Mic Fight Night
One of the best ways to significantly improve your biz-videos is by investing in a good microphone. There’s an almost infinite quantity of options, price points, and genres to choose from.
I’ve been using my tried and tested AT2020 from Audio Technica for many years. A highly regarded microphone, that’s been around since the dinosaurs (they love a good PodCast those dino’s).
I was recently swayed by an advert for a Bluetooth Mic.
As our mobile phones just get better and better at video recording, it’s becoming increasingly achievable to produce high-level video with the convenience that a mobile device brings.
A portable bluetooth mic makes a lot of sense – but is it up to the job?
Simon K Williams
Let’s pit the Bluetooth mic, against my old-faithfull, and see who comes out on top.
Welcome to Mc Fight Nite!
What follows is bot-generate transcription from the video:
Hello. Hello and welcome. Welcome to the. Big. Mic Fight Night.
The microphone fight you have always been waiting to see it is here. Finally it’s on, its game on.
So in the red corner we have the challenger.
The first Bluetooth microphone on the market comes in from the buy in tech USA winner of two Innovation Award CBS 2019 and also CBS 2020.
Known as the USP Mic beater it is the SmartMike+.
In the blue corner we have the reigning champion the USP microphone from Audio Technica.
The top selling studio condenser microphones in the USA a winner of radio’s most prestigious technology HONOR. THE COOL STUFF award. It is the reigning champion the 80 20 20.
An hour later. On from K. Williams I will be your referee tonight. Also known as the man I help grow businesses by amplifying your message increase in the quality of prospects that come into you. Which of course then improves your profits. So let’s take a deeper look at the two microphones tonight. Okay so let’s introduce you to this. This is a spine.
Tech smart Mike. Plus I also just got a clip on the back here. You can just clip on to your top to show. Sure. Like so. And as such it’s always going to be a good location quite close to your mouth and hopefully have good recordings. And there’s a lot of benefits by not having wires etc.
One of them is that any audio microphone device is fundamentally flawed of it’s plugged into a computer and the best microphones are always external and that way and that’s why in movies always have the clapper board and they always piece together the audio and the video in post-production. And combine them later etc.. But that’s a real pain. And of course what this can do if you use its own application is its own software.
Application 3D download available on Android and an iPhone it will piece together your video and audio in real time. You still get the benefit audio benefit of using an external microphone. So we’ll take a little bit look later at the USP. Microphone and see how that compares and of course that does plugs straight into a computer.
So it does have that challenge that say now one of the benefits of a device like this is if I do move further away from the recording device like I am here. Or closer to the course my distance from the microphone hasn’t changed. So. If you’re in a situation where you’re moving around a little bit maybe you are doing a review of a physical item or doing some unboxing or something like that then you might.
Enjoy the kind of added flexibility and freedom of banal to move around freely without having any audio issues. You also might like the fact that it’s relatively discreet of wearing a black shirt right now and I’ve got the black microphone there is also a White Mike available. Where else can I say about this device. It’s available on the market now for about ninety nine dollars which I think is a very affordable price for me.
One hundred dollars vest it’s on it’s going to improve the quality of your videos and your audio recordings is a fairly easy sales pitch. Oh yes there was one additional bit important to know as I stated does have its own application. It works through the application really well very easily just use of free Bluetooth. I’m a coldness on an iPhone as we speak. If however you want to record using a different application. That might be difficult and it may not be possible.
However there is a workaround and you can actually purchase a second microphone and then have them collected in a master slave configuration. So for example you could have another microphone and plug that straight into your DSL are into your camera and it will convey the audio from this version. The one you’re wearing straight into the camera and again that way you don’t have any post-production to to meet up or connect the audio and the video but of course that does require you to purchase a second microphone.
If however course you want to buy two microphones anyway perhaps you like the idea of having two different colors. She may like or perhaps more likely because you have an interview situation and you want to view somebody else and they also then don’t want to recall a record aware their own microphone. Then you kind of get that. Added functionality added benefit for effect 3 no additional cost so something to consider. That’s it that’s introduced in the smart might.
Plus I think it’s good build quality. It’s really easy to use can be used and a lot of different situations particularly easy if you’re using it in a kind of live environment particularly where you might be some sort of body of movement or if you’re not very very close to the recording device. I’m right now I’m just you know pretty far away from my iPhone even the iPhone’s internal microphone would be reasonably sufficient though perhaps not quite as good as this.
