Cheap, Awesome Video Microphone: • Cheap, Awesome Video M... More details on this DIY microphone here: ibuildit.ca/pr... The camera gantry: ibuildit.ca/pr...
Cheap, Awesome Video Microphone: ua-cam.com/video/5eMqcRhkFAw/v-deo.html More details on this DIY microphone here: ibuildit.ca/projects/low-cost-microphone/ The camera gantry: ibuildit.ca/projects/wooden-gantry-crane/
Homemade mic is acceptable it's just lacking the mid range in the bandwidth. Using a "musical" wood like Bubinga would be an interesting experiment to see if it improves the resonance. Great piece thanks for posting !
+I Build It Awesome, John! Great video! Directly in front of the mic and bit a way the Sennheiser does sound better than your-made mic but in most other cases they sound the same. Your mic does sound a lot better when you are off angle from the mic. (BTW I'm using Sennheiser HD-598s, but I like my HD-590s better.)
The two mic's worked very good. The MKE-600 had a slightly larger higher range and was slightly richer, but can be changed easily in most video editors (at least in mine anyway (I use final cut pro X)) so the DIY microphone is very good and comparable to some decent microphones
I'm reminded of the old adage: "Television is just radio with pictures". The sound is truly more important that the pictures. I built my own lavalier mic using a Radio Shack electric microphone capsule when I was a teenager. Learned that you need porting behind the diaphragm of the mic to make it directional. A mic like the Sennheiser has the capsule at the end and the area behind it, with the grill, allows the off-axis sound to physically cancel out the pressure waves, also hitting the front. Never got around to it, but I thought about getting a small bit and drilling holes in the back side of the capsule.
tobortine for voiceover stuff it's fine. The MKE600 is much more musical and smoother. If I was working with a broadcast production, I'd go the Senheiser all day
You should also take into count that foam piece coming from a sponge is probably affecting the sound slightly. The type of foam used in sponges are a often too dense to use as a wind protector - I use my self air filter foam for my wind screens and only a layer about 1 cm thick on a cage that surrounds the microphone. It's enough to reduce wind noise efficiently but have minimal effect on high frequencies - I only lose about 1 dB at 20 kHz! compared to use a bare capsule But I guess here he also uses it to affect and particularly smooth out the directional characteristics of the mic, since he is apparently using a directional microphone capsule as well. It's harder to find good cheap directional microphone capsules than omni directional ones. I always use only omni directional ones my self for another more important reason - on most of my recordings I want the mic to pick up very low frequencies well. And the problem is that directional microphones don't do that (the sensitivity often falls rapidly below 100-300 Hz), unless you are close to a single sound source, the sound source is not too big and not in an environment with too much reflections (since you need a "steep gradient", where the SPL falls quickly with distance, for them to pick upp bass). Pretty much the opposit, to most of my recordings. This problem is determined by physics and regardless of the price of the mic. Although, recording like he seem to do - voices in a very noisy environment (where it otherwise could be hard to hear what someone says), directional microphones may be the best. Anyway - the difference in sound is minimal compared to the difference in price.
I have struggled with audio a lot since starting my youtube channel. I have always recieved a lot of inspiration form you and all of your videos. I struggle with audio a lot and when I first started I struggled with video a lot and these types of videos you have produced have always helped me. Thank you for putting this together and all of the other projects you have put together. Huge Fan!
What an incredible comparison! I'm sure this video will inspire someone who has been refraining from making videos because they didn't think they could afford a "quality" mike. Thanks for some great info!
Nice vid John. You're spot on that the audio is the hardest part of these videos. Shops are an awful place to try and record sound. I went the wireless lav route and I'll never look back. If shotgun is your thing though then you hit a home run with your home brew mic. Send the Sennheiser back - you don't need it.
When I watch a video, all I care about is the content of the video. What is being made is more important to me than a blurry shot or bad audio. Your content is some of the best on UA-cam. It doesn't matter to long time subscribers how the audio sounds.
John, you do a great job. Your projects and ingenuity are why I am here, not a for a studio quality production (not to discount your great quality). Keep up the good work in the shop, and I won't ever worry about the work on the computer.
You've had pretty consistent audio since I subscribed and that's been awhile. Some youtubers (even those outside of woodworking and DIY) fluctuate a lot and I end up needing to grab my over ear headphones to listen. Never had that issue with you. So thank you for all the effort you put in, especially for those of us with shitty ears.
The MKE definitely picks up just a little more, but if the two weren't being played side by side I wouldn't mind or think twice about the audio from the Homemade one in a video.
you show your effort through quality production after quality production;all while keeping a moderate and very acceptable level of self-promotion. i greatly appreciate the work you do, sir! (btw:i have been a musician for twenty years, working in audio production for fifteen or so of said years. you do well... particularly knowing audio isnt your bag)
John, I searched the comments here and the only topic I saw about encoding was a comment where you use handbrake. As you may know, handbrake has many options and its possible that may be the source of your audio issues where the audio does not come out right. ***I don't upload to UA-cam so i'm not sure of all the steps involved.*** Though, I've read that UA-cam has down sampled audio and video in the past. I do not know if this is fact of fiction but one of the things I've heard of people doing in the past was encoding their audio with a higher bit-rate & sample-rate so that when it's uploaded the audio is not distorted by whatever UA-cam "may or may not" do during the process. Another option you may consider is to split the video and (HQ) audio apart, use handbrake for your video, and then re-sync the (HQ) audio back to the video file. This process is relatively simple once you've done it ten times or so. An invaluable resource for this type of work would be www.VideoHelp.com with their plethora of tutorials and guides available. Without any doing any prior research, two software tools come to mind that may help would be ffmpegGUI and AviDemux. I'm not sure what codecs you're encoding with so you may need to check compatibility. ... I enjoy your videos and have been watching for about a year. I hope this info I've shared helps you find a solution.
The difference in the built-in preamps on the camera & the H1 for the Sennheiser is enough to make the difference we are hearing between them. Insane how good the homemade one is
homemade sounds a bit "wider/tinny" , the pro one seems a bit more directed. I kinda like the pro one more, but the difference is minimal and definitely not worth the extra cost imo.
you're homemade mic is much more gainy and has a lot of treble. I also noticed that when you were directly behind the camera you could definitely hear the echo of the room on your homemade mic. I would use eq while editing your video. take down the highs and put in some more lows. over all I think you did a good job in your video. a tip I have is the gain "knob" (depending on your daw it might be a slider or it will be a level on the audio track itself) is really your best friend. rolling back your gain just a little to take out some saturation could make you go from "I'm using a camera microphone and have no idea what I'm doing" to "I'm using camera mics right now and you probably haven't noticed" though eq is a little harder to get.
You can clearly hear more noise and weaker low end on the self made one (i'm musician / audio engineer), but it's surprisingly decent! Though the commercial one is way more directional so the room ambience is less disturbing in general. :)
Interesting John. The Sennheiser has the advantage but not by much. As for overhead or underneath placement... In a garage or room, overhead is preferred because the echos wind up in the top of the space (because it's open). If you point the mic up you are more likely to pick up the echos off the ceiling. I suck as applying what I know when I'm shooting... I get busy with the build and ignore the videos... I gotta work on that. All in all, I'm kind of amazed at your $4 capsule.
+Greg's Garage That was one of the times when I realized that If I were to make such a bold claim as "pointing down is best", I had better mention pointing up, as well. Or hear about it in 20 or 30 comments :D
Your videos are like your work -awesome! i wouldnt worry about it mate -just keep pumping out those vids. PS: when will we see more of your house projects on your other channel?
