Microphones for video: what are + examples for different budgets | Articles | Audio and video equipment

Clean, smooth and high-qual­i­ty record­ed sound is half the suc­cess of the video. Today, users are accus­tomed to qual­i­ty con­tent. And if the vol­ume “jumps”, the host is hard to hear, there are nois­es and wheez­ing, then the view­er goes to the com­peti­tors. It is pos­si­ble to cor­rect the sit­u­a­tion. It is enough to buy a high-qual­i­ty micro­phone and learn how to use it.

But which wired/wireless micro­phone to choose for video record­ing? The types and pop­u­lar options are dis­cussed in this arti­cle. All prices are valid at the time of writ­ing. And if you are just start­ing your video blog­ging jour­ney, our arti­cle on how to set up a home stu­dio will be use­ful to you.

Micro­phones are need­ed for record­ing videos, pod­casts and vlogs. Pho­to: boingboing.net

Types of micro­phones
Radio lapel sys­tems
Recorders (dic­ta­phones)
Can­non micro­phones
USB Micro­phones
XLR micro­phones
How to choose a micro­phone

Types of microphones

All mod­els can be divid­ed into 2 main cat­e­gories:

- con­denser micro­phones — more sen­si­tive to the source of sound, they trans­mit even a qui­et whis­per clear­ly. A good option for a pre­pared room with excel­lent sound insu­la­tion;

- dynam­ic micro­phones — have low­er sen­si­tiv­i­ty (which is good if the record­ing is in a noisy room). Most often used on the radio, in large stu­dios where there are a lot of peo­ple.

And now let’s move on to the types of micro­phones for record­ing sound for a video blog.

All prices are at the time of pub­li­ca­tion of the arti­cle.

Radio lapel systems

For film­ing vlogs, you will need a lava­lier micro­phone. These mod­els have many advan­tages:

• mobil­i­ty and ease of use — easy to attach, weigh lit­tle, you can car­ry it with you at least all day;
• There are mod­els for dif­fer­ent bud­gets. They can be either direc­tion­al or car­dioid. The for­mer record every­thing in gen­er­al (includ­ing noise), usu­al­ly a lit­tle cheap­er. The sec­ond — block most of the noise and cap­ture only the voice of the pre­sen­ter, they are usu­al­ly more expen­sive;
• Con­ve­nience — no assis­tant need­ed for trans­porta­tion, easy to hide in the folds of cloth­ing. The main thing is not to close it close­ly (for exam­ple, you do not need to wrap it with a scarf). Oth­er­wise, it will be bad to pick up sound;
• the kit has every­thing for record­ing sound direct­ly to the cam­era (receiv­er, trans­mit­ter, cable and the lava­lier micro­phone itself);
• are used for dif­fer­ent for­mats: live broad­cast, record­ing with one or more hosts, doc­u­men­tary film­ing.

Lapel micro­phones are light (usu­al­ly weigh­ing up to 0.5 kg), com­fort­able, easy to use. Pho­to: stake5.be

A budget option

Rode Film­mak­er Kit — con­denser wire­less lava­lier micro­phone for video for 35,890 rubles. With it, you can record clear sound with­out noise and inter­fer­ence from the first take. Simul­ta­ne­ous broad­cast­ing on 2 chan­nels is avail­able. This is pro­fes­sion­al equip­ment with cir­cu­lar acoustics (record­ing is pos­si­ble with­in a radius of 100 meters).

You can fix the main trans­mit­ter on your belt or back­pack strap. You can also fix the equip­ment on a tri­pod (using a spe­cial thread). Ease of man­age­ment is an impor­tant advan­tage. Once con­nect­ed, the sys­tem is ready for use.

Expensive option

One of the best lava­lier micro­phones for blog­ging, report­ing, etc. is the Sennheis­er EW 112P on-cam­era radio sys­tem. This is a clas­sic and very famous mod­el for 123,490 rubles. The kit includes:

• the micro­phone itself
• on-cam­era receiv­er;
• body­pack trans­mit­ter.

The advan­tage of the mod­el is True Diver­si­ty tech­nol­o­gy. It improves device pow­er, sig­nal sta­bil­i­ty and record­ing qual­i­ty.

The device can work up to 8 hours on a sin­gle charge. This is espe­cial­ly impor­tant when shoot­ing out­doors. Parts of the sys­tem are syn­chro­nized with each oth­er via wire­less IR inter­faces. Thanks to this, they will work even far apart (up to 100 meters).

