Which microphone for 7D?

Dan7312 · November 4, 2009

I'm looking to get a microphone for a 7D to shoot video. I don't have the camera yet, but I'm guessing the builtin one is "ok" but not all that good. I've zero'd in on the R0de VideoMic because I already have a R0de Podcaster for the programming courses I record with Camtasia and have found it to be are really good 'mic for the price.

Have any of you used the VideoMic and what do you think?

Are there any other good choices to look at? I don't want to do the preamp/mixer/compressor sort of thing, I don't need the level of quality.

Thanks,

divamum · November 4, 2009

I can't answer your question with specifics because I haven't done video recording, but I CAN recommend that you contact www.soundprofessionals.com and talk to Chris, the owner, who provides some of the best customer service you will ever get. He will work with you to figure out what you need, won't try to sell you something you DON'T need just for extra $, and if he can't answer your questions he'll find somebody who can . I have nothing to do with the store other than that I"m a very satisfied customer. His prices are extremely competitive.

hgernhardtjr · November 4, 2009

I've owned the RØDE VideoMic about a year now and like it ... mine came with the dead cat muff (jacksmusicfactory.com special deal) and that is definitely useful when shooting in even a slight breeze as it kills virtually all wind noise. It would be all you need if you are not professionally shooting video; but remember, it is a mono shotgun. I have only borrowed a RØDE Video StereoMic (once several months ago), and it worked well ... but you should definitely have the dead "kitten" muff if used outdoors. I was using the 5dMkII.

Dan7312 · November 4, 2009

I don't need a real pro setup and I do like my Podcaster. I'm waiting for The Sound Professionals to open (thanks for the pointer Divamum) to get some info from them, but right now I'm leaning towards the VideoMic.

Does the 7D record stereo?

hgernhardtjr wrote:

I've owned the RØDE VideoMic about a year now and like it ...

hgernhardtjr · November 4, 2009

Dan7312 wrote:

Does the 7D record stereo?

Yes.

Dan7312 · November 4, 2009

Just talked with Chris at The Sound Professionials. He was knowledgable and put me into a cheaper mic' that's the equal of the R0de I was looking at but costs much less. They have a good resellerrating too.

Divamum was right, their customer support is great!

This is what I'm getting:

Tascam TAS-TM-ST2 http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/category.cgi?item=TAS-TM-ST2

Sound Professionals shock mount http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-SHM-12

Audio Technica camcorder mount adapter http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/AT3760057

In the distant past I had brief foray into the music industry, so Tascam is a brand I'm familiar with.

The only advanage of the Rode VideoMic is that it includes all the pieces so you don't have to figure what parts to get.

Total cost will be $118

divamum wrote:

I can't answer your question with specifics because I haven't done video recording, but I CAN recommend that you contact www.soundprofessionals.com...

ziggy53 · November 4, 2009

Tascam is OK, but nowhere near the quality of the RODE and Sennheiser microphones. I would be interested in your thoughts when you've had a chance to test the Tascam because I am looking for an economical mic as well.

BradfordBenn · November 4, 2009

ziggy53 wrote:

Tascam is OK, but nowhere near the quality of the RODE and Sennheiser microphones. I would be interested in your thoughts when you've had a chance to test the Tascam because I am looking for an economical mic as well.

Agreed. The brands are at different ends of the audio spectrum. I would be interested in the results as well.

Dan7312 · November 4, 2009

I have high hopes for it... when I talked to Chris at Sound Professionals I told him I had zeroed in on the R0de VideoMic because I have a Podcaster and liked its quality. He could have said "Good choice" and pocked an extra $100 from me but instead took he time to lead me through his site to find the pieces I needed to cobble together the Tascam solution.

Certainly R0de mic's are second to none in the sound industry, but the VideoMic, like the Podcaster, is a completely self-contained mic', no separate phantom power and preamp, so they are not like the kinds of mic's studios usually use. If I was going to make an analogy I think I say that R0de studio mic's are more like EOS SLR's in the camera world, but the Podcaster/VideoMic are more like PowerShot's

.

I think the Podcaster is a great value for the price and is what I use to make computer videos of the courses I write. But someone else I know who does the same has setup a regular analog studio mic with a preamp and a mixing board with a USB output and his stuff is much more quiet than mine.