Thanks, I am one of those people who appreciates good audio. It was interesting to see your sliding camera rig. I wouldn't mind seeing a video on that as well. I realize that would appeal to a narrow audience, but I thought I'd throw it out there as a suggestion. Thanks again for the quality of your videos and particularly the audio.
I enjoy your videos John. Thanks for filming, editing and posting them. The audio is fine regardless of microphone. I can hear you and that is what matters.
I noticed the new mic does seem to be better at distance, however, your homemade one seemed to be picking up better when you were behind them. Standing in close, the home made one sounded as good as the new one, to me.
Really appreciate the effort you put into audio. As I've mentioned before, it shows. Not that you need my opinion, but I'd also stick with the $4 homemade over the $400 professional if I was in your situation. Your setup works great and the difference is more than manageable.
Maybe the youngsters in the crowd can hear the difference but I can't. I appreciate the work you do not "video/audio" production as it applies directly to making these videos. Hope to be making my own soon and I have watched a lot of yours on these subjects in hopes of getting a better understanding
John, the only times I could really hear a difference between the two mics was at the 8ft distance the mke had a louder pickup distance, and during the addendum adding at the end. There was a ton of echo and reverb during that sequence, but your mic performed as well as the mke from all distances and locations tested. Maybe trying a more acoustically transparent windscreen would match the mke's performance from distance recordings, and improve the top end reception. Definitely not worth the extra $396 for the mke performance differences.
As a sound engineer of 36 years, I can tell you that I do hear a difference, but not as much as you would on an analog recording or on an uncompressed file. it sounded best when you had both going simultaneously, and the Sennheiser definitely covers the distance better. As long as you keep both mics in the same place you shouldn't create any artificial echo effects. I would use them both. Thanks for the video!
Great comparison! The quality is very comparable close up and the further you get away the more the new mic makes a difference. Not $400's worth though. We're looking to improve our audio on a budget and this was very helpful.
Yeah, there's a pretty big difference. There's a lot more echo picked up by the homemade one, and it's just noticeably thinner in general, has a grittier and raspy sound. This is easily noticeable on over hear headphones. Maybe not earbuds, but there's a reason those aren't used in studios (save for maybe in-ear monitors for guitarists and bassists, and a decent set of those is hundreds of dollars).
@@dylanj8676 That foam piece coming from a sponge is probably affecting the sound also (air filter foam is better as wind protector - it's less dense than typical sponge foam) But I guess here he also uses it to affect and particularly smooth out the directional characteristics of the mic. Directional characteristics is also the biggest reason, why there are more echoes - the Sennheiser is a shotgun mic wich probably have a very strong directional effect, while the capsule he used is very likely a "cardioid" type. It's indeed harder to make a good DIY directional microphone, than an omni directional one.
I always use only omni directional capsules on my DIY ones, for another more important reason also. That's to avoid the proximity effect, wich causes huge loss of bass for most of my recordings (like vehicles and other stuff - even sometimes live concerts). Very close to the sound source, you will get too much bass (wich you studio people are probably very awere of and even uses to get more bass - even though an equalizer can do the same job for an omni), but far away (many meters from the sound source), there will be a loss of bass instead. And it's not just the distance, but everything that levels out the "gradient" (how fast the SPL changes with distance), like big sound sources where the sound doesn't come from a single point or reflections in normal rooms, will cause the bass sensitivity to drop. This problem is determined by physics and regardless of the price of the mic. Also worth thinking about, if doing recordings outside a studio. For the recordings he did, both mics sounded quite good - the difference in sound is indeed not worth the difference in price.
@@Speeder84XL I wouldn't say it's necessarily harder to make a cardioid one, it's just a pain to track down Primo cardioid capsules, because they're not sold at many sites and they cost like $30-40/pc.
@@dylanj8676 Maybe the Primo ones are good - I havn't tried those, since I don't use cardioids because of the bass problem I mentioned earlier. But I do use the Primo EM172 omni directional capsules for many recordings (particularly for quiet sounds where my Panasonic WM61 don't perform as good as I would wish, due to their self noise) and those are really good. Now they have come up with a new one (Primo EM273) where they seem to have fixed the 2 main weaknesses of the EM172. The frequency response over 10 kHz goes down only like 2 dB to 20 kHz, compared to 5-6 for the EM172 - and they can also take higher SPL. Some of my recordings are really loud as well, haha - like audio cars and stuff. Now I use Linkwitz modded Panasonic WM61 for those, wich works well - but sometimes I go from loud to quiet environment or opposit and don't have time to change mics in between, so it's always nice to have "one size fits all". Here you can buy a lot of Primo capsules (they also have many cardioid ones) micbooster.com/12-primo-microphone-capsules I did order my Primo EM172 there a few years ago - only downside right now, is that they are based in UK with their covid19 restrictions, so it may take some time to get them. I did order some of those new Primo EM273 ones and saw "temporary closed - we will be back to business 9th of september". So it will take some time - but will be really nice when they finally arrive...
The way lossy audio compression works, the extra reverb from room reflections can bite you when compressed to a too low bitrate, and so do artifacts such as clipping and loss from previous generation compressor that the compressors are not developed to account for. So i think your expensive microphone does very well to improve far-field sound, much fewer reflections. However, perhaps you can achieve something similar in a handmade design. The slits down the length of professional shotgun microphone aren't accidental, they provide an interference filter for sounds coming from the side, they help avoid the effect where the sensitivity pattern starts expanding from the throat of the tube outwards. You should be able to find formulas online to estimate the correct slit pattern, but some experimentation may be required. Typical 9mm capsule has wavy frequency response around the top end, this is to be expected. 6mm tends to do better, but its sensitivity is much worse, so i don't know what to do about that. Also i suspect that what you want is an omni type capsule, because your polar response is shaped by an enclosure. I think i've seen that you got the "uni" type which is actually figure 8, so it back loads the membrane with what should be ambient sound pressure, but where does that come from? Possibly after the response has already been shaped, it adds back a reflected, time shifted copy of your own voice from the rear wall or from the movement of the capsule inside the enclosure. Omnidirectional can also be had with a back-electret type construction, where the membrane is much more springy and less distortion-prone. But i really have no idea what i'm talking about to be honest.
There was a small difference at range, with the $400 mic having a slightly richer sound. One thing I had noticed in some of the previous videos was that the sounds when using machinery were very high pitched and "pixelated" as if autotune was having a bad day. This may of been due to you using the camera's built in mic, but wondered if you could do a comparison between mikes at close range when doing some machine work (I think the worse was when you were cutting tiles for the mill saw)
With the speakers connected to my PC (2x8W active speakers) I could hear no difference at all, except for when you were far away and to the side of the mics. The Sennheiser sounded a little bit clearer in that case (although it might even have been placebo, because I always watched which microphone was on).
On my older LCD TV they both sound about the same. If I watched a video with one then a video with the other I would not be able to tell the difference. Nice! :)
wow, you can really tell the difference with the camera mic. i thought the homemade one was just as good up close as the expensive one. thanks for the comparisons.
I note that the $400 one is better from a distance, but unless you are planning on recording more from a distance than usual in the future, I would return the $400 one and use the homemade one and save the money for a minivan payment!
Hear and understand you is what matters. If you consider that most people will watch the videos on mobile devices with the poor quality built-in speaker(s), I wouldn't worry so much about little frequency details. I had to fetch my good headphones to be able to notice any difference...