Recorders (dictaphones)

But­ton­hole mod­els can be too expen­sive for a begin­ner blog­ger. What to do in this case? Pay atten­tion to a more bud­get option — recorders. How are they dif­fer­ent from but­ton­holes? Record sound on installed mem­o­ry cards. It turns out that the video is record­ed sep­a­rate­ly (on the cam­era), and the sound is record­ed sep­a­rate­ly. Then you can mix video and sound in any edit­ing pro­gram.

Recorders are a more bud­getary ana­logue of lava­lier micro­phones. Pho­to: zoomcorp.com

A recorder is a great option if:

• your cam­era does not have a micro­phone out­put and in any case you will have to record the sound sep­a­rate­ly;
• want to save
• record the voice-over sep­a­rate­ly. That is, it does not mat­ter that there is no con­nec­tion to the cam­era.

A budget option

The Zoom H1m micro­phone is a recorder that can record audio in WAV and MP3 for­mat. The mod­el is small in size (136x44x31 mm), light (78 g), made of mat­te plas­tic (does not leave prints on the sur­face). The price at the time of this writ­ing is 9,190 rubles.

Zoom H1m has: LCD dis­play, micro­phone sen­si­tiv­i­ty adjust­ment. On a sin­gle charge, the device will last up to 10 hours. An inter­est­ing fea­ture is its own sound pro­cess­ing soft­ware. This allows you to make pro­fes­sion­al pro­cess­ing of the record­ing (apply effects, cut out bad sec­tions and defects, cre­ate parts of tracks from scratch). The lat­est ver­sion of Stein­berg soft­ware is includ­ed.

Expensive option

Zoom H6 is a com­pact (77x152x47 mm), light­weight (280 g) device. With it, you can record up to 3 hours of audio in high qual­i­ty. The design has 2 uni­di­rec­tion­al micro­phones (I record the sound in a straight line, and not in a radius from all sides). It can work con­tin­u­ous­ly up to 20 hours.

You can con­nect Zoom H6 not only to a lap­top, but also to a tablet. You can improve the sound qual­i­ty, trim the track and apply effects to it using the spe­cial Stein­berg Cubase LE soft­ware (includ­ed).

Cannon microphones

Not only but­ton­holes and recorders are used to record video. There are also gun mics. They are also known as “boom”. This is an elon­gat­ed direc­tion­al device that picks up sound in a cer­tain direc­tion and sup­press­es noise.

Such equip­ment is bet­ter than recorders. If we talk about the best but­ton­holes and guns:

• in the bud­get seg­ment, the sound qual­i­ty will be approx­i­mate­ly the same;
• among expen­sive mod­els, gun micro­phones often lead in terms of sound qual­i­ty and pop­u­lar­i­ty.

A gun micro­phone is installed above or below the cam­era, direct­ed at the speak­er. It is also some­times installed on a spe­cial rack. Most like­ly, you will need the help of an oper­a­tor who will adjust the posi­tion of the micro­phone. For exam­ple, when the speak­er does not sit sta­t­i­cal­ly, but moves. An impor­tant advan­tage is that such equip­ment is not vis­i­ble in the frame, and the record­ing qual­i­ty is real­ly high. By the way, movies and com­mer­cials are shot with guns (where the puri­ty of sound is espe­cial­ly impor­tant).

Can­non is a pro­fes­sion­al device for record­ing voice out­doors and indoors. Pho­to: null.petrkvicala.cz

A budget option

Rode VideoM­ic Pro Rycote — a mod­el for 14,490 rubles. This is a uni­ver­sal option for a begin­ner and an expe­ri­enced blog­ger. Com­pat­i­ble with portable HD cam­corders and DSLR cam­eras. It is only 15 cm long — com­pact, super light (85 grams).

On a sin­gle charge, you can work up to 70 hours. There is a built-in vibra­tion and wind pro­tec­tion, which helps to record less noise.

Expensive option

It is dif­fi­cult to choose the best on-cam­era shot­gun micro­phone, since in the expen­sive seg­ment, pro­fes­sion­al equip­ment copes with the tasks at about the same lev­el. Many wor­thy mod­els are pre­sent­ed on the mar­ket from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers. Today we will talk a lit­tle about the Sennheis­er MKH 416-P48U3.

