Finding the right shotgun mic can be an overwhelming process.
And sometimes it can even feel like you're taking a "shotgun blast" approach because
there are just so many options out there.
But today I want to help narrow things down a little bit by looking at two higher end
shotgun microphones, the Sennheiser MKH 50 and the Sennheiser MKH 416.
So hopefully after watching this, you'll be a little bit wiser about the 'Heiser.
...the Sennheiser.
And even though I am mainly talking about two Sennheiser microphones in this video,
this is not a sponsored video at all, but I do want to thank B&H Photo for letting me
borrow the 416 for a few weeks so that I could do this comparison specifically. (Morty, you're awesome!)
And right now you might be asking yourself, "But wait,
if those microphones are there, what are we listening to you on?!"
And the answer to that is you're listening to me on a $2,400
Schoeps CMIT 5 U
very fancy shotgun microphone that B&H also let me borrow for a few
weeks, but that is going to be the subject of an entirely different video.
Today we're
focusing on the 416 and the 50– that's these two microphones right here.
And I've tried to position them so that they're basically the same distance
from me because they are different sizes.
The 416, as you can probably see, as a much longer shotgun microphone.
Although I think Sennheiser does call this a
"Short Shotgun" microphone and the 50 is significantly more compact, but
both of these are pretty legendary, very high quality microphones.
And I do have two purposes for making this video: first is to just let you hear
the difference between these microphones.
So actually, let's do that right now.
Right now
you're listening to these Schoeps
CMIT 5 U
fancy super cool looking blue microphone.
And now you're listening to me on the MKH 50 running into the Rodecaster Pro II
with no effects, no processing.
It's just on the generic condenser setting.
This is the MKH 50.
And now this is the Sennheiser MKH 416
also running into the Rodecaster Pro II with NOFX
and no processing.
And right off the bat, you can hear, this is the 416
and this is the MKH 50.
They have very, very different sounds.
So goal number one in this video, while we're talking in the MKH 50 is to
let you hear that difference because ultimately nothing else really matters.
If you hear one that you like more and you think one's going to work
better for you and your situation,
that's the one to go for, even if it's like a $15 cheapo microphone,
it doesn't matter. If you like it and it works for you then
it's great.
But now on the 416, my second ulterior motive in this– although I
don't know if it's ulterior, if I'm making it exterior, by just telling you...
is to really say that in situations like this, where I am one person
in a home setup, trying to get decent quality audio without having
to have a microphone in the frame,
I think that the MKH 50 is often overlooked, but is often a better choice
for a lot of people than the 416.
And the reason I wanted to bring that up is because I think the 416 is
a more well known and popular choice, but I don't think it's the best choice.
The 416 retails for about $1000 and the MKH 50
retails for about $1,200.
But honestly, if you're somebody who's already going to spend $1000 on
a microphone, I don't know if that extra $200 is really going to be the thing that
stops you from going up to the 50. Both of these have been used in movies, TV shows,
all kinds of stuff for many, many years.
I guarantee you you've heard these in professional use at some point or other.
But the reason I like the 50, which is the microphone I'm talking into right now is
I do like the sound quality a bit better,
and I like that it is better at rejecting other noise and isolating sound,
so that's one of the big reasons that I think it's great in a setup like this,
or for someone who's like an independent creator or a solo creator,
or maybe you're doing client work
and you're just the one person crew.
This is really, really good at isolating sound in less than ideal environments.
If I switch back to the 416 right now, it still sounds amazing.
It sounds very, very different, but you can hear a little bit more of the room tone,
a little bit more of the environmental tone,
even though it is still a very directional microphone. And it's not just me making
this up because if I go to Sennheiser's own product information pages, Sennheiser
specifically says about the 416, the microphone I'm using right now that is is a
"Short shotgun interference tube mic for film, radio, and television,
especially for outside applications.
Excellent directivity and compact design."
So right there
is what I think sets these microphones apart the most.
The MKH 416 is really designed to do well outdoors, whereas
the 50, not so much outdoors. Lets switch over to the 50 right now,
which is what I'm now speaking into.