Regarding the sound problems from your codec I'm guessing you might have ended up with some aliasing problem because of undersampling the audio signal when trying to get the file size down. Google Nyqvist frequency and aliasing for more info.
It sounded (to me at least) like the pro mic had slightly less echo and was slightly louder, but the high end sounded a bit more... rough? Had almost a ringing quality. (I'm tryna use all the right words here without sounding like an audiofool :P) I'd be interested to see if there's a difference between the camera recording and the external recording for each microphone, aside from the slight level difference. But as it is, the home made mic works brilliantly, and I'd certainly be happy with that :D Oh and I listened with headphones so I could hopefully gauge it better :) Thanks, John! Enjoy the rest of your weekend :D
I'm not very good at detecting audio problems, despite having decent hearing, as I think I'm just not attuned to caring about those things as much. I'm sort of a "if it's good enough that it doesn't suck, it's all pretty much the same" kind of person, so I'm not really secure when I comment on audio, but they seem very similar when listened to at normal volumes. Interesting that that's so easy to accomplish.
John, the shotgun is definitely more directional, but as you say, it will affect the sound less the closer you are to the mic. I would be curious if you could make your homemade mic into a shotgun; the only difference is the interference tube design of the MKE; I imagine its capsule is a fairly standard condenser and similar to the one you got from digikey.
+altitudinusrex I experimented with interference tubes. Unless they are very long, they have negligible effect. This Sennheiser and others like it use the tube more as a decoration, the directionality comes more from using two or more capsules spaced along the tube to cancel out late arriving signals.
Hi! Sennheiser does better job cutting of room reflections. I think Sennheiser makes the difference from mediocre to pro (I say this as a pro studio guy). Your vocal tone is more crispier and "hi-fi" thru it! And you deserve that kind of quality! :) Your clamp rack works as a great diffuser for the sound too! Your shop sounds great! Good job with the ceiling!
I've been fighting this for years myself. I'm mostly concerned with recording my guitars and up until now it's been a garbage picked xbox mic (logitech). Lot's of massaging in Final Cut, but the epiphany was importing it into Garage Band first... clean up sound levels and stuff there and then into Final Cut... But I'd love a $400 mic!
I hear difference between the two in the aural color and depth, but I have sensitive hearing and a background of training in sound. I have to say, it really depends on what you're doing that affects what your best choice will be. Audio is definitely harder than filming, and my biggest suggestion to people in a shop is to kill the bounce by covering walls/flat surfaces with absorbing material like soft foam boards that you can totally make and get good results from. Interesting concept, but I'd be likely to go for a rebuild model that's half the price but still the high quality. But that's me and what I'm working towards. 🤷♀️ To each their own.
No,not a huge difference, but try putting a small capacitor across the mic leads on the homeade one, andnif you can find a suitable value you'll be able to cut out some of those raspy high freqs.
Wow, the quality you get from the home built one is really good. Don't think anyone can beat it for that price. The MKE 600 is marginally better though, it sounds more real in a way, like I am actually there, not listening to a recording.
That cheapo mic suffers from what is known in the biz as low SPL. (sound pressure level) hence the reason for the spongy clown nose screen because it distorts at relativity lower volumes. I prefer the Sennheiser. It makes your voice sound better and it deals with distances as well as reflected noise better in your test situations. One can easily find a condenser mic that has a similar SPL rating as the Sennheiser for around $120.00. Then you've got something that's really the best of both the worlds presented here. Thanks for the referencing and cool vid.
As with any tool; knowing how to use a microphone is what gives you good audio, and even cheap microphones can give audio that is more than acceptable. DSL filmmakers even use the standard iPhone headphone mic for dialogue. Because it's good enough for many applications. To put it another way; owning an expensive car doesnt make you a good driver.
Hi, I'm a big believer in Zoom pre's I've recorded stuff that dropped my jaw before. If I wanted a shootout to stay fair and square, I'd give the Zoom to the DIY mic before I drew conclusions. Thanks for all your awesome work on this.
Very nice, i ever do some research using some cheap diferent transistor (not different cheap mic), every component have their character (but not great diferent), i think use some diferrent transistor can improve the sound, ... and it somehow subjective, ..
It's the first time I whatch your videos and when it ends i didn't expected because you dont have an ending haha. really good video congrats. ALso if you're gonna do video to shot films or if your work is video edition is good to have that little difference in the range, especially on the bass (I think if you proof the mic in others environments you can really tell the difference). but the 4 dollars mic works really good for everithing else
This is fantastic. Thanks! Can confirm Handbrake is great for file reduction as well. I started using and it takes 1GB files and knocks them down to a few hundred MB. Lots of good YT tutorials on this.
Okay, I'm a sennheiser fanboy, and even I have to admit, the only tangible difference is a bit more depth with the MKE. That is to say, there's more of a "soundstage." The homemade mic doesn't really quite catch the space as well. The MKE is maybe a little clearer, but not much.
I got a shock, I didn't remember making a video in a workshop, we look quite alike. Thanks for the comparison, I have a Shure PG58 about 70 dollars, good enough for me.
on the contrary listen to the bottom it has really a nice low end plus the voice is very present the diy it has a lot of high end listen closely and you'll hear what i'm saying is like the diy picks up more room the other is more focus sound
John, I dont comment much on videos (you always get a like though! ;o) ) but I have always, always enjoyed your videos and style of presentation. I would not get too down or hung up on the sound on your videos, I personally have never had any problems with your video or audio quality. Yes you have echo at times or when outside there can be wind interference but people need to realise that you are a guy doing all the work and editing by yourself and are not HBO or the BBC. Keep up the good work sir and keep the content coming... Always a pleasure, never a chore.
great work sounds like your diy mic is the same to me. if they were not played side by side I could not tell a difference even when you were far back. How do different machines sound?
When you convert video to MP4 this should be an option to select audio quality.128bit to 320bit MP3 Pro (sometimes shows up as 33,000hz) is what UA-cam uses. You don't need anything above that. Another mistake people make, is they upload 24-bit audio. We're talkin about the actual decibel settings now, 16-bit audio is literally 1/10th (some will take much less) of the size and that's what UA-camr compressor to either way. 41000 or 48000 Hertz is not necessary unless you're using SoundCloud The zoom p4 and p8 broadcast stations are set at 16 bit for a reason. I actually suggest compressing your audio, normalizing it so it does not go above-12db at 16bits. This will give you 40 decibels of clean audio
lol's - as stated in other comments 'Each to their own' :-) $400 is probably chump change to a wealthy person. I for sure heard a difference - possibly not 400 bucks but a difference nevertheless.
We could add 20$ for the Sennheiser aesthics ;-). Great comparison as usual, thank to bring some light in the rabbit hole. - So no 4K resolution coming soon with your Internet connection? (I have a new TV able to play YT 4K - it is AWESOME).
The mke has a Warmer tone witch means it pick up more Hertz and frequency then the home made one. I say your frequency range in your mic is between 30hz to 1,300hz frequency response. Still great job for homemade
I couldn't tell a difference until you got further from the mics. Then, I think the homemade mic would sound fine without the other one to compare it too.
Hmm.. It's a bit interesting that the expensive mic sounds so good from an angle it is not supposed to (i.e it would pick up machines too), whereas your sounds "tinny", meaning that you only fail to block certain frquencies as efficiently as others. So in a way, your works better? :)
I feel your pain. I spend way more time on the audio than the video for my channel as well. Video editing is mostly just trimming and arranging with transitions if you aren't doing any VFX. But audio... Every clip is a little louder or quieter than all the others and when you get to the end every single audio clip had to be tweaked. Sometimes you have to rerecord a voiceover because the clip didn't come out. If you decide to add some music to scenes too then it's a lot of work ducking it so you can still speak and be heard. At least I've got good internet here. I can render a video, upload it and then watch it on YT and put my head down because I made a completely stupid mistake. Rerender Reupload Repeat.
