Cheapskate and his audio dilemma

T

tomjelfs

Hey everyone,

I'm hoping I can get some advice on my current mic situation.

I've had my current mic for around 6 years now it's the ATR-6550 (Don't laugh I had no idea what I was doing when I started out) which I boom and run it into my Zoom H2 (again no sniggering) and I great clean sound. Once I run it through Audition's filters to boost the volume, Channel Mix, run a Compander, do a little noise reduction (all presets I've defined) it comes out sounding really nice and noise free. I've shot on a pretty windy day before and got great audio with this set up, for my hobbyist filmmaking this has been a great budget option.

All this proves that I don't NEED to change my audio set up when it comes to Dual Audio.

I've now decided to start doing some more videos for my Youtube channel which I've always recorded using Dual Audio but I've decided to try and go with in Camera audio to allow for faster turnarounds and less hassle generally when it comes to simple tips videos.

I've tried running my Mic via the Saramonic Smartrig and a couple of Rode adapters into my Canon 550d Running Magic Lantern with AGC turned off, Analog Gain set to 10db and the Smartrig set to about halfway, through this I'm getting a decent noiseless sound but it's far too quiet to use. I'm thinking that this is because the ATR-6550 is a mono mic. I'm considering purchasing a Rode Videomicro as I know this combined with the Smartrig will produce a decent sound (as highlighted in DSLR video shooter's video linked below) but I'm wondering if I should put the money spent on that towards a new XLR Shotgun mic maybe a Rode NTG3.

So at the moment it's two options:

1. Buy a Videomicro - cheap and should do the job for talking head shots / bts etc
2. Buy a new XLR shotgun mic to upgrade my old mic and maybe this will fulfill both roles.

Video




Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Tom
www.youtube.com/BlendThatFilm
 
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I've just edited the original post to include details of gain settings on the Saramonic Smartrig and Magic Lantern software.

Canon 550d Running Magic Lantern with AGC turned off, Analog Gain set to 10db and the Smartrig set to about halfway
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Have you used the NTG3 for in camera audio then?
 
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Have you used the NTG3 for in camera audio then?
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Hey, thanks for taking an interest in my projects.

I can count the amount of projects I've been involved in that used camera audio on one hand. My cameraman always uses a NTG3 as reference audio. To me it sounds like a cleaner camera audio, but still camera audio.

I've never seen using camera audio as a viable time saver. To me, saving the 5 to 10 minutes was never worth the loss of audio quality. If that's your chosen workflow, then that's what you're working towards.
 
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Just to be clear I'm not referring to using an internal camera mic I'm talking about recording the audio track internally via an external microphone plugged into the camera, in this case via a preamp. Canon DSLRs are notorious for having bad internal preamps and AGC, the Saramonic Smartrig solves this problem using mics like the Videomicro and I've seen the NTG3 used but it was being used around a foot and half away from the talent.

My choices are either buy the cheap mic for a quick cheap audio solution only or buy a more expensive mic if it can fulfill both roles.
 
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Canon DSLRs are notorious for having bad internal preamps
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Yep, most cameras do.

Videomicro and I've seen the NTG3 used but it was being used around a foot and half away from the talent.
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It's what you're supposed to do, though some foolishly insist on mounting the microphones on the camera expecting a better result from a better microphone. Pesky physics gets in the way.

My choices are either buy the cheap mic for a quick cheap audio solution only or buy a more expensive mic if it can fulfill both roles.
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They're all kind of the same thing, ATR-6550 included. NTG3 is a prosumer microphone and the Videomic is of lower quality and designed for amateurs. They have different connections and differing polar patterns, but the best results will come if they're used as intended.
 
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Seems like the Videomicro doesn't even work with the Saramonic Smartrig anyway, it works with the Smartrig Plus version but that's a lot more money. Going to keep tinkering with the settings on my setup see if I can't get this working.
 
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