There's such a huge difference in sound between them!
And what Sennheiser says specifically about this is that it is a
"Super cardioid microphone designed for use
as a soloist or spot microphone for applications requiring a
high degree of side borne sound muting and feedback rejection."
That is exactly this situation.
That is exactly somebody who is in a less than ideally sound treated
space, wants to isolate sound and doesn't necessarily want to have a
microphone in front of their face
the whole time.
I know I am using these microphones
in front of me on screen right now, but they are actually a
pretty decent distance from me.
And normally my main microphone, since the end of 2021, has been
the MKH 50 boomed out of frame.
And it works really, really well.
The 416 also works well for that, but it doesn't reject sound as much,
but it is designed better for outdoor use.
So for example, plosives" Peter Piper pitched a podcast.
Listen to how this thing is rejecting plosives
whereas the 50: Peter Piper pitched a podcast. You can hear those
plosives affecting it.
Even if I take the wind screens off, I still think the 416
will have kind of an edge.
Here's the 50" Peter Piper pitched a podcast, and here is the 416:
Peter Piper pitched a podcast.
Wow!
It really is
super good at rejecting plosives.
These are condenser microphones and neither one of them runs on a battery.
That's very important to know they don't have battery compartments, so
they are running off of Phantom Power.
The good news is basically any XLR interface that you connect
these to is going to have Phantom Power to run these microphones.
So now while we're on the 416, let's talk about why I think the
MKH 416 became so popular.
And I think it's because of MKBHD,
Marques Brownlee.
At least what I have noticed in the YouTube sphere is a few
years ago, Marques did a studio tour video, which was amazing,
and he's one of my favorite creators on the platform.
And in that video, he said that he'd been using the 416 for a long time.
And it was right after that, that I noticed
this crazy rise in popularity of the MKH 416, because Marques always
has really great audio in his videos,
people found out what microphone he was using and they wanted to use it.
However, what I don't think they took into account was that he
also spent a ton of time and money sound treating his environment.
He was also running the microphone through really high quality
equipment, and I'm guessing
that there was at least some degree of post-processing applied to those videos.
So I started noticing people, both people, I just watched and enjoyed
their channels and people I know in real life get the 416 and be kind of
disappointed with it because it wasn't the best microphone for their situation.
And that's where I think the MKH 50
comes into play.
They sound so different
side by side, which I should say too, a difficult thing when it comes to mic
comparisons is the comparison because you listen to one microphone for a
while and your ears will adjust to it.
And just as they're adjusting, it will switch to another microphone.
And then that sounds like such a harsh change,
and then your ears have to recalibrate to that sound of that
microphone right in time for it to switch back to the other microphone.
So in this case, I think either of these microphones are going to sound great
if they were the only microphone you heard for an entire video,
but when you go side by side, it, it can sometimes be confusing.
Did I just like undo the whole purpose for this video?
I don't know.
Anyway, they sound very different.
So point being the MKH 50, since it's really designed for indoor use
because it's not going to reject wind noise as much as the 416 will, but it
is a much more directional microphone, which makes it great for a less than
ideally sound treated environments.
And great
if you just want to pick up sound from one or two people together, and I do
have a whole separate review on it, so I don't need to go into all the
details here, because this is more of a comparison, but if I take it out of
there, there are switches on the side.
You have a low pass filter and a minus 10 decibel pads.
So if you have a really loud sound source, you can switch that over,
and if you want to, let's see, I can do the low pass filter.
This is me talking without the low pass filter.
It's just the natural Basey tone of my voice.
And now this is with the low pass filter enabled.
So that cuts some of those low frequencies, which will get
rid of some of that rumbling.
Even the sound of me just holding the microphone, the rumbling
of my hand kind of disappeared, and it does sound pretty clean.
So if you have a lot of air conditioner noise, if you have a little bit
of wind noise that low pass filter might really make a difference.
But in general, I like using this microphone without
it because I really love the
full rich sound of the MKH 50.
I think that it sounds kind of close to the SM7B and that it is
a full, rich sounding microphone.
