Any recommendations for a small hotshoe mic?

[hyalinejim]

1 hour ago, hyalinejim said:

Or if I could find something like this (a Zoom mic for a phone) that would sit on a hot shoe

I found the Tascam TM-2X which is but from YT reviews it sounds not great at all 😞

[newfoundmass]

1 hour ago, hyalinejim said:

Well, it's certainly a lot cheaper than the MKE440! And practical too, like I could use it for other things.

BUT! I've suddenly realised that because the tripod socket is in the middle, it will protrude probably around 4cm behind the viewfinder of the S5II. And I do sometimes like to shoot video through the viewfinder. It also makes it more awkward to get in and out of a camera bag.

If I could get it to sit forward a bit that would help.

Add a bracket to move the hotshoe towards the side maybe?

[hyalinejim]

4 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

Add a bracket to move the hotshoe towards the side maybe?

It still makes it harder to fit in a bag as it would be sticking out over the back by a few centimeters. I Theoretically if I could move it forward then it would work better.

I'm leaning towards shelling out for the Sennheiser as it only adds extra height to the camera - the rear is flush with the viewfinder. And the sound seems really nice as well.

[newfoundmass]

13 minutes ago, hyalinejim said:

I found the Tascam TM-2X which is but from YT reviews it sounds not great at all 😞

I've found it's pretty decent personally! I was scared because all the reviews for it were OLD and on DSLRs with crappy preamps, or featured people trying to use it as a vlogging mic, but I used it on my GH5 and now one of my S5s and I think it does a pretty good job. I've found it translates the arena sound pretty well, which is what I wanted. 

[hyalinejim]

17 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

I've found it's pretty decent personally!

Oh nice! You've got it! Have you any videos online that feature it?

I also am now researching AT9945CM and AT9946CM

[newfoundmass]

 

 

 

 

[newfoundmass]

4 minutes ago, hyalinejim said:

Oh nice! You've got it! Have you any videos online that feature it?

I also am now researching AT9945CM and AT9946CM

I didn't film the above examples, but I assume they're better than what I can provide! All my online examples feature heavily mixed audio from multiple cameras (one of which is a shotgun mic) with commentary/voice overs and music. I will go through my raw footage and see if I can get some good examples though!

The Sennheiser I'm sure produces a better sound overall sound but for under $100 these blew away the internal microphones, and accomplished what I needed them to!

[hyalinejim]

Thanks, I've seen some of those. If I sort by new on YT I get a bunch of people in Japan filming trains and comparing mics which is slightly helpful, I think.

I saw a Sennheiser promo vid where the presenter claimed that the MKE440 gives a flat response. But it sounds an awful lot fuller than the Tascam, or indeed the AT ones (the 45 is probably better than the 46 - you can't really get them outside of Asia anyway, it seems).

So like, maybe I could EQ the Tascam a bit, but I'm not entirely sure that I'm on board with the idea that I could EQ one mic to sound like another. If the MKE440 is a flat response, then perhaps the Tascam is just missing that info and it can't be recovered. But that's basically €100 versus €300. Like, those videos from the Z6 guy sound awfully thin.

[markr041]

Another vote for internal mics:

 

[newfoundmass]

I hope to find someone that loves me as much as markr041 loves Sony cameras.

[hyalinejim]

55 minutes ago, markr041 said:

Another vote for internal mics

Sounds great!

[hyalinejim]

OK, so I think I've decided that I'm going to stick with my Rode stereo omni mic as I really like the sound from that. I just ordered myself a nice vintage camera bag that the whole setup can go in and out of nice and easily.

So I didn't have to spend €300 in the end and I can still get sound that I like.

Today has been an education for me. Many hours spent on YouTube with my headphones on. The best test video I watched was this one. Ignore the thumbnail, it's a slow paced, contemplative, walking video (is that a genre now?) with lots of nice ambient sound.

 

[newfoundmass]

Free To Use Sounds is such a great channel. Really nice guy too that offers a lot of his sounds for free!

Buying a slightly bigger bag was probably the right choice, haha

[kye]

6 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

Well, it's certainly a lot cheaper than the MKE440! And practical too, like I could use it for other things.

BUT! I've suddenly realised that because the tripod socket is in the middle, it will protrude probably around 4cm behind the viewfinder of the S5II. And I do sometimes like to shoot video through the viewfinder. It also makes it more awkward to get in and out of a camera bag.

If I could get it to sit forward a bit that would help.

I'm not up with the latest on the external recorders like the Zoom units, but I found them to have several disadvantages when I looked at them in the past:

• They are self-powered so require separate charging setups, so it's another thing to manage and can go wrong
• Would you put their line-out into the camera, or record internally on the recorder to an SD?  The former is good, but the latter requires extra media files to manage and will need to be sync'ed in post.  You also need to turn on two devices and hit record on two devices and stop on two devices potentially, I don't know if they're smart enough to sync power and record/stop somehow
• They are large and are one step closer to you looking like a 'pro'...  I don't know how and where you film your family, but I spend a lot of time filming in private places like museums, art galleries, amusement parks, aquariums, etc and you run the risk of getting flagged by security for needing permission etc

Of course, the sound quality would be great and they'd have the power to drive two separate mics, so you could have two Rode Video Micro style mics mounted to it, for example.