It is a com­pact (25 cm long and 1.5 cm in diam­e­ter), light­weight (165 g) device that is suit­able for record­ing pod­casts and shoot­ing videos. The black all-met­al hous­ing is suit­able for use even in unfa­vor­able cli­mat­ic con­di­tions (strong wind, fog, etc.). The kit includes a wind­screen. The micro­phone has a very wide fre­quen­cy range (40–20000 Hz). This means that it can receive and trans­mit all sounds in this range (both low and high). In com­par­i­son, vocal micro­phones have a range of 80 to 15,000 Hz.

USB Microphones

If pre­vi­ous mod­els are used most often on the street, then these micro­phones are pop­u­lar with peo­ple who shoot indoors. They are also need­ed for record­ing pod­casts, voiceovers. Their fea­ture is that they are con­nect­ed via USB direct­ly to the com­put­er.

A USB micro­phone is a good and inex­pen­sive solu­tion for indoor audio record­ing. Pho­to: gadgetreview.com

A budget option

Sam­son Mete­or MIC — stu­dio con­denser micro­phone for 7,000 rubles. Desk­top, com­pact, with a 1 m cable. This styl­ish chrome-plat­ed device will help you record sound clear­ly and with­out inter­fer­ence. Also, its retro design is sure to grab the atten­tion of your view­ers. The chrome grille not only pro­tects the device, but also reduces exter­nal noise. There are pads on the legs so they don’t slip.

Expensive option

Rode Pod­cast­er — dynam­ic stu­dio micro­phone for 17,890 rubles. Suit­able for record­ing speech in a room (even unpre­pared). It does not have very high sen­si­tiv­i­ty. There­fore, it can be used even with an open win­dow and in the pres­ence of oth­er extra­ne­ous sounds in the room. You def­i­nite­ly won’t have to make a spe­cial sound­proof booth from the room.

XLR microphones

More expen­sive mod­els than USB options. They are pre­ferred by expe­ri­enced blog­gers and pod­cast­ers. The qual­i­ty of the record­ed sound will be bet­ter with these micro­phones. An impor­tant dif­fer­ence from USB mod­els is the lack of a built-in sound card. It needs to be pur­chased sep­a­rate­ly.

An XLR micro­phone can be used both in a pre­pared stu­dio and in a room with­out spe­cial noise iso­la­tion. Pho­to: amazona.de

A budget option

Shure SM7B is a good XLR type micro­phone for record­ing pod­casts, videos, musi­cal instru­ments, vocals. The robust body is made of alu­minum and steel. There is anti-shock and anti-vibra­tion pro­tec­tion. Allows you to record sound with­out extra­ne­ous noise and wheez­ing. The price of the device is 40,000 rubles.

Expensive option

Choos­ing the best micro­phone for pod­casts and video record­ing in the stu­dio is not easy. But the pro­fes­sion­als def­i­nite­ly have their favorites. For exam­ple, Elec­tro-Voice RE20. This is a dynam­ic car­dioid micro­phone that has been the stan­dard for stu­dio record­ing since the 1970s. It has Variable‑D tech­nol­o­gy, wind and vibra­tion pro­tec­tion.

Thanks to these char­ac­ter­is­tics, it is pos­si­ble to min­i­mize the ingress of extra­ne­ous noise, explo­sive sounds into the record­ing. The sound is soft, nat­ur­al, undis­tort­ed and clear. The Elec­tro-Voice RE20 costs 94,000 rubles.

How to choose a microphone

It all depends on 2 para­me­ters: bud­get and pur­pose.

one. Are you plan­ning to film out­doors? Rode Film­mak­er Kit, Zoom H6, Rode VideoM­ic Pro Rycote, Sennheis­er MKH 416-P48U3, Zoom H1.

2. Need the most bud­get option for street pho­tog­ra­phy: Zoom H1.

3. Pro­fes­sion­al micro­phone for street pho­tog­ra­phy: Sennheis­er EW 112P, Sennheis­er MKH 416-P48U3.

four. Shoot­ing indoors (not only a room, but also an office, a hangar, a the­ater), while the host is not sta­t­ic: Rode Film­mak­er Kit, Zoom H6, Sennheis­er EW 112P.

5. Shoot­ing indoors (the pre­sen­ter is sta­t­ic, the room is a pro­fes­sion­al stu­dio): Sam­son Mete­or MIC, Elec­tro-Voice RE20, Shure SM7B, Rode Pod­cast­er.

6. Shoot­ing indoors (host is sta­t­ic, the room is a non-pro­fes­sion­al stu­dio, no noise reduc­tion): Elec­tro-Voice RE20, Shure SM7B, Rode Pod­cast­er.