- In front of me, I have a bunch
of different onboard microphones.
And I've always wanted to test them side by side to see
what kind of difference there is
between all these microphones
and then the Deity D4 just came out and I bought that
and I thought to myself,
why am I buying another microphone,
I have all these other ones.
So, this video is gonna go through
all of these microphones to kind of figure out
which ones I wanna keep and actually use,
and which ones, you know, I should get rid of.
I'm going to be comparing the Deity V-Mic D4,
the Rode Video Micro,
the Deity V-Mic D4 Duo,
the Sennheiser MKE 200,
the Rode VideoMic NTG,
the Rode VideoMic Pro+.
the Sony digital shotgun microphone,
and then we'll all compare those against
the Rode Wireless Go,
Rode Wireless Go II,
and the Rode Wireless Go with a Lav microphone.
And I need your help.
So throughout this video,
I'm gonna do samples where I say the same thing
with each microphone, from the same distance
and I want you guys to listen
on whatever device that you're listening on
and then tell me down in the comments,
which microphone you think is the best.
So I like to do a lot of shooting outdoors.
So we're gonna do these tests inside
in a controlled environment
and then now here in this kind of vlog style,
walking around to see what kind of difference there is
between all the microphones.
So, let's get started with the first one.
So the cheapest out of these microphones
is the Deity V-Mic D4 and it's $50.
And the benefits of this microphone is that it's small,
there's no batteries
and this one also has an input
on the side of the microphone.
If you want it to use another mic with this,
say a Lavalier mic, you can plug it in the side
and basically it splits the audio.
So one channel is the shotgun mic,
and then the other channel, it would be that Lav mic.
So for this size, that's a unique function
and it's also cheaper than all of these other microphones.
All right, so this is the Deity D4.
I have a little bit of a light breeze coming behind me,
but here we go.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Next is the Rode VideoMicro
and this one costs $59.
Now the benefits of this one is that it's small,
there's no battery
and there's just a single output that goes to your camera.
It's simple, you plug it in, you're ready to go.
So let's see how this one sounds.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
And one thing to note on the Rode mic,
the cable comes up the back,
whereas on the Deity mic, it comes off the side.
So it is nice that the Deity has that design change
for their small microphones.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,
the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Now next step is the Deity D4 Duo
and this one is $80.
Now, this is a similar size to the last two mics.
It's small, there's no battery,
but it's got two unique features on it
that make it stand out.
So number one is that there's a microphone on the back
as well as the front.
So if you're someone who talks behind camera,
you can talk to this microphone
and it's not gonna sound all muffled
like it would on one of these other microphones,
you're gonna get clear sound
and also the microphones are designed in a way
for this back one,
to be able to pick up your voice
at a close distance,
whereas this one on the front is made for
when the camera's a little bit further away from the source.
Now, also just like the other Deity,
there's an input.
So when you put in something like a lav of into the input,
it takes over the back capsule.
So you'll have the front capsule
and you'll have that microphone
just like the $50 Deity.
This is the Deity D4 Duo.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Next, we have the Sennheiser MKE 200.
Now, the audio here in my office,
right up here, this one
is a Sennheiser mic.
And that's why I decided to get this,
but I've never actually really used it that much.
What's unique about this microphone is that
you don't need one of these fuzzies
to block all wind sounds.
It has a built-in windscreen,
which is what you see around the microphone.
Now, they do include an extra fuzzy
for those super windy situations,
but the whole point of this microphone is that
you can go out with just this
and you don't need a big fuzzy thing.
Now, this microphone costs $100
and it has an input in the front with a lock,
so you could screw it on
and it's not gonna pop off
and it's got a blue cable.
This is the Sennheiser MKE 200.
I do like the fact that this one is super small
and it's not like big and puffy on top of your camera,
but the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over lazy dog.
But here's a little bit of wind hitting it,
this is what it sounds like right there,
there we got some wind.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
From here, the price starts to jump up
to the other microphones that I have.
So next, we're gonna go to the Rode NTG VideoMic.
Now this has a lot more features than
these other microphones that we've been talking about.
These have all been no battery,
no need for hassle, you just plug in and go.
So the Rode NTG has USB functionality,
so you can plug it directly into your computer.
It also has headphone monitoring on the actual mic itself.
Now, this one has a battery built-in,
that's charged through USB-C
and it has an automatic on and off
so when you turn your camera on,
it automatically turns on,
and when you turn your camera off,
it turns off to save battery.
So, this one comes with a safety channel.
So you can record one channel higher than the other
in situations where you might have loud sounds.
It also comes with filters built in,
so you have a high pass filter
and a treble boost filter.
Now, one thing that's really cool about this design
is the fact that it slides.
So the cold shoe mount
will slide forwards or backwards,
which is great,
if you wanna put the camera right up to your face,
you could slide the microphone forward
and it's not getting in your way.
And one unique thing about this microphone
is how you can turn up the volume.
So it's got this infinite volume gain on the back here.
And basically what you're supposed to do
is turn the camera as low as possible,
and then use this gain to turn it up,
to get the proper settings.
And that way you don't have a noise floor
in your recordings.
On these other microphones that we've been discussing,
I had to boost the audio to around 17
on the Sony A7S III
to be able to get a high enough recording to use.
All right, so let's hear how this one sounds.
All right, so this is the Rode NTG mic.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
There's some wind
hitting it right now on the tip this way.
How's that sound?
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Next, let's look at the Rode VideoMic Pro+,
that's this guy right here.
This was my go-to mic for a super long time,
but I haven't really been using it much lately,
just because of its size,
it's pretty big and bulky.
Now this one is $299.
It's similar to the other Rode mic
where it has a battery built-in
and it has an automatic on and off.
Now, this one doesn't have a USB-C,
it only has a micro USB for charging.