I will sometimes plug in a lav mic into my zoom H5 and stick it into a pocket or nail bag. Although I do want to get the shotgun mic attachment for it.
is the senhieser designed for voice or music, they often do specific ones now, i agree with your distance findings, i am listening on decent speakers. the sennheiser maintians a bit of warmth and dynamics at the distance, but its not 400$ worth at all.
The pro mic has a fuller sound and there is a bit better bass. The homemade has a more flat response, but sounds the same at a closer range. The main thing I noticed was at a greater distance, the pro sounded better.
Great video I wouldn't say that there was much difference up close but further away the $400 one was much better. What was the Sony camera that you were using.
I wonder what difference would it make to use a baffle system instead of a sponge, IE something organized VS something random. I'm thinking it because if you take a step back and expand it to the absurd, NASA for example uses baffle type shields to protect from micrometeorites as opposed to something like an item that's in structure random. One section could be stronger, one could be weaker, etc, at that small size you can control materials only so much. So in short, a sock made out of thin layers of 'something' then wrapped around on a structure with tiny spaces in between. For the large production industry, it would be a nightmare to make, but home made... would be interesting to test. I would, if i'd be in to microphones, but it's too much a hassle(which is my view, most of the time), i use a SKM 5200-II that someone sold on fleaBay for parts/cheap because he/she crushed the body and it had stopped working. Nothing a little bit of mechanical and electronic know-fu couldn't fix. Good enough for most everyone, more than excellent for me.
+aserta The sponge reduces wind noise by a huge amount, but still lets the majority of the sound you want to record through. As for higher end distortion, the capsule I'm using starts to break up (poor frequency response) above around 4k, so a simple low pass filter could be wired it to reduce that in the same way that the wind sock does. I experimented with that, but found the sponge did the job well enough.
there is several types of mic's and they do record the sound differently. any comparison is a waste of time unless you use same type of pick up pattern, i.e omni-directional vs omni-directional or bi-directional vs bi-directional. on the sound of the recording i would say the home made mic is omni directional and the sennheizer is a bi directional. the bi directional pick up sound further away better.
yes i omitted a few variations :) uni directional records forwards in a ball like shape from the mic, vs omni directioonal records 360º around the mic. depends the purpose which mic will work best. btw i honestly think both variations had good sound and worked well. one good option to consider is a small wireless clip-on mic with receiver.
We all know the adage about opinions, and I am sure you will hear all kinds in response to this video. If I was asked to make a choice, I would ditch the shotgun approach and spend my money on a wireless headset (possibly lavalier) microphone. That is, I would get my money back on the MKE-600 and explore the other option. You could be 2 or 200 feet from the camera, hiding behind the table saw or in your face close to the camera lens and get consistent results. How that microphone reacts to the machinery noise might be an issue. Which brand system you settle on would, of course, be up to you but the techs at the various companies might be able to help with that. Regarding the two microphones presented, what I hear most is the room. With a wireless system (freedom of movement) you're going to get a higher signal to noise ratio because of proximity and eliminate some if not most of the ambient. 12 years working in sound from studio to live performance is the only toot you'll hear from my horn. I admire your attention to detail in all aspects of what you do here. Keep up the good work!! --Joe
I really can't think of a video of yours that I have ever watched, that makes me think the sound has ever suffered. I'm after good content. If it's good camera work and understandable audio, I'm good. Keep it fun, keep it real.
i like the sound of his homemade mic more than the mke XD You can definitely hear a difference... and there are some benefits to each. In my personal opinion though, the homemade one sounds more warm and smooth. Once he gets further from the mic though.. id say that the homemade one starts lacking a bit compared to the mke. Not to say that the homemade one sounds bad from a distance... its just that there is a greater difference between them. (Also I closed my eyes when he was changing the mics)
I actually like the home made one better. this is not a multimillion dollar production and there is no need for an expensive mic. I think the home made one gives it a down to earth feeling to your videos
Both Mics sounded very good. Could you improve the home made one by boasting the bass with an equalizer? Might overcome the differences entirely if so. Also, you could use gold plated audio cables and silver plated power cords to improve even more :-)
+Steve Harbin Yeah, I have to agree. I once was at our local electronic store, where I asked if they had any audio converters (i don't know the name of those) and the employee showed me their expensive ones, which were about $30. It is nonsense to buy them, there is literally no difference.
At the longer distances, the super expensive one does have better bass levels, but like everyone else seems to think - it's not a $400 difference. If the homemade mic were mounted in the center of your shop, there would be no noticeable difference between the two. What is the base mic for your homemade one?
Both sound the same at my end. The only difference was the last 3 minutes (the come back) not bad just different. The U-Tube wood working video making is getting rather sophisticated like Frank Howarth's "May The 4th Be With You". Fun for the viewers, I'm sure a challenge (& fun) for the producer. Thanks for the good work and all the good videos.
+Rick Green So here is my "come back", most wood workers after years of machinery, banging and noise don't need tricky sound quality...just loud, or subtitles scrolling across : - )
Cheap, Awesome Video Microphone:
ua-cam.com/video/5eMqcRhkFAw/v-deo.html
More details on this DIY microphone here: ibuildit.ca/projects/low-cost-microphone/
The camera gantry: ibuildit.ca/projects/wooden-gantry-crane/
+I Build It. I found using Corel VideoStudio Pro X7 has a pretty good conversion for youtube videos, I use it from making blu-ray to AVI
+I Build It Homemade mic is more tinny at farther distances, I honestly dont think the price justifies the performance.
could you do a video on your camera gantry
Homemade mic is acceptable it's just lacking the mid range in the bandwidth. Using a "musical" wood like Bubinga would be an interesting experiment to see if it improves the resonance. Great piece thanks for posting !
+I Build It Awesome, John! Great video! Directly in front of the mic and bit a way the Sennheiser does sound better than your-made mic but in most other cases they sound the same. Your mic does sound a lot better when you are off angle from the mic. (BTW I'm using Sennheiser HD-598s, but I like my HD-590s better.)
Today I learned you can use a popsicle for a microphone. Great life pro tip John. Added bonus: when it melts you can use the sticks to mix epoxy.
+Katz-Moses Woodworking Shop
Lol, it does look like a popsicle at that angle. a creamsicle, actually.
+I Build It Delicious but maybe you can find sweet frozen treats for cheaper than 4 dollars hahaha
Return the expensive one you sound fine with the homemade!
The two mic's worked very good. The MKE-600 had a slightly larger higher range and was slightly richer, but can be changed easily in most video editors (at least in mine anyway (I use final cut pro X)) so the DIY microphone is very good and comparable to some decent microphones
I'm reminded of the old adage: "Television is just radio with pictures". The sound is truly more important that the pictures.
I built my own lavalier mic using a Radio Shack electric microphone capsule when I was a teenager. Learned that you need porting behind the diaphragm of the mic to make it directional. A mic like the Sennheiser has the capsule at the end and the area behind it, with the grill, allows the off-axis sound to physically cancel out the pressure waves, also hitting the front.
Never got around to it, but I thought about getting a small bit and drilling holes in the back side of the capsule.