If I really didn't care about cost and complextity I would setup a Blue Mouse (http://www.bluemic.com/mouse/)... but that's only because they were used in the last Startrek movie :ivar

In any case by next week I should have the camera and the mic' in hand and I'll post some samples so you can see the how it performs.

ziggy53 wrote:

Tascam is OK, but nowhere near the quality of the RODE and Sennheiser microphones. I would be interested in your thoughts when you've had a chance to test the Tascam because I am looking for an economical mic as well.

BradfordBenn · November 4, 2009

Dan7312 wrote:

Certainly R0de mic's are second to none in the sound industry, but the VideoMic, like the Podcaster, is a completely self-contained mic', no separate phantom power and preamp, so they are not like the kinds of mic's studios usually use. If I was going to make an analogy I think I say that R0de studio mic's are more like EOS SLR's in the camera world, but the Podcaster/VideoMic are more like PowerShot's .

Great analogy. You are correct about the differences.

divamum · November 5, 2009

ziggy53 wrote:

Tascam is OK, but nowhere near the quality of the RODE and Sennheiser microphones. I would be interested in your thoughts when you've had a chance to test the Tascam because I am looking for an economical mic as well.

This is true, but Tascam's current line of handheld "point-n-shoot" digital recorders - with built-in mics - (DR1, DR7 etc) is standing up well against several other "better" brands including Edirol, Zoom and Olympus; the Tascam models are also priced extremely competitively versus the other brands on offer for similar specs, so on a bang-per-buck basis are extremely well regarded as a cost-effective "all in one" solution. Presumably their mics are likely to provide similar value for money. Obviously high-end, dedicated studio-type mics and preamps will offer better sound quality than ANY mic plugged into a mic-in socket, but fwiw....

OP, glad you liked working with Chris; I"ve always been impressed. Also, if you have any problems with your new gear, he absolutely stands by his sales - his aftersale care is just as good as during purchase. Enjoy!

Dan7312 · November 9, 2009

The 7D and mic's arrived a little bit ago!

Still waiting for the battery to charge:(:

Intial look and the tascam tells me it's no plastic play mic'. It's metal, and a bit heavier than I expected. In fact I think I'll have to be careful using it on the camera itself... in a lot of cases I think I'll use it on a separate stand. BTW if you are going to use it on the camera buy and extra short cable, the one that comes with it is a bit long for on camera use.

esc2476 · November 9, 2009

Dan7312 wrote:

The 7D and mic's arrived a little bit ago! Still waiting for the battery to charge:(:

Intial look and the tascam tells me it's no plastic play mic'. It's metal, and a bit heavier than I expected. In fact I think I'll have to be careful using it on the camera itself... in a lot of cases I think I'll use it on a separate stand. BTW if you are going to use it on the camera buy and extra short cable, the one that comes with it is a bit long for on camera use.

That microphone is no joke.

Dan7312 · November 9, 2009

I'll be loading up a clip soon. The stereo imaging it produces sounds pretty good to me... I'm intrested what some who knows what they are listening to thinks.

I've got a clip, but my upload speed is a tad slow, so it will be a while. I post a pointer here once it's done.

esc2476 wrote:

That microphone is no joke.

Dan7312 · November 9, 2009

Here is a clip with some audio recorded on the Tascam mic'. The audio is good for my purposes I'd like to hear what everybody else thinks.

http://www.danalphotos.com/Other/temp/9344418_jYfFd/1/#708588819_n5aqv-A-LB

BTW the mic' has a low pass filter builtin, but I didn't enable it.

BradfordBenn · November 9, 2009

Sounds pretty good, however there is some compression artifacts when you get far off the microphone to the corners. Do you know what bit rate and depth you are using? It could be set in the encoding process to make it into QuickTime. I think most people wouldn't notice it, and it depends what you are trying to do with it.

Dan7312 · November 9, 2009

I think it's pretty good for a $100 mic'. Here is the recording info:

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=4 width="100%" align=center><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD>Stream: MVI_0115.MOV
Path: H:\Pictures\CamTest\MVI_0115.MOV
Duration: 0:01:18
Data Size: 421.83 MB
Bit Rate: 44.88 Mbps
Video Tracks:
H.264, 1280 x 720, 59.939999999999998 fps, 43.34 Mbps
Audio Tracks:
16-bit Little Endian stereo, 48 kHz, 1.54 Mbps
Stream Files:
MVI_0115.MOV (421.83 MB)

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

I'm not sure what making the distortion but now that you've pointed it out I can hear it change as I move across the frame.... the room isn't exactly a sound stage and is a bit echoy so it may be just be the room.