This one does not have infinite gain like this one,
instead it has three different boost levels of your gain,
so low, medium, high.
This one also has the high pass filters
and the treble boost.
And the one downside is that
this one does not slide like the NTG.
So this one has a fixed cold shoe mount.
So, you're basically stuck with
how this one sits on your camera
and the cord comes out the back.
Now, this is a little bit older of a microphone
and designs have definitely improved
since this one came out,
but let's listen and hear the difference
between this microphone and the others.
All right, so this is the Rode Pro+
and man just seeing it out here, vlog style,
it looks massive,
but the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Now, the final microphone is Sony's native microphone
that works with the hot shoe mount.
Now, this is the one that I've been using for a while now
and the reason is there's no cables,
and all of my cameras are Sony,
so it works seamlessly
with the cameras that I'm already using.
Now, this microphone costs $350.
So, it's the most expensive out of this whole batch.
However, you do have a lot more functionality
with this microphone.
So on the back,
you could switch it between super directional,
unidirectional, and omnidirectional.
You have different filters
for low cut and noise cancellation,
you have a gain dial on the back,
you can also adjust auto versus manual audio.
So if you're in a situation where
you're not gonna be able to control
how loud things are and everything's fluctuating,
you might just flip it into auto.
And with this microphone, you can do it right on the back
versus having to go in the menu system to do that.
It also has an ATT switch to help prevent distortion
depending on what you're recording.
All right, so let's hear how this one sounds in comparison.
All right, so now we've switched over to the Sony mic.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
So this is with none of the filters turned on.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
All right, let's do noise cancellation.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
And just so you can hear the difference,
this is omnidirectional.
So everything that we've been recording
has been directional and now this is omnidirectional.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Now the last two things that I wanna test
are the Rode Wireless Go,
Rode Wireless Go version two,
and then the lav of attachment
for the Rode Wireless Go.
Just so we could hear a difference
between using a lav mic and the shotgun mics.
So, we'll start with the Rode Wireless Go, the original.
The transmitter and the receiver costs $199
and these have three gain output,
and you basically turn it on
and it's pretty much auto from there.
Okay, so this is the original Rode Wireless Go.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
So, this is how I typically operate with a backpack,
I'll put it in one of these pockets here.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The issue is if you turn away,
all of a sudden it's going to change the sound,
or if you turn this way,
it's gonna change the sound in a different way.
So just because we're set up,
let's test the Wireless Go II
with the exact same setting
to see if there is any difference
with the internal mic on these recorders.
Now, the difference with the Rode Wireless Go II
is that you get a backup recording on the transmitter.
It's not the most intuitive to use,
and it's kind of a pain to pull them off the transmitter,
but it does work well if you need a backup recording,
and this also has two transmitters to one receiver.
So when you buy this pack,
you get two transmitters and one receiver
so you can mic up two people at once.
Now this costs $299.
Let's hear how this sounds compared to everything else.
All right, so this is the Rode Wireless Go II.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
And again, I don't have the windscreen on it,
so the wind's hitting me right here,
you'll probably hear some of that.
What's also unique about this one is that
there's more options for your output gain,
so you have more than three options.
So, the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over at the lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
All right, the last thing that I wanna test
is the Rode lavalier mic
just to hear the difference of using
one of these little lavaliers,
rather than microphone
that's built into these transmitters.
All right, so now we're on the added lavalier,
which is an additional $60.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Usually I would hide this cable down my shirt,
but just for simplicity, let's do it this way.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
All right, so now that we have samples
of all these microphones,
let's play them back to back and hear how they sound.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
All right, sake sure you go down the comments
and let me know which microphone you think sounds the best,
but let's have a quick little chat about all of these.
Now, when it comes to the cheaper microphones,
they all sound fairly clean
and they all sound pretty good.
So, you can't really go wrong,
they definitely do sound a little bit different,
but the Rode sounds great,
that's kind of a classic,
a lot of people use that one,
but the D4 Mini sounds really good.
And you also have that added input
and it's cheaper than all the rest.
So, out of those ones I would pick the D4.
Now right now, I'm using the Rode NTG,
and I think out of the entire lineup,
the Rode NTG just had a very rich sound,
and I really like the way that it sounds.
However, I'm probably not gonna use this
for my day-to-day microphone,
because the Sony is just so much easier to work with,
not having to deal with cables,
and also not having to deal with audio settings
inside the menu system.
Everything's on the back.
All right, I switched over to the Sony,
and I definitely think the Rode NTG
has a more rich sound,
but the ease of use and everything else
that's on this microphone,
makes it a winner in my book.
And I don't necessarily need a microphone
that also can plug into my computer,
I'm just thinking about a microphone
that goes on my camera for this style of content,
and out of this entire batch,
working with Sony cameras,
the Sony microphone is a clear winner.
It's super small, it's compact,
I could just throw it in my bag
and I don't have to ever worry about cables.
Now, when comparing these microphones to the lavalier mics,
those lavalier definitely sound a lot more muddy
and that's because they're on you,
kind of at your chest level here,
it's gonna sound more muddy.
So, the Rode Wireless GOs are definitely good
for getting wireless audio.
And if I need wireless audio,
I think they all sounded fairly good.
So, I'm gonna stick with the Rode Wireless GO II,
just for all the added functionality.
And I'll definitely bring along
the extra little lavalier mic,
because I don't always wanna see that big square
when I'm doing wireless audio.
But, if I was gonna choose shotgun or Wireless Go,
I'm definitely gonna pick shotgun every time,
because using a shotgun mic
is always gonna sound so much better
than that lavalier mic
when you're getting that close sound right on your chest.
Now next, I highly suggest you check out this video here,
it goes through some different techniques
on how you can film by yourself
and still get really awesome looking footage.
I'll see you over there.