When I closed my eyes and listened I could tell when you changed between mics but the difference is minimal, certainly not $396 worth.
tobortine for voiceover stuff it's fine. The MKE600 is much more musical and smoother.
If I was working with a broadcast production, I'd go the Senheiser all day
You should also take into count that foam piece coming from a sponge is probably affecting the sound slightly. The type of foam used in sponges are a often too dense to use as a wind protector - I use my self air filter foam for my wind screens and only a layer about 1 cm thick on a cage that surrounds the microphone. It's enough to reduce wind noise efficiently but have minimal effect on high frequencies - I only lose about 1 dB at 20 kHz! compared to use a bare capsule
But I guess here he also uses it to affect and particularly smooth out the directional characteristics of the mic, since he is apparently using a directional microphone capsule as well. It's harder to find good cheap directional microphone capsules than omni directional ones.
I always use only omni directional ones my self for another more important reason - on most of my recordings I want the mic to pick up very low frequencies well. And the problem is that directional microphones don't do that (the sensitivity often falls rapidly below 100-300 Hz), unless you are close to a single sound source, the sound source is not too big and not in an environment with too much reflections (since you need a "steep gradient", where the SPL falls quickly with distance, for them to pick upp bass). Pretty much the opposit, to most of my recordings.
This problem is determined by physics and regardless of the price of the mic. Although, recording like he seem to do - voices in a very noisy environment (where it otherwise could be hard to hear what someone says), directional microphones may be the best. Anyway - the difference in sound is minimal compared to the difference in price.
I have struggled with audio a lot since starting my youtube channel. I have always recieved a lot of inspiration form you and all of your videos. I struggle with audio a lot and when I first started I struggled with video a lot and these types of videos you have produced have always helped me. Thank you for putting this together and all of the other projects you have put together. Huge Fan!
Sounded the same to me John. I know you put a lot of work into your videos and have always appreciated it!
What an incredible comparison! I'm sure this video will inspire someone who has been refraining from making videos because they didn't think they could afford a "quality" mike. Thanks for some great info!
Nice vid John. You're spot on that the audio is the hardest part of these videos. Shops are an awful place to try and record sound. I went the wireless lav route and I'll never look back. If shotgun is your thing though then you hit a home run with your home brew mic. Send the Sennheiser back - you don't need it.
+Matt Heere
I had (have) a wireless lav setup that I used for a while about 3 years ago. I much prefer a boom mounted mic for a lot of reasons.
When I watch a video, all I care about is the content of the video. What is being made is more important to me than a blurry shot or bad audio. Your content is some of the best on UA-cam. It doesn't matter to long time subscribers how the audio sounds.
Hope there is a video on your awesome camera "gantry" system you have in your shop. That looks SO cool!!
John, you do a great job. Your projects and ingenuity are why I am here, not a for a studio quality production (not to discount your great quality). Keep up the good work in the shop, and I won't ever worry about the work on the computer.
You've had pretty consistent audio since I subscribed and that's been awhile. Some youtubers (even those outside of woodworking and DIY) fluctuate a lot and I end up needing to grab my over ear headphones to listen. Never had that issue with you. So thank you for all the effort you put in, especially for those of us with shitty ears.
It's amazing how well the homebuilt mic did. Very effective video. Thanks for your work!
The MKE definitely picks up just a little more, but if the two weren't being played side by side I wouldn't mind or think twice about the audio from the Homemade one in a video.
hard to tell close up, both are close but the $400 one is better at a distance. I go the cheaper one considering the price difference.
you show your effort through quality production after quality production;all while keeping a moderate and very acceptable level of self-promotion. i greatly appreciate the work you do, sir! (btw:i have been a musician for twenty years, working in audio production for fifteen or so of said years. you do well... particularly knowing audio isnt your bag)
John,
I searched the comments here and the only topic I saw about encoding was a comment where you use handbrake. As you may know, handbrake has many options and its possible that may be the source of your audio issues where the audio does not come out right. ***I don't upload to UA-cam so i'm not sure of all the steps involved.*** Though, I've read that UA-cam has down sampled audio and video in the past. I do not know if this is fact of fiction but one of the things I've heard of people doing in the past was encoding their audio with a higher bit-rate & sample-rate so that when it's uploaded the audio is not distorted by whatever UA-cam "may or may not" do during the process.
Another option you may consider is to split the video and (HQ) audio apart, use handbrake for your video, and then re-sync the (HQ) audio back to the video file. This process is relatively simple once you've done it ten times or so. An invaluable resource for this type of work would be www.VideoHelp.com with their plethora of tutorials and guides available. Without any doing any prior research, two software tools come to mind that may help would be ffmpegGUI and AviDemux. I'm not sure what codecs you're encoding with so you may need to check compatibility.
... I enjoy your videos and have been watching for about a year. I hope this info I've shared helps you find a solution.
The difference in the built-in preamps on the camera & the H1 for the Sennheiser is enough to make the difference we are hearing between them. Insane how good the homemade one is
I hope there will be a video on that camera track! I couldn't stop looking at it in the video.
Thanks John! The homemade Mic sounds great. Love the MKE600, but not $396 better
homemade sounds a bit "wider/tinny" , the pro one seems a bit more directed. I kinda like the pro one more, but the difference is minimal and definitely not worth the extra cost imo.
you're homemade mic is much more gainy and has a lot of treble. I also noticed that when you were directly behind the camera you could definitely hear the echo of the room on your homemade mic. I would use eq while editing your video. take down the highs and put in some more lows. over all I think you did a good job in your video. a tip I have is the gain "knob" (depending on your daw it might be a slider or it will be a level on the audio track itself) is really your best friend. rolling back your gain just a little to take out some saturation could make you go from "I'm using a camera microphone and have no idea what I'm doing" to "I'm using camera mics right now and you probably haven't noticed" though eq is a little harder to get.
You can clearly hear more noise and weaker low end on the self made one (i'm musician / audio engineer), but it's surprisingly decent!
Though the commercial one is way more directional so the room ambience is less disturbing in general.
:)
Interesting John. The Sennheiser has the advantage but not by much. As for overhead or underneath placement... In a garage or room, overhead is preferred because the echos wind up in the top of the space (because it's open). If you point the mic up you are more likely to pick up the echos off the ceiling. I suck as applying what I know when I'm shooting... I get busy with the build and ignore the videos... I gotta work on that. All in all, I'm kind of amazed at your $4 capsule.
+Greg's Garage
That was one of the times when I realized that If I were to make such a bold claim as "pointing down is best", I had better mention pointing up, as well. Or hear about it in 20 or 30 comments :D
400 dollars?! You could start selling yours for like 300 and call them ecofriendly not echofriendly.
Your videos are like your work -awesome! i wouldnt worry about it mate -just keep pumping out those vids. PS: when will we see more of your house projects on your other channel?
Thanks, I am one of those people who appreciates good audio. It was interesting to see your sliding camera rig. I wouldn't mind seeing a video on that as well. I realize that would appeal to a narrow audience, but I thought I'd throw it out there as a suggestion. Thanks again for the quality of your videos and particularly the audio.
+Ed Marsh
Details here in a website article: www.ibuildit.ca/other%20projects/camera-gantry-1.html
I've shared your video on the Frugal Filmmaker group on Facebook. Quite impressive quality.
I enjoy your videos John. Thanks for filming, editing and posting them. The audio is fine regardless of microphone. I can hear you and that is what matters.
Great diy paps. I barely heard any differences at all between the two.
Thanks for the info. Got a new camera and mic set up that I am looking forward to trying.