In that situation is when I move further away from the camera that you really notice that. The audio is still great but of course it wouldn’t be if I was just using my iPhone Mike microphone for that. OK so that is their little introduction to the smart might. Plus. Introducing the audio technica 80 20 20 and also recorded on this device right now as you can see I’ve got this pretty close to me. It’s very much in shock.
I’ve really got this set as kind of an angle might not be obvious on the video here. It actually goes to almost a 45 degree angle that so that I’m not talking straight into the microphone and that’s gonna help me prevent get this or pops and splashes that I might otherwise get if I’m going straight in to help reduce that. You can of course add a pop filter which is probably recommended but I just see I have not set up for this test.
About a hand’s distance away and actually in my experimentation a kind of small hands distance away usually would be that far away. At him to be a little bit a bit less I think about here is the optimum location for me away from the microphone but you would probably want to do a little bit of self experimentation yourself just to get that exact range but a device like this a microphone like this is incredibly dependent on its location.
Technically that’s also true the smart Mike but of course it’s clipped to you so it moves with you so that issue is avoided as I move closer. The voice will get heavier more breathy deeper and you may even prefer that you may have a find that’s more intimate. Maybe doing a podcast or audio book might be times when you want to move closer to the microphone to convey slightly different emotion.
Of course as you move further away from the microphone the audio quality is going to deteriorate significantly and you might find that that becomes unacceptable. That’s down to you personal preference. Now if you are doing video rather than just audio it’s just doing audio it doesn’t matter if you’re doing video then of course you’ve got a pretty important decision. Do you want the microphone to be in shock.
If you don’t then I would argue it’s not going to be able to produce the best audio quality for you a device like this so that as an experimentation just to show you it’s going to move a little bit out. That’s about as close as I possibly can get. Just move it a little bit. I think that’s how important our shot but as close as it possibly could get. I’m about to hands distances away from the microphone now and mean you can be the judge.
Maybe that’s acceptable quality to you but I think you agree it’s not as good as it is in the closer location. So that’s it. That’s my little instruction into the audio technica 80 20 20. Stay tuned as I say to hear our overall verdict. Okay. So we have gone a few rounds between the two microphones. There’s not been any big knockout blow so. It comes down to.
The referees or the judges decision. So let’s take a look at the judges scorecards. Let’s take a look first at the red corner. The smart Mike plus. Clear winner for ease of use. Its size means you can just put it in your pocket. You can put your laptop bag. You can put in your drawer next to your computer in your office can ALWAYS CARRY IT WITH YOU. SO CLEAR ease of use. Really simple solution.
If you’re using your smartphone to take recordings. Yeah. Just a really neat simple solution. Perfect easy winner. Interviews also gives giving it to the red corner the application as it has an interview mode. Use two different microphones can record them separately and splice and merge those interviews together perfectly. Really easy neat solution and a.
A an environment and a situation actually quite cumbersome and awkward to set up using to 80 20 20s. For webinars a much much cloudy situation. Honestly there wasn’t a clear winner for me. I’ve narrowly given it to the smart might by the narrowest of margins and it came down to just that. Again this convenience factor I like the fact they don’t have to have a big microphone in shot all the time.
I like the fact you don’t have to have a big item on your desktop when you’re trying to reach your keyboard and you can’t in the middle of a webinar. The last thing you want is a lot of cumbersome setup with tripods or desk mount big microphones. So that’s why I have given it a bit a very very narrow victory for the webinars section. Now let’s take a look at the blue corner.
For me 80 20 20 stood out for sound quality pure sound quality. As long as you take the time to position it carefully and get the sound levels just right then the sound quality is really really excellent and a good clear winner for me there for that reason it was also the winner for creating audio books and podcasts. Any area where it’s just an absolute focus on quality and it’s not video based.
Yes the 18 20 20 gets it. So there has to be a winner has to be a winner. No ties in this game. Very close battle. Two great options. For different reasons. And depending on your particular situation will probably decide which is the better device for you.
You may even decide that you actually need both for different situations. I’ve also got both. But. As I said before has to be a winner. So. I’m going to give the win. To the smart might. Plus. Just the. Added. Sufficient audio quality. The only time I’m probably not going to use it is if I’m producing a podcast situation or an audio book think in almost every other situation.
The audio quality of this is sufficient for me and that’s going to be my preference. Okay so that’s it for me. Hope you found that of some value and let me know your own faults in the comments below and I will see you on the next one. I run out for now.
