there's an air conditioner blowing
or it's a particularly windy day,
the low cut filter will help remove some of that
(imitates rumbling) rumble.
Above that, you will have the noise cut filter,
which will help remove the audio levels
that are higher pitched and enhance
the frequencies of the human voice.
So if you're recording in a particularly loud location,
switching on the noise cut filter
can help your voice cut through all of that external noise.
Next, you have an analog and a digital switch,
which we already covered.
When in doubt, set this to digital.
But if you notice the mic isn't working with your camera,
switch it to analog.
And lastly, we have one of my favorite switches
in the top right, which has a circle,
an oval that kind of looks like a butt, and a mushroom.
And this is not a Super Mario setting.
This is one of the coolest setting switches
on this microphone, because with it,
you can select how directional you want the audio
from the microphone to be recording.
And when I tested it, I was incredibly impressed.
First, here's the microphone at its most
directional level with the switch set to the mushroom.
With this setting, the microphone's only going to pick up
audio directly in front of it and ignore audio
that is off to the sides.
Here's an example.
I've just switched it to a very directional mode,
so now I'm straight on at the mic talking,
and we'll see it picks it up.
And then if I move the mic slight to the side,
here's about a 45-degree angle of me still talking.
Now I'm talking to the mic from the side about 45 degrees.
And now I have the mic completely facing away,
and I'm interest to see how the audio is picked up now.
As you can hear, that is super direct,
and this is the setting that I would choose
if I was recording someone speaking
directly in front of the microphone,
like a bride or groom telling a story
directly to the camera on a wedding day.
Next let's go to the butt setting now,
which is a setting that's gonna give you
a wider range of audio.
With this setting, the microphone's going to record
everything in a 180-degree area
in front of the microphone.
Here's another example.
Now we're at the middle setting where the mic
is supposedly picking up everything
at a 180-degree angle.
And then here's me slightly off center here,
talking again, check, check check.
Here's me completely off to the side at a 90-degree angle.
Test, test, test, one, two, three, one, two, three.
And here's me from behind the microphone,
completely in the back, testing, testing,
one, two, three.
Do you hear how much wider that is?
This is great if you're recording audio
of a group of people, and this setting
is the one that I found myself
most commonly using with this microphone.
Lastly, you have the circle setting,
and this is really unique because it essentially
turns this microphone from a shotgun microphone
into an omnidirectional microphone.
Check out how this sounds.
Lastly, we have the fully surround sound mode.
In this case there's some music playing over here.
You may be able to pick that up, we'll see.
I'm gonna go slightly off center here
and we'll see how this sounds,
check, check, check, testing, one, two, three.
Finally, 90 degrees off center,
test, test, test, one, two, three.
Lastly, here's me completely facing away,
test, test, test, one, two, three,
check, check, one, two, three.
See?
You get full 360-degree audio recording.
And this is great if you're, say,
recording an interview with someone
and you want to make sure that you can pick up
your audio of yourself asking the questions
to them as they respond.
The only con of this is, of course,
the microphone may also pick up more ambient audio as well,
so I would use this setting sparingly.
So as you can see here,
this microphone is really great,
and the small and lightweight size,
freedom from using a headphone jack,
and powerful controls are three reasons
that I really do love it.
But that said, there are two cons for this microphone
that I want you to be aware of
before you put your hard-earned
beard coin down on it.
And the first con is something that I've seen
from other reviews for this microphone,
so I wanted to address it here as well.
Notice how the RODE VideoMic Pro+ here
has a very large and well-built microphone stabilizer.
This stabilizer helps isolate the microphone
from movement and will help prevent it
from picking up any sounds from your camera body
whenever you're filming while moving the camera.
Now look at the Sony ECM-B1M on the other hand.
As you can see, there's no visible external stabilization,
but if you look down here near the hot shoe,
you'll see that this is actually a free floating microphone
that still has some stabilization on the main shaft.
The con of this microphone that I've seen
other reviewers mention is that there's a chance
that this microphone could pick up audio
from the mic bumping into the support shaft here,
and I was able to confirm this as well.
But I was only able to confirm this in certain scenarios.
So if you're using this microphone
on your camera handheld, for example,
and you're doing smaller, more controlled movements,
I'm confident that you will never experience
any audio being picked up by the microphone moving.
And in addition, if you're wanting to vlog
with this microphone and are walking around
at a slower, more controlled pace,
you should be fine as well.
Here's an example of me walking at a reasonable pace
while my camera and microphone were on a SwitchPod.
Got the audio plugged into the soundboard,
got my lights set up, feeling really,
really good about this wedding reception here.
Chill, relaxed wedding reception, nothing crazy.
See, no audio issues.
But here's me walking again
at a much higher rate of speed.
I would consider this power walking, almost running,
which is something that I never really do while vlogging,
but I just want you
to be aware of it.
(audio humming) (footsteps thudding softly)
Hear that bassy, bumping noise in the audio?
There's the issue.
So, I want you to be aware that if you typically film
very fast-paced videos where you're jogging or running
or doing anything else that may be
shaking the camera violently,
in that case, I cannot recommend this microphone.
But if you're like me and many of your shots
are far more controlled and smooth,
then I have zero qualms recommending this microphone to you.
This brings us to the final con for this microphone
and that is the price.
At a cost of $348 at the time of making this video,
this is significantly more expensive
than the Deity V-Mic D3 at $200,
and $50 more than the RODE VideoMic Pro+.
But I would consider then that the Sony
does come with a dead cat microphone cover
while the RODE VideoMic Pro+ does not.
If you do not see yourself using some
of the unique features of this microphone,
and if you aren't annoyed by having a cable
running around to your mic jack like I am,
or if you use multiple camera brands
and some of them are not compatible with this microphone,
in that case, I wouldn't recommend it,
and I would go with one of the mics from RODE or Deity.
But, and this leads us to the conclusion of this video,
if you want a compact powered microphone
that integrates seamlessly with your new Sony camera
and gives you a ton of features and great audio quality,
I think that the ECM-B1M is a fantastic choice.
With that, thank you so much for watching.
I will link to this Sony microphone,
as well as all of the other microphones that I mentioned
down in the video description of this video.
And in addition, it would be a huge help to me
if you would consider liking this video and subscribing
if you wanna see more videos like it in the future.
Also, if you happen to be a wedding filmmaker,
which you probably are,
I'm reviewing this microphone
from the perspective of a wedding filmmaker,
you probably want to book more couples
and film more weddings, and I would love
to help you out with that.
I've created a free guide
that's gonna walk you through
some practical steps that you can take right now
in your business to book more couples
and film more weddings.
It's a completely free gift to you.
You can download it at the link
down in the video description.
Thanks so much for watching and have a great day.
(upbeat inspirational music)