I noticed the new mic does seem to be better at distance, however, your homemade one seemed to be picking up better when you were behind them. Standing in close, the home made one sounded as good as the new one, to me.
Really appreciate the effort you put into audio. As I've mentioned before, it shows.
Not that you need my opinion, but I'd also stick with the $4 homemade over the $400 professional if I was in your situation. Your setup works great and the difference is more than manageable.
Maybe the youngsters in the crowd can hear the difference but I can't. I appreciate the work you do not "video/audio" production as it applies directly to making these videos. Hope to be making my own soon and I have watched a lot of yours on these subjects in hopes of getting a better understanding
John, the only times I could really hear a difference between the two mics was at the 8ft distance the mke had a louder pickup distance, and during the addendum adding at the end. There was a ton of echo and reverb during that sequence, but your mic performed as well as the mke from all distances and locations tested. Maybe trying a more acoustically transparent windscreen would match the mke's performance from distance recordings, and improve the top end reception. Definitely not worth the extra $396 for the mke performance differences.
Good work!
I am impressed by your cut-off saw housing :) It's a great idea to keep the saw dust flying all over. Gotta build one like that!
As a sound engineer of 36 years, I can tell you that I do hear a difference, but not as much as you would on an analog recording or on an uncompressed file. it sounded best when you had both going simultaneously, and the Sennheiser definitely covers the distance better. As long as you keep both mics in the same place you shouldn't create any artificial echo effects. I would use them both. Thanks for the video!
Great comparison! The quality is very comparable close up and the further you get away the more the new mic makes a difference. Not $400's worth though. We're looking to improve our audio on a budget and this was very helpful.
Pretty interesting John. Thanks for doing the demo.
When you're in front I can hear a huge difference. Without the comparison I wouldn't have known though.
Yeah, there's a pretty big difference. There's a lot more echo picked up by the homemade one, and it's just noticeably thinner in general, has a grittier and raspy sound. This is easily noticeable on over hear headphones. Maybe not earbuds, but there's a reason those aren't used in studios (save for maybe in-ear monitors for guitarists and bassists, and a decent set of those is hundreds of dollars).
It would be better if he had 2 or 3 of them in different places to help with the proximity effect
@@dylanj8676 That foam piece coming from a sponge is probably affecting the sound also (air filter foam is better as wind protector - it's less dense than typical sponge foam)
But I guess here he also uses it to affect and particularly smooth out the directional characteristics of the mic. Directional characteristics is also the biggest reason, why there are more echoes - the Sennheiser is a shotgun mic wich probably have a very strong directional effect, while the capsule he used is very likely a "cardioid" type. It's indeed harder to make a good DIY directional microphone, than an omni directional one.
I always use only omni directional capsules on my DIY ones, for another more important reason also. That's to avoid the proximity effect, wich causes huge loss of bass for most of my recordings (like vehicles and other stuff - even sometimes live concerts). Very close to the sound source, you will get too much bass (wich you studio people are probably very awere of and even uses to get more bass - even though an equalizer can do the same job for an omni), but far away (many meters from the sound source), there will be a loss of bass instead. And it's not just the distance, but everything that levels out the "gradient" (how fast the SPL changes with distance), like big sound sources where the sound doesn't come from a single point or reflections in normal rooms, will cause the bass sensitivity to drop. This problem is determined by physics and regardless of the price of the mic.
Also worth thinking about, if doing recordings outside a studio. For the recordings he did, both mics sounded quite good - the difference in sound is indeed not worth the difference in price.
@@Speeder84XL I wouldn't say it's necessarily harder to make a cardioid one, it's just a pain to track down Primo cardioid capsules, because they're not sold at many sites and they cost like $30-40/pc.
@@dylanj8676 Maybe the Primo ones are good - I havn't tried those, since I don't use cardioids because of the bass problem I mentioned earlier. But I do use the Primo EM172 omni directional capsules for many recordings (particularly for quiet sounds where my Panasonic WM61 don't perform as good as I would wish, due to their self noise) and those are really good.
Now they have come up with a new one (Primo EM273) where they seem to have fixed the 2 main weaknesses of the EM172. The frequency response over 10 kHz goes down only like 2 dB to 20 kHz, compared to 5-6 for the EM172 - and they can also take higher SPL. Some of my recordings are really loud as well, haha - like audio cars and stuff. Now I use Linkwitz modded Panasonic WM61 for those, wich works well - but sometimes I go from loud to quiet environment or opposit and don't have time to change mics in between, so it's always nice to have "one size fits all". Here you can buy a lot of Primo capsules (they also have many cardioid ones) micbooster.com/12-primo-microphone-capsules
I did order my Primo EM172 there a few years ago - only downside right now, is that they are based in UK with their covid19 restrictions, so it may take some time to get them. I did order some of those new Primo EM273 ones and saw "temporary closed - we will be back to business 9th of september". So it will take some time - but will be really nice when they finally arrive...
The way lossy audio compression works, the extra reverb from room reflections can bite you when compressed to a too low bitrate, and so do artifacts such as clipping and loss from previous generation compressor that the compressors are not developed to account for.
So i think your expensive microphone does very well to improve far-field sound, much fewer reflections.
However, perhaps you can achieve something similar in a handmade design. The slits down the length of professional shotgun microphone aren't accidental, they provide an interference filter for sounds coming from the side, they help avoid the effect where the sensitivity pattern starts expanding from the throat of the tube outwards. You should be able to find formulas online to estimate the correct slit pattern, but some experimentation may be required.
Typical 9mm capsule has wavy frequency response around the top end, this is to be expected. 6mm tends to do better, but its sensitivity is much worse, so i don't know what to do about that. Also i suspect that what you want is an omni type capsule, because your polar response is shaped by an enclosure. I think i've seen that you got the "uni" type which is actually figure 8, so it back loads the membrane with what should be ambient sound pressure, but where does that come from? Possibly after the response has already been shaped, it adds back a reflected, time shifted copy of your own voice from the rear wall or from the movement of the capsule inside the enclosure. Omnidirectional can also be had with a back-electret type construction, where the membrane is much more springy and less distortion-prone.
But i really have no idea what i'm talking about to be honest.
There was a small difference at range, with the $400 mic having a slightly richer sound. One thing I had noticed in some of the previous videos was that the sounds when using machinery were very high pitched and "pixelated" as if autotune was having a bad day. This may of been due to you using the camera's built in mic, but wondered if you could do a comparison between mikes at close range when doing some machine work (I think the worse was when you were cutting tiles for the mill saw)
+Malcolm Crabbe
That's a combination of clipping and compression artifacts (that warbling sound). Believe me, it bothers me too.
I closed my eyes and couldn't tell when it changed.
+RickMakes I got that at first, but there's a slight difference.
With the speakers connected to my PC (2x8W active speakers) I could hear no difference at all, except for when you were far away and to the side of the mics. The Sennheiser sounded a little bit clearer in that case (although it might even have been placebo, because I always watched which microphone was on).
On my older LCD TV they both sound about the same. If I watched a video with one then a video with the other I would not be able to tell the difference. Nice! :)
wow, you can really tell the difference with the camera mic. i thought the homemade one was just as good up close as the expensive one. thanks for the comparisons.
I note that the $400 one is better from a distance, but unless you are planning on recording more from a distance than usual in the future, I would return the $400 one and use the homemade one and save the money for a minivan payment!
Hear and understand you is what matters. If you consider that most people will watch the videos on mobile devices with the poor quality built-in speaker(s), I wouldn't worry so much about little frequency details. I had to fetch my good headphones to be able to notice any difference...