In terms of it sticking out and interfering with the viewfinder, that's actually a common issue with powered hot-shoe mics like the Rode VideoMic Pro.  I don't know of any brackets that move the hot-shoe forward with hot-shoe to hot-shoe, but if the Zoom just takes a normal 1/4-20 then you could make a little adapter plate from a flash bracket.  I've done this before using an aluminium flash bracket and using one of the screw holes for the 1/4-20 and then just gluing an adapter to it, which in your case would be the hot-shoe attachment.  

[markr041]

5 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

I hope to find someone that loves me as much as markr041 loves Sony cameras.

Go to my YouTube channel @markr041. You will see hundreds of videos with lots of different cameras - GoPros, Canon R5 and R7, BMPCC6K, Zcams, GH5, GH4, Sigma fp, and a lot more. Olympus, Fujinon, JVC, Yi, DJI, Kandao, Nikon. I have zero brand loyalty.

I don't wish you do find someone who loves Sony cameras like I do, because you will be very disappointed. 

[kye]

11 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

Thanks, I've seen some of those. If I sort by new on YT I get a bunch of people in Japan filming trains and comparing mics which is slightly helpful, I think.

I saw a Sennheiser promo vid where the presenter claimed that the MKE440 gives a flat response. But it sounds an awful lot fuller than the Tascam, or indeed the AT ones (the 45 is probably better than the 46 - you can't really get them outside of Asia anyway, it seems).

So like, maybe I could EQ the Tascam a bit, but I'm not entirely sure that I'm on board with the idea that I could EQ one mic to sound like another. If the MKE440 is a flat response, then perhaps the Tascam is just missing that info and it can't be recovered. But that's basically €100 versus €300. Like, those videos from the Z6 guy sound awfully thin.

Great to hear you've found something that works, that's the end goal after all.

Just to comment on the above for anyone else reading who might be curious, matching the EQs of mics isn't that difficult in practice and doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough to not notice.  The tonal balance of any given audio source is much more likely to be impacted by the acoustic environment that the sound is in and the location and pickup pattern of the mic in that environment.  You can make a piano sound thin, dreamy, harsh, velvety, full, grating, resonant, damped, etc etc etc by just moving the microphone and a blanket around in the room its in.  Mic-ing up a piano is one of the skills that takes decades of experience to do at the level of a well respected studio engineer - I once rented a piano and spent six months making recordings with it and the same mic so I'm aware of this.

From a technical standpoint, audio is stunningly higher quality than video is (if that's your reference point).  It's uncompressed, 16bit (or more), and has over 44,000 samples per second.  In professional audio settings audio can get EQ'd again and again and again and no-one is fragile about it.

The internet practically a desert when it comes to deep knowledge about what audio quality actually is and how things actually work, and the level of understanding that most 'reviews' show is less than most YouTubers who think colour grading is buying the right LUT.  I mean, there is knowledge out there, but to find it (and discern what's correct and what's not) requires skills almost equivalent to being able to live off the land in an actual desert - you have to know what you're looking for and where to look.

EQ is practically the last thing that you would judge quality on, because it's the first thing that you can fix in post, and pay basically zero cost in terms of audio quality.  The only real barriers to EQing something to sound how you want it is the access you have to decent quality plugins (although the basic ones get nicer and nicer) and the skill to use it.  Learning to EQ something to get the sound you like is roughly equivalent to learning what a log profile is and how to convert it to 709.

Anyway, rant over.  EQ is one of the first and most fundamental of audio production skills and shouldn't form the entire basis of how you judge equipment, let alone the entire skillset of the reviewers you listen to.

[hyalinejim]

Perhaps, but there are also hardware limitations: I don't think my internal stereo mic is ever going to sound generally like a good external stereo mic, no matter how much I EQ it or how good those plugins are. 

[IronFilm]

16 hours ago, hyalinejim said:

Now we're getting somewhere! It's only 32mm high, which is great! If I could find a low profile hot shoe mount for it I'd probably be in a very good position with this.

The Zoom H1 has the mounting point in the middle of it though, which makes it awkward to mount onto a camera hot shoe. 

[hyalinejim]

56 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

makes it awkward to mount

Absolutely.

Also, it has a 10 second power on time, so I'd have to leave it on all day probably.

[Anaconda_]

Maybe it's been said, but the wireless go ME? The receiver has a built in mic, for the general sounds of things, and if you want to get cleaner  audio of something specific, just clip the lav unit onto whoever or whatever is making the noise (or something close by).

 

Super small, flexible and quick to work with.