That's also a great signal for processing.
So if you want to add equalization to it, if you want to make your own adjustments
to it, I think that this is a great place to start, and then you can fine tune
it to whatever you need specifically.
Now, the MKH 416 on the other hand has absolutely no external controls,
so this is the sound that you're getting.
It sounds to me
almost like it's already been EQ'd.
It almost sounds like the difference between the SM7B and a microphone
like the Rode NT-1, like a really nice, crisp condenser microphone.
And that's not a bad thing, but it is just a very different thing.
And this microphone also does have an interesting shape at
the end, which also affects
how it picks up sound.
It's almost like it's a little bit of a U shape.
So if I'm standing in one place and I turn the microphone, it's actually going to
change kind of how it's picking up sound and how it sounds, which does add in quite
a bit of versatility to the microphone.
And as I mentioned, most of the time, these are not being used, like
as handheld microphones directly in front of the sound source, but they're
being positioned kind of out of frame.
So right now this is the 416 positioned out of frame, basically
where I would normally have my microphone,
and this is the MKH 50 positioned out of frame where I normally have my microphone.
So I love the sound quality that you can get from both of these, even if they
are at a distance from you, but just to throw another wild card into the mix.
I do have the Deity
S-Mic 2. (wind screen removes with a ridiculous noise)
That was a hilarious sound.
This is about a $350 microphone.
So I think it would be a good idea to seeity how the Deity stacks up against
these two right here and from Deity's,
well, let's switch to it actually.
So this is the MKH 50, a $1,200 microphone
and this
is the Deity S-Mic 2, a $350 microphone.
Right now, this sounds pretty darn excellent.
And Deity describes this microphone as, "A medium length shotgun ready
for anything you throw at it.
Great off axis rejection, RF interference-proof body, ultra low
self noise, and weather-proof circuitry."
The thing, at least for me with the S-Mic 2,
it's probably more me than anything is I think that, it sounds amazing right now.
I think that it sounds really, really crisp.
Again, this is the MKH 50, a $1,200 microphone, and this is
the S-Mic 2, a $350 microphone.
But when I move the S-Mic away where I would normally have the microphone here,
that's where I stop liking the sound of it as much.
At least personally, I feel like it doesn't isolate my voice as much, and it sort
of picks up more of the room tones.
And now this is the MKH 50 in that exact same position.
I feel like my voice really stands out more with this microphone from a distance
than it does with the S-Mic 2 that could just be me or user error or something.
But if I switch back over to the S-Mic,
the thing about it is as Deity describes it, it's kind of an all in one, everything
microphone and what you notice, let's go back to the MKH 50, as you sort of
lean towards higher end microphones, they start to become more specialized.
The MKH 50, for example, being highly specialized at rejecting off axis sound.
Even if I just turn the microphone a little
how quickly my voice drops off and then I go right at the microphone
and then I go just a little bit off axis and my voice drops off a lot.
If I go from the rear of the microphone, it's hard to hear me at all.
And if I go right in front of the microphone, then it
sounds really, really crisp.
And then we've got the 416, which is really designed to do well
outdoors and stand up against those kinds of environmental conditions.
But it doesn't reject sound as much.
I can turn it pretty far without my voice changing.
And then once I get to the side, when you stop hearing me, that's
when it doesn't sound nearly as good.
And then as I get closer to the front, but I can move quite a bit without it
changing the quality of my voice and on the MKH 50, I can only move a little
bit before things really start to change.
So that's an important thing to keep in mind, because if you're somebody who
moves a lot, or you're going to be tracking a moving subject, or you need to pick
up sound from a wider area, that is where the 416 could come in handy.
But for the independent individual person, who's doing a lot of things on their own,
if you're just one sound source in one environment,
that's why I think the 50 really shines because it just like rejects everything
except the sound that it's pointed at.
Even if I just go right over here
Ii kind of goes away and changes.
It does mean you need to make sure your microphone is positioned very
well because even though it's an amazing microphone, you're not going to
get the best quality audio if it's not positioned at the right way.