Have you tried an inexpensive clip on mic, to go with the camera. You do give a good example on this one.
Regarding the sound problems from your codec I'm guessing you might have ended up with some aliasing problem because of undersampling the audio signal when trying to get the file size down. Google Nyqvist frequency and aliasing for more info.
It sounded (to me at least) like the pro mic had slightly less echo and was slightly louder, but the high end sounded a bit more... rough? Had almost a ringing quality. (I'm tryna use all the right words here without sounding like an audiofool :P)
I'd be interested to see if there's a difference between the camera recording and the external recording for each microphone, aside from the slight level difference.
But as it is, the home made mic works brilliantly, and I'd certainly be happy with that :D
Oh and I listened with headphones so I could hopefully gauge it better :)
Thanks, John! Enjoy the rest of your weekend :D
$4 mike rocks. Very hard to detect any difference.
I'm not very good at detecting audio problems, despite having decent hearing, as I think I'm just not attuned to caring about those things as much. I'm sort of a "if it's good enough that it doesn't suck, it's all pretty much the same" kind of person, so I'm not really secure when I comment on audio, but they seem very similar when listened to at normal volumes. Interesting that that's so easy to accomplish.
John, the shotgun is definitely more directional, but as you say, it will affect the sound less the closer you are to the mic. I would be curious if you could make your homemade mic into a shotgun; the only difference is the interference tube design of the MKE; I imagine its capsule is a fairly standard condenser and similar to the one you got from digikey.
+altitudinusrex
I experimented with interference tubes. Unless they are very long, they have negligible effect. This Sennheiser and others like it use the tube more as a decoration, the directionality comes more from using two or more capsules spaced along the tube to cancel out late arriving signals.
All I hear is more bass response on the MKE-600 which gives a closer sound (as bass does tend to fall off with distance).
very cool. looking forward to the power supply build.
Hi! Sennheiser does better job cutting of room reflections. I think Sennheiser makes the difference from mediocre to pro (I say this as a pro studio guy). Your vocal tone is more crispier and "hi-fi" thru it! And you deserve that kind of quality! :) Your clamp rack works as a great diffuser for the sound too! Your shop sounds great! Good job with the ceiling!
I've been fighting this for years myself. I'm mostly concerned with recording my guitars and up until now it's been a garbage picked xbox mic (logitech). Lot's of massaging in Final Cut, but the epiphany was importing it into Garage Band first... clean up sound levels and stuff there and then into Final Cut... But I'd love a $400 mic!
I hear difference between the two in the aural color and depth, but I have sensitive hearing and a background of training in sound. I have to say, it really depends on what you're doing that affects what your best choice will be.
Audio is definitely harder than filming, and my biggest suggestion to people in a shop is to kill the bounce by covering walls/flat surfaces with absorbing material like soft foam boards that you can totally make and get good results from. Interesting concept, but I'd be likely to go for a rebuild model that's half the price but still the high quality. But that's me and what I'm working towards. 🤷♀️ To each their own.
No,not a huge difference, but try putting a small capacitor across the mic leads on the homeade one, andnif you can find a suitable value you'll be able to cut out some of those raspy high freqs.
Wow, the quality you get from the home built one is really good. Don't think anyone can beat it for that price. The MKE 600 is marginally better though, it sounds more real in a way, like I am actually there, not listening to a recording.
That cheapo mic suffers from what is known in the biz as low SPL. (sound pressure level) hence the reason for the spongy clown nose screen because it distorts at relativity lower volumes. I prefer the Sennheiser. It makes your voice sound better and it deals with distances as well as reflected noise better in your test situations. One can easily find a condenser mic that has a similar SPL rating as the Sennheiser for around $120.00. Then you've got something that's really the best of both the worlds presented here. Thanks for the referencing and cool vid.
As with any tool; knowing how to use a microphone is what gives you good audio, and even cheap microphones can give audio that is more than acceptable. DSL filmmakers even use the standard iPhone headphone mic for dialogue. Because it's good enough for many applications.
To put it another way; owning an expensive car doesnt make you a good driver.
Hi, I'm a big believer in Zoom pre's I've recorded stuff that dropped my jaw before. If I wanted a shootout to stay fair and square, I'd give the Zoom to the DIY mic before I drew conclusions. Thanks for all your awesome work on this.
Very nice, i ever do some research using some cheap diferent transistor (not different cheap mic), every component have their character (but not great diferent), i think use some diferrent transistor can improve the sound, ... and it somehow subjective, ..
It's the first time I whatch your videos and when it ends i didn't expected because you dont have an ending haha. really good video congrats. ALso if you're gonna do video to shot films or if your work is video edition is good to have that little difference in the range, especially on the bass (I think if you proof the mic in others environments you can really tell the difference). but the 4 dollars mic works really good for everithing else
I think that your homemade one is awesome, you should make a video about making the mic. I would love to make one too.
This is fantastic. Thanks!
Can confirm Handbrake is great for file reduction as well. I started using and it takes 1GB files and knocks them down to a few hundred MB. Lots of good YT tutorials on this.
I heard a better result from the MKE at a greater distance also. About the same close up.
Okay, I'm a sennheiser fanboy, and even I have to admit, the only tangible difference is a bit more depth with the MKE. That is to say, there's more of a "soundstage." The homemade mic doesn't really quite catch the space as well. The MKE is maybe a little clearer, but not much.
I got a shock, I didn't remember making a video in a workshop, we look quite alike.
Thanks for the comparison, I have a Shure PG58 about 70 dollars, good enough for me.
yes there is a difference, but not a 395 bucks difference :) I would be fine with the cheaper one.
+Sascha LB I totally agree
on the contrary listen to the bottom it has really a nice low end plus the voice is very present the diy it has a lot of high end listen closely and you'll hear what i'm saying
is like the diy picks up more room the other is more focus sound
John, I dont comment much on videos (you always get a like though! ;o) ) but I have always, always enjoyed your videos and style of presentation. I would not get too down or hung up on the sound on your videos, I personally have never had any problems with your video or audio quality. Yes you have echo at times or when outside there can be wind interference but people need to realise that you are a guy doing all the work and editing by yourself and are not HBO or the BBC.
Keep up the good work sir and keep the content coming... Always a pleasure, never a chore.
great work sounds like your diy mic is the same to me. if they were not played side by side I could not tell a difference even when you were far back. How do different machines sound?
When you convert video to MP4 this should be an option to select audio quality.128bit to 320bit MP3 Pro (sometimes shows up as 33,000hz) is what UA-cam uses. You don't need anything above that. Another mistake people make, is they upload 24-bit audio. We're talkin about the actual decibel settings now, 16-bit audio is literally 1/10th (some will take much less) of the size and that's what UA-camr compressor to either way. 41000 or 48000 Hertz is not necessary unless you're using SoundCloud
The zoom p4 and p8 broadcast stations are set at 16 bit for a reason. I actually suggest compressing your audio, normalizing it so it does not go above-12db at 16bits. This will give you 40 decibels of clean audio
Must be me - I for sure noticed the MKE 600 was better - more natural - less 'tinny' - though your home made mic is pretty good too.
+1954BJohn There's a difference, yes, the MKE 600 has a better bass response and less tinniness, but... it's not $396 worth lol
lol's - as stated in other comments 'Each to their own' :-) $400 is probably chump change to a wealthy person. I for sure heard a difference - possibly not 400 bucks but a difference nevertheless.
