Playing around with my new audio set-up pretty happy with it.
So what I have ended up with is...
Zoom H4N with Remote Control
Rode NTG-2 with Shock Mount (Shotgun Condenser)
Rider WM-308 (High Fidelity uni-directional dynamic mic) which has a wireless option
Silfix 6679 (Unidirectional Condenser, also high fidelity I believe)
Sony MDR-XD100 Headphones
Initial Comments:
Now each of these mics sound great with the H4n
The Rode NTG-2 clearly producing the higher gain than the other two mics. Sound was clear and crisp, I was running on batteries. If your not pointing directly at who ever is talking it does tend to sound muffled (what its suppose to do), but correct pointing works perfect.
The Selfix 6679 condensor is only phone plug which is likely older than me and was my Mom's from way back when. My experiance with this is that it hisses like an angry cat, when I took it to a local music store recently it still had the his (when they plugged it in for me to test it out). To my surprise this mic sounded really good with the H4n, not as good gain wise as the Rode NTG-2 (when NTG is at -12, Selfix is at -24) but still very impressive.
The Rider WM-308 was an emergancy buy last week when the NTG and H4n didn't arrive. It works quite well when connected via XLR. However there is considerable hiss when wireless and it only goes ~15ft before the signal cuts off - maybe need to fine tune the receiver signal, I don't know? For $10 (on sale) I'm very happy with it, almost tempted to get a second one.
The onboard mics are good, I find they pick up a lot of residual noise and tend to be louder than the plug-in mics, causing me to set their input volume to 50% vs 100% on the mics, (brings new meaning to quite on the set vs. the other mics). If your handling the device you will hear it clearly with the onboard, using the remote solves that problem quite well.
The headphones are cheap ($20, almost as cheap as the rider mic), mainly got them so I could hear that the audio was recording, vs. quality.
Some 101 Tips I learned using the H4n without hurting your ears:
1. Don't use speakers to hear yourself, feedback is bad. Use Headphones.
2. Make SURE you have turned OFF your speakers when wearing your head phones (I have a splitter on the line.)
3a. Determine the distance of the lav from your system before it drops out, static is loud!
3b. If you headphone line is farther then your lav will transmit, don't walk off wearing the headphone!
4. Turn down the line-out volume on the H4n until you have determined what the maximum loudness is.
Irony is I knew all of this before I started, but new toys sometimes cause spur of the moment "ohhs and ahhs" and not think about exactly what I was doing.
My Plan is to do some more "formal" sound tests over the weekend, but these are my first impressions.
So what I have ended up with is...
Zoom H4N with Remote Control
Rode NTG-2 with Shock Mount (Shotgun Condenser)
Rider WM-308 (High Fidelity uni-directional dynamic mic) which has a wireless option
Silfix 6679 (Unidirectional Condenser, also high fidelity I believe)
Sony MDR-XD100 Headphones
Initial Comments:
Now each of these mics sound great with the H4n
The Rode NTG-2 clearly producing the higher gain than the other two mics. Sound was clear and crisp, I was running on batteries. If your not pointing directly at who ever is talking it does tend to sound muffled (what its suppose to do), but correct pointing works perfect.
The Selfix 6679 condensor is only phone plug which is likely older than me and was my Mom's from way back when. My experiance with this is that it hisses like an angry cat, when I took it to a local music store recently it still had the his (when they plugged it in for me to test it out). To my surprise this mic sounded really good with the H4n, not as good gain wise as the Rode NTG-2 (when NTG is at -12, Selfix is at -24) but still very impressive.
The Rider WM-308 was an emergancy buy last week when the NTG and H4n didn't arrive. It works quite well when connected via XLR. However there is considerable hiss when wireless and it only goes ~15ft before the signal cuts off - maybe need to fine tune the receiver signal, I don't know? For $10 (on sale) I'm very happy with it, almost tempted to get a second one.
The onboard mics are good, I find they pick up a lot of residual noise and tend to be louder than the plug-in mics, causing me to set their input volume to 50% vs 100% on the mics, (brings new meaning to quite on the set vs. the other mics). If your handling the device you will hear it clearly with the onboard, using the remote solves that problem quite well.
The headphones are cheap ($20, almost as cheap as the rider mic), mainly got them so I could hear that the audio was recording, vs. quality.
Some 101 Tips I learned using the H4n without hurting your ears:
1. Don't use speakers to hear yourself, feedback is bad. Use Headphones.
2. Make SURE you have turned OFF your speakers when wearing your head phones (I have a splitter on the line.)
3a. Determine the distance of the lav from your system before it drops out, static is loud!
3b. If you headphone line is farther then your lav will transmit, don't walk off wearing the headphone!
4. Turn down the line-out volume on the H4n until you have determined what the maximum loudness is.
Irony is I knew all of this before I started, but new toys sometimes cause spur of the moment "ohhs and ahhs" and not think about exactly what I was doing.
My Plan is to do some more "formal" sound tests over the weekend, but these are my first impressions.
