- Hey guys, how's it going?
It's Justine.
And today, we're gonna be talking
about how to make the GoPro audio not suck.
Now this one specifically is covering
the GoPro HERO5 and the HERO6.
I recently did an unboxing of the 6 and I've been
doing some camera comparisons over the past couple of weeks.
And, the one thing that is the biggest complaint for me,
and pretty much anyone who has a GoPro
is how awful the audio is.
Side by side, each should be fairly the same quality.
Our GoPros are now filming each other.
Now, GoPros are great for what they are.
If you have perfect lighting,
especially bright outdoor lighting,
you're gonna get some really incredible shots.
And they've been dominating that action sports market
for pretty much as long as I can remember.
But the biggest complaint that I have,
ever since my first GoPro, the audio is terrible!
And I never realized how bad the GoPro audio is
until recently when I tested out the Sony RX0.
And it may be a little bit unfair to even compare it
to the RX0 because the sensor that is in the RX0
is the same that is in RX100V.
(ethereal music)
Brought the RX0 outside, right now it's actually
pretty dark out, there's a little bit of light
up above me from these flood spotlights here,
but the lighting looks pretty great.
I'm mostly curious to see what the audio sounds like
in comparison to the RX100.
So here, RX100, we're testing out the audio
to see what it sounds like, and now here is
the RX0 audio, uh, I'm not sure what's gonna be better.
But all of that aside, the RX0 is waterproof already.
The audio on the RX0 was so good that my mind was blown.
And I couldn't believe it, in any small, little, tiny
compact camera, the biggest complaint is the audio.
So because I'm still trying to make this
GoPro relationship work, I just keep trying.
I just keep putting more effort into it,
and this is where we're currently at.
Do you see what I have done to this GoPro
to try to make it work?
I've looked at so many different solutions on Amazon,
and this seems to be the best setup
that I could come up with.
But there are so many different issues
that I was running into, but first of all,
let's dissect this and let me show you
what we've got going on here.
The number one problem is that I couldn't find
a nice housing that had a little shoe attachment right here.
I needed a microphone that was high enough
because this is so wide angle,
I didn't want the microphone to be in the shot.
Looks high enough to me.
One of my favorite microphones is the Rode Microphone.
It's the Rode Go mic, let me grab it.
This one wouldn't work because these little furry hairs
are so low, that this is definitely in the shot.
I also wanted one where I could adjust the decibels.
Which this one has.
Just kinda absurd, because do I really need that?
This is crazy.
The other issue is where are you gonna plus this into?
Thanks GoPro, why didn't you just make an audio input?
No, of course, that would make things way too easy!
Instead, this is what they sell you!
Another $50, $60 attachment, it's USB-C,
which then plugs into here.
It is so heavy, this is absolutely insane.
This is unacceptable, to be honest with you.
And yet, here I am, trying to say yeah,
this is a good idea GoPro.
No, actually it's not, now I'm mad!
Now I'm mad making this video!
This was supposed to be a nice little helpful tip
to help you guys get better GoPro audio,
and now I'm just mad.
Anyway, moving on, you need this
and I was also reading reviews
that you can't use any other third-party ones,
that you have to use the GoPro one.
I have not tested out any third-party ones,
so I cannot say from firsthand use that they do not work,
but from some of the reviews that I have seen and read,
a lot of people are saying that they don't work.
This one didn't work right away,
so I had to do the firmware update,
and then I ran into firmware updates
while I was updating the HERO6 and I'm just sitting here,
I'm like, man, what have I done, why do I care?
At some point you gotta let it go, you gotta say:
♪ Let it go ♪
♪ I can't have this GoPro anymore ♪
The one good thing of all of this
is this case is actually really cool.
This little shoe is removable.
So you can take this off with a screwdriver,
you can put it on the side.
If you wanna put the microphone there, or a light,
or whatever it is that you're attaching to this.
Each piece came separate, this tripod actually was from
the Samsung 360 camera, the first edition.
It's actually very perfect for this scenario.