We know that you put alot of work into audio, the audioquality is always pretty nice in your videos :)
We could add 20$ for the Sennheiser aesthics ;-). Great comparison as usual, thank to bring some light in the rabbit hole. - So no 4K resolution coming soon with your Internet connection? (I have a new TV able to play YT 4K - it is AWESOME).
The mke has a Warmer tone witch means it pick up more Hertz and frequency then the home made one. I say your frequency range in your mic is between 30hz to 1,300hz frequency response. Still great job for homemade
I couldn't tell a difference until you got further from the mics. Then, I think the homemade mic would sound fine without the other one to compare it too.
Hmm.. It's a bit interesting that the expensive mic sounds so good from an angle it is not supposed to (i.e it would pick up machines too), whereas your sounds "tinny", meaning that you only fail to block certain frquencies as efficiently as others. So in a way, your works better? :)
I feel your pain. I spend way more time on the audio than the video for my channel as well. Video editing is mostly just trimming and arranging with transitions if you aren't doing any VFX. But audio... Every clip is a little louder or quieter than all the others and when you get to the end every single audio clip had to be tweaked. Sometimes you have to rerecord a voiceover because the clip didn't come out. If you decide to add some music to scenes too then it's a lot of work ducking it so you can still speak and be heard. At least I've got good internet here. I can render a video, upload it and then watch it on YT and put my head down because I made a completely stupid mistake. Rerender Reupload Repeat.
I will sometimes plug in a lav mic into my zoom H5 and stick it into a pocket or nail bag. Although I do want to get the shotgun mic attachment for it.
How do you setup your camera to take in the mic? Its great! I couldn't hear any noise at all on neither ones.
is the senhieser designed for voice or music, they often do specific ones now, i agree with your distance findings, i am listening on decent speakers. the sennheiser maintians a bit of warmth and dynamics at the distance, but its not 400$ worth at all.
The pro mic has a fuller sound and there is a bit better bass. The homemade has a more flat response, but sounds the same at a closer range. The main thing I noticed was at a greater distance, the pro sounded better.
Great video I wouldn't say that there was much difference up close but further away the $400 one was much better. What was the Sony camera that you were using.
I wonder what difference would it make to use a baffle system instead of a sponge, IE something organized VS something random.
I'm thinking it because if you take a step back and expand it to the absurd, NASA for example uses baffle type shields to protect from micrometeorites as opposed to something like an item that's in structure random. One section could be stronger, one could be weaker, etc, at that small size you can control materials only so much.
So in short, a sock made out of thin layers of 'something' then wrapped around on a structure with tiny spaces in between. For the large production industry, it would be a nightmare to make, but home made... would be interesting to test.
I would, if i'd be in to microphones, but it's too much a hassle(which is my view, most of the time), i use a SKM 5200-II that someone sold on fleaBay for parts/cheap because he/she crushed the body and it had stopped working. Nothing a little bit of mechanical and electronic know-fu couldn't fix. Good enough for most everyone, more than excellent for me.
+aserta
The sponge reduces wind noise by a huge amount, but still lets the majority of the sound you want to record through.
As for higher end distortion, the capsule I'm using starts to break up (poor frequency response) above around 4k, so a simple low pass filter could be wired it to reduce that in the same way that the wind sock does. I experimented with that, but found the sponge did the job well enough.
there is several types of mic's and they do record the sound differently. any comparison is a waste of time unless you use same type of pick up pattern, i.e omni-directional vs omni-directional or bi-directional vs bi-directional. on the sound of the recording i would say the home made mic is omni directional and the sennheizer is a bi directional. the bi directional pick up sound further away better.
the pick up patterns can be visualized like if omni directional is a ball shape, and bi-directional is more like a 8 shape.
+tomas lainas
Omni mics don't reject off-axis sound like a uni-directional one does. This mic capsule is uni-directional.
yes i omitted a few variations :) uni directional records forwards in a ball like shape from the mic, vs omni directioonal records 360º around the mic. depends the purpose which mic will work best. btw i honestly think both variations had good sound and worked well. one good option to consider is a small wireless clip-on mic with receiver.
We all know the adage about opinions, and I am sure you will hear all kinds in response to this video. If I was asked to make a choice, I would ditch the shotgun approach and spend my money on a wireless headset (possibly lavalier) microphone. That is, I would get my money back on the MKE-600 and explore the other option. You could be 2 or 200 feet from the camera, hiding behind the table saw or in your face close to the camera lens and get consistent results. How that microphone reacts to the machinery noise might be an issue. Which brand system you settle on would, of course, be up to you but the techs at the various companies might be able to help with that.
Regarding the two microphones presented, what I hear most is the room. With a wireless system (freedom of movement) you're going to get a higher signal to noise ratio because of proximity and eliminate some if not most of the ambient. 12 years working in sound from studio to live performance is the only toot you'll hear from my horn.
I admire your attention to detail in all aspects of what you do here. Keep up the good work!!
--Joe
+Joseph Scarborough
I already explored the wireless lav option, and rejected it for several reasons.
+I Build It-And that's good enough for me. Thanks for the response. Carry on.
--Joe
I really can't think of a video of yours that I have ever watched, that makes me think the sound has ever suffered. I'm after good content. If it's good camera work and understandable audio, I'm good. Keep it fun, keep it real.
i like the sound of his homemade mic more than the mke XD You can definitely hear a difference... and there are some benefits to each. In my personal opinion though, the homemade one sounds more warm and smooth. Once he gets further from the mic though.. id say that the homemade one starts lacking a bit compared to the mke. Not to say that the homemade one sounds bad from a distance... its just that there is a greater difference between them. (Also I closed my eyes when he was changing the mics)
did you make a video about that ceiling mounted gantry / camera mount?
I was thinking about that
+Edward Williams it looks really cool
+Will Bicks Not a video, but he has some photos on the forum on his website.
+Will Bicks
No video, but a website build article: www.ibuildit.ca/other%20projects/camera-gantry-1.html
I actually like the home made one better. this is not a multimillion dollar production and there is no need for an expensive mic. I think the home made one gives it a down to earth feeling to your videos
Both Mics sounded very good. Could you improve the home made one by boasting the bass with an equalizer? Might overcome the differences entirely if so.
Also, you could use gold plated audio cables and silver plated power cords to improve even more :-)
tbh gold and silver plated cords don't do any difference that is noticeable.
Agreed Stranger. My sarcasm doesn't come across in text.
I always chuckle when audiophiles mak these type of claims.
+Steve Harbin Yeah, I have to agree. I once was at our local electronic store, where I asked if they had any audio converters (i don't know the name of those) and the employee showed me their expensive ones, which were about $30. It is nonsense to buy them, there is literally no difference.
At the longer distances, the super expensive one does have better bass levels, but like everyone else seems to think - it's not a $400 difference. If the homemade mic were mounted in the center of your shop, there would be no noticeable difference between the two.
What is the base mic for your homemade one?
Nevermind. I checked the link in the description and you list all the vital parts there. Great build log.
Great vid. Homemade lacks a bit of richness. It's just a little tinny. But I'd rather have 100 homemade mics than one $400 mic! Good work sir!
Both sound the same at my end. The only difference was the last 3 minutes (the come back) not bad just different. The U-Tube wood working video making is getting rather sophisticated like Frank Howarth's "May The 4th Be With You". Fun for the viewers, I'm sure a challenge (& fun) for the producer. Thanks for the good work and all the good videos.
+Rick Green So here is my "come back", most wood workers after years of machinery, banging and noise don't need tricky sound quality...just loud, or subtitles scrolling across : - )