So my position on any microphone is to make sure that you spend enough time
experimenting with where you're placing it.
So that way it does deliver the best sound quality.
So with all that being said, I think we have been giving an unfair advantage
to the MKH 50, because we are in an environment that has ideal for it, but
that's really what I wanted to show here was, hey, if you're somebody who's filming
indoors by yourself, the 50 is probably a better choice for you than the 416.
The 416 had been on my wishlist for a long, long time
because I didn't even know about the 50.
And once I found out about the 50, I was like, "Oh, dang! I love this microphone!
It's amazing!"
And I feel like there are a lot of people in that same position who think
the 416 is what they want, but what they actually want are the features
of the 50. But let's turn the tables–
not literally because this is a very heavy table, and go outdoors for some super
scientific testing to see how the 416 stacks up in its ideal environment.
Oh, hello.
I didn't see you there.
Welcome to this very scientific test that you know is incredibly accurate
objective and absolutely perfect. (the lab coat means it's official)
I've got all three microphones we've talked about here:
this is the 416, the MKH 416.
This is the MKH 50, the MKH 50.
And this right here is even the S-Mic 2, just so we can see how 'dis mic sounds.
And right now I have them positioned pretty close to me.
I don't know what is that like eight inches away or so relatively?
And this is pretty much what they all sound like.
And we're outdoors.
There's air conditioners, there's birds, there's planes, trains, and
automobiles, everything out here in this very, um, laboratory-like environment. 🧪
So now here are all of the microphones without their windscreens.
This is the 416.
Can you believe it?
The 416?
Does it sound clean?
This is the MKH 50, the "Nifty 50™"
And this is the S-Mic.
Es a mic here too.
I think I made that same joke before.
Used it twice.
It's okay.
It's for science. 🥼
But as we talked about inside, most of these microphones are going to sound
amazing when they're pretty close to you.
So let's boom them out of frame and see how they sound when they're
not in such an ideal position.
Now, the microphones are boomed out of frame, kind of where they would be
in like a normal situation indoors, where I would normally place them.
This is the 416, got some cicadas buzzing, some bugs
buzzing in the background.
This is the MKH 50 outdoors and boomed out of frame.
And this is the Deity S-Mic 2 outdoors, boomed out of frame.
Did that boom, make your brain go boom
because it was so, um...amazing?
It's hot.
And one thing that I should point out here is that while it is very
possible to get really good sound with an inexpensive microphone, I think
something that's often overlooked is
how good it is when something becomes specialized, because when you have a
more specialized microphone, it then becomes easier to get that good sound.
It's almost like having an autofocus and a manual focus lens on your camera.
You can get great looking images with either one, but especially if you're
working by yourself, having autofocus is going to help you get that great looking
image more easily than manual focus.
You might be able to get great results from a less expensive microphone, but
it might take a little bit more work and it might not be as consistent as a
more specialized microphone would be.
At least that's what I think with my specialeyes...and ears.
It's hot.
And now we're back on the 50, as I could reiterate what I said at the beginning of
this video, when it comes to microphones, the most important thing is what you like.
It should be the mic you like!
The "likerophone!"
If you like the way that a mic sounds, it doesn't matter how
expensive it is, what brand it is.
I don't care if you're putting an SM7B on a boom pole 15 feet away from you,
if that is somehow getting you the sound that you want
(it won't, that would sound terrible.)
But if somehow it did,
great, you should do that.
But at the same time, it is important to know that
there are specific tools for specific purposes to achieve specific goals.
The MKH 416 being great for picking up a little bit wider sound, being great
outdoors, the MKH 50 having kind of like a more rich sound and being more
directional in tone, but not necessarily as strong of a microphone outdoors.
So it's very important
anytime that you make an investment in equipment that you know
what you're getting, why you're getting it and how it's going to
fit into your workflow specifically.
But speaking of wise investments, as I talk on the MKH 50, thank you to everyone
who helps support my channel through Patreon and YouTube Channel Memberships.
And now over here on the 416, if you want to know even more about microphones,
check out these videos right here. 🎙🎤