This bottom part, oh I think I cracked this tripod mount.
(groans) It's always something, guys.
It's always something.
This little tripod mount isn't a GoPro tripod mount,
it's from AmazonBasics but it works really, really well.
Now I know I'm giving this GoPro a hard time,
but after this whole setup it cost me
about 200 extra dollars to try
to make this thing sound good.
And as I'm asking myself, is this worth it?
Because when am I realistically going
to carry this around like this?
And now I've completely made it not waterproof,
because I had to take the side door
off of it just to access said port.
Anyway, this USB-C adaptor allows you to have a mic input.
There you go, I'm loving it, loving it!
So to make sure that you have the proper settings,
I would definitely recommend testing
out some different scenarios.
So when you go into the audio input, there's a powered mic,
there's a powered mic plus, so depending upon if you have
a microphone that powers itself or if you have one
that powers through the 3.5mm jack, then you're gonna need
to make sure that that proper selection is selected.
Let's see the difference between
having a microphone and not having one.
Hey guys, it's Justine, how's it goin'?
Alright, we're testing this out now.
What do you guys think?
What does it sound like, oh boy.
So this is what it sounds like
with the microphone attachment on.
I'm still questioning why I've done what I've done.
But I really wanted to just, you know,
try to make it work, and here we are.
And now, let's test it out without using the microphone.
And here's what it sounds like
using the onboard HERO6 microphone.
It basically, I feel like, sounds very similar to the 5.
I really couldn't hear much difference
when I was doing a comparison between the 5 and the 6.
But the one thing that I did like about the 6,
is the image stabilization.
When I was walking with this thing,
I was actually quite blown away at how stable it was.
That is the one factor that really
made me absolutely love this thing.
So, all things considered, I know I've been giving GoPro
a hard time but I do really like GoPro.
And I keep saying this but it just makes me so upset
because they really could have such a great camera
if the audio was a little bit better.
And then I know people are like,
well I'm outside doing action sports, I don't need audio.
But yeah, what about the rest of us
who are not doing crazy action sports?
This could be a much more
widely marketed camera, for everyone.
I took the GoPro plus the microphone outside
to see what it sounds like in an outdoor condition
and we're here at the beach so there's a lot
of wind actually, right now, as you can tell with my hair.
So let's see how this microphone handles the wind.
(waves crashing)
- Jenna!
- [Jenna] Hello!
- [Justine] Hi!
- [Jenna] Hi!
- Now I'm testing out the GoPro audio just on the GoPro,
the microphone is not attached.
Here is the cable that it should be attached to.
There's a big difference, I already know.
I don't even hear it and I already know.
I'm still trying to make the GoPro work, Jen.
- I know, give up on the dream.
- The dream, let's give it up.
Okay but later, this is beautiful.
- [Jenna] It is really pretty.
(playful music)
- Really, I just wanted to show you what I managed to do
to try to make this work and I was really impressed
with how good the audio actually did sound
after I got everything all hooked up and working.
So, this is the microphone that I got,
it's just a basic stereo microphone.
I got this on Amazon, I will put a link in the description.
I feel like I probably could've got a much smaller one,
but my concern was if it wasn't high enough,
it's still gonna be in the shot.
So this seemed to do the trick,
I feel like it's a little bit too big.
Maybe a little bit lower, it just looks (chuckles) crazy.
I just wish this would stay still.
I mean there's a lot of things
that I just wish it would do and it doesn't.
Well, thank you guys for watching.
I hope you guys sort of enjoyed this video.
If you didn't I'm so sorry, I just, I don't know.
I have so many feelings about GoPro,
and I guess I just have such high hopes,
and then I hear horror stories
of them stealing people's content
and then not giving them credit.
And it's like, why would you do that?
You guys are so cool.
You don't have to do that, just be nice.
Hopefully this was helpful if you were trying to find
out how to make your GoPro audio not suck.
And if you weren't looking for that,
then thanks for watching until the end anyway.
We'll see you guys in my next video, bye-bye!
(playful music)