I don't think computers play 48 kHz?? so maybe there is some transcoding introducing the distortion. Also I did the recoding at 60fps... not conciously I just hit the button and took what I got. It would probably be better to record at 30fps if it's going to be played back on a computer.

If you can think of some other simple tests I can run it let me know.

BradfordBenn wrote:

Sounds pretty good, however there is some compression artifacts when you get far off the microphone to the corners. Do you know what bit rate and depth you are using? It could be set in the encoding process to make it into QuickTime. I think most people wouldn't notice it, and it depends what you are trying to do with it.

BradfordBenn · November 10, 2009

I am wondering if it is the encoding for streaming. Most computers will play 44.1kHz, 48kHz, and even 96kHz without a problem. The thing that I am not familiar with is Little Endian Stereo. That one is is a new one for me. I would think that in QuickTime or the encoder that you are using, you can set the compression process. I have not done a whole lot of video production on the Mac side so I am not sure what all the settings are.

An easy way to see if it is the streaming artifacts is to simply use a WAV/AIFF/Uncompressed audio file and then encode it to a static image so that one is just hearing the audio. That should indicate if it is a compression issue or a microphone issue.

Dan7312 · November 10, 2009

What's in the video is straight what comes out of the camera and I don't have a way to control it.

It's an analog mic' though so the mic's not doing any encoding, that's done by the camera itself. When I get a chance I'm going to try it outside where there are no echos and see if that makes a difference.

BradfordBenn wrote:

I am wondering if it is the encoding for streaming. Most computers will play 44.1kHz, 48kHz, and even 96kHz without a problem. The thing that I am not familiar with is Little Endian Stereo. That one is is a new one for me. I would think that in QuickTime or the encoder that you are using, you can set the compression process. I have not done a whole lot of video production on the Mac side so I am not sure what all the settings are.

An easy way to see if it is the streaming artifacts is to simply use a WAV/AIFF/Uncompressed audio file and then encode it to a static image so that one is just hearing the audio. That should indicate if it is a compression issue or a microphone issue.

Dan7312 · November 10, 2009

I've re-listened to the video on SmugMug and think the distortions are reasonably small but you can be your own judge of course. I've also listened to the vid directly using ZoomBrowserEx (the Canon viewer) and I don't think I hear the distortions there so it may be some kind of re-encoding thing on SmugMug, but that's just a guess.

The audio is being played back by my R0de Podcaster through some Bose headphones. The noise level is acceptable for me, but not as low as what I get with recordings I make with the Podcaster. It's certainly not the dead quiet background you get with a studio mic' with a preamp and compressor, but I think it's really good for a $100 mic'.

I've also listened to it on a Bose sound system by playing it back from the camera via HDMI... so at least in theory the Bose is doing all the decoding. The sound is very clear and sync'd with the video. However if you crank up the volume the noise level is really in your face, but the recorded parts as still completely clear and undistorted.

My guess is if you were recoding some kind of event that had a lot of audience noise in the background you wouldn't notice mic noise.

Overall I really like the Tascam

. I don't have a way to do a direct comparison to the R0de VideoMic, but I think if there was a big difference Chris at Sound Professionals would have told me so... after all the R0de is $100 more for him.

The mic comes with a windscreen and cable, but you will want to buy a short cable as the one that comes with the mic's is too long for on camera use.

The hot shoe mount is a little tedious to get tightened because it's hard to really get your fingers into tighten the nuts that keep the shock mount and hot shoe from turning.

I'm not so worried about the weight now... it about the same as a flash unit.

Dan7312 wrote:

What's in the video is straight what comes out of the camera and I don't have a way to control it.

It's an analog mic' though so the mic's not doing any encoding, that's done by the camera itself. When I get a chance I'm going to try it outside where there are no echos and see if that makes a difference.

DavidTO · November 10, 2009

I don't follow Transom for it's technical advice, but they have plenty to say about microphones.

divamum · November 10, 2009

Are you running line-in or mic-in, ie is the preamp part of the camera (mic-in) or part of the mic? The hiss I hear definitely sounds to me like preamp noise rather than a failing of the mic, which sounds pretty darn good at that price point!

Regardless of that, you can help minimize background hiss by recording at the absolutely highest level you can go without clipping and going "into the red". For anything critical, do a thorough sound check (it's worth the extra time) and keep your levels as high as you can - kind of the same principle as expose as far to the right as you can without actually blowing a highlight.

I'd be very interested in hearing how that mic performs when recording a wider dynamic range, ie music.

Dan7312 · November 10, 2009

I'm using "mic in" on the 7D. I haven't found any way to adjust the gain of the mic in, but if I can find one I'll rachet it up. Unfortunately the is no vu meter to give me a hint as to what the level is... the histograms only work for pictures:D

I would like to grab some live music, but don't see a chance for that in the near future.

Do you think it would be worthwhile recording the playing of a CD in a sound system? That's as good as I can get for now, but I'd give it at try if you think it would add some more info.

divamum wrote:

Are you running line-in or mic-in, ie is the preamp part of the camera (mic-in) or part of the mic? The hiss I hear definitely sounds to me like preamp noise rather than a failing of the mic, which sounds pretty darn good at that price point!

Regardless of that, you can help minimize background hiss by recording at the absolutely highest level you can go without clipping and going "into the red". For anything critical, do a thorough sound check (it's worth the extra time) and keep your levels as high as you can - kind of the same principle as expose as far to the right as you can without actually blowing a highlight.

I'd be very interested in hearing how that mic performs when recording a wider dynamic range, ie music.

divamum · November 10, 2009

Since it's mic-in, the hiss is almost certainly coming from the preamp; if you can adjust the gain, that will help solve that. If not.... well, it IS a dSLR rather than dedicated recording advice, so I guess there are going to be limitations somewhere!

Thanks for posting your samples. I'm planning a 7d in my future and will be using my DPA4060's (which I already have) if I ever use it for any critical sound recording - they're probably not ideal video mics (especially since they're omnis) but I'm sure I can deal with them.

Remember, you also have the option of recording your sound track separately. Yeah, it means a bunch more extra work in post, but it IS a solutio if you need ultra-hi-fi.

BradfordBenn · November 10, 2009

Dan7312 wrote:

What's in the video is straight what comes out of the camera and I don't have a way to control it.

It's an analog mic' though so the mic's not doing any encoding, that's done by the camera itself. When I get a chance I'm going to try it outside where there are no echos and see if that makes a difference.

I did some digging at work, 16-bit Little Endian stereo, 48 kHz, 1.54 Mbps simple indicates the data structure, bit depth, sample rate, channels, and throughput speed needed. I did the math and it is uncompressed data that is sent least significant bit first. So my hunch is that it might be the encoding that SmugMug is doing. Not an insult as any Internet Streaming Format, such as Flash and Quicktime, do some compression. I don't know enough about the H.264 compression scheme to comment on it.

Ric Grupe · November 10, 2009

Blah...blah...blah...techy banter. :puke

It sounds very good to me!

BradfordBenn · November 11, 2009

Ric Grupe wrote:

Blah...blah...blah...techy banter. :puke

It sounds very good to me!

Pretty much the way I feel when people critique photos around here

We each have our area of expertise.... mine happens to be audio.

It is all in learning and we share knowledge

Ric Grupe · November 11, 2009

BradfordBenn wrote:

Pretty much the way I feel when people critique photos around here We each have our area of expertise.... mine happens to be audio.

It is all in learning and we share knowledge

Nothing wrong with that!

I happen to be well versed in audio myself...but am more interested in photography...so I participate in this photography forum...where images do come first.

I don't care for color management and camera guts talk either.

Looks good....sounds good is what it's all about to me.

Oh...BTW...I was replying to the OP not you.

Dan7312 · November 12, 2009

Here is another source of microphone info for 5/7D's

http://www.cinema5d.com/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=5849&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=microphone

Looks like, as Divamum said, a preamp is the only way to get rid of the background noise.

BradfordBenn · November 12, 2009

All good. Sorry if it came out wrong. It is more that it piqued my interest the artifacts and the like.

Dan7312 · November 21, 2009

I'm getting around to trying something more adventurous now with my 7D video. I was a bit worried about the noise level in relistening to this vid because I noticed, espcially near the beginning and end, a very slight, periodic clicking noise.
But it was the ticking of the clock in the other room, not noise:whew , being picked up on the backside of the mic'. I do like my $100 stereo mic'

Dan7312 wrote:

Here is a clip with some audio recorded on the Tascam mic'. The audio is good for my purposes I'd like to hear what everybody else thinks.

http://www.danalphotos.com/Other/temp/9344418_jYfFd/1/#708588819_n5aqv-A-LB

BTW the mic' has a low pass filter builtin, but I didn't enable it.

Which microphone for 7D?

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