Rode Videomic Pro and EM5II. Optimal settings for no hiss?

[dvcrn]

Hi guys!

I am a audio beginner but wanted to finally step up my audio game. I got myself a rode Videomic Pro to use with my EM5II and spent the evening playing around with it. I messed with the camera settings and tested a couple of different things but no matter what I did - I couldn't get rid of the strong background hiss noise. It's so unpleasant that the audio is basically useless. 

My tests were done in a completely silent room. I tried different camera settings and turned all the in-camera audio control down to as low as possible (-10db for the EM5II). Also turned off all other audio shenanigans like auto gain the camera had to offer. The way I understand is, that this should leave the actual audio settings to the microphone and don't let the preamp mess around with it too much. Though no matter how I tinkered around with the camera - I still have this crazy background hiss. 

Did I miss some crucial setting in the crazy Olympus menu? 

[Don Kotlos]

Unfortunately e-m5ii is noisy. 

See here:

http://thedigitalstory.com/2015/03/external-mic-test-mod-em5-mark2.html

Your best bet is get a compact cheap external recorder like the H1 and sync in post. 

[Mars]

All DSLRs are more or less noisy. You could use this:
http://www.juicedlink.com/collections/preamp-selection/products/riggy-micro-rm222
and a mic of your choice, i.e.
http://en-uk.sennheiser.com/shotgun-microphone-camera-camcorder-video-mke-600

[Don Kotlos]

4 minutes ago, Mars said:

All DSLRs are more or less noisy. You could use this:
http://www.juicedlink.com/collections/preamp-selection/products/riggy-micro-rm222
and a mic of your choice, i.e.
http://en-uk.sennheiser.com/shotgun-microphone-camera-camcorder-video-mke-600

At $650 that would be the professional solution and in that case an external recorder like the H1 would also be advised  

[dvcrn]

6 hours ago, Don Kotlos said:

Unfortunately e-m5ii is noisy. 

See here:

http://thedigitalstory.com/2015/03/external-mic-test-mod-em5-mark2.html

Your best bet is get a compact cheap external recorder like the H1 and sync in post. 

That is a huge bummer. I specifically bought this combo so I don't have to care about external syncing and external recording. Is there nothing else I can do about the noise? 

I've been eyeballing the new a6300 as well. Do you know if recent Sony cameras have this crazy noise as well or are the preamps better on their devices? 

[Don Kotlos]

2 hours ago, dvcrn said:

That is a huge bummer. I specifically bought this combo so I don't have to care about external syncing and external recording. Is there nothing else I can do about the noise? 

I've been eyeballing the new a6300 as well. Do you know if recent Sony cameras have this crazy noise as well or are the preamps better on their devices? 

Olympus probably does some internal processing so in not so quiet environments there is less hiss. Worth to test it out. 

Sorry I don't know how the a6300 performs...

[fuzzynormal]

I've been using the EM5II with the Sennheiser ew 100-ENG G3 and attain very acceptable results.  Is it as good as audio passing through a nice preamp?  No, but what I've been getting has been more than useable for me.

Of course, with the ew100 I can adjust the signal I'm sending to the camera, so I can avoid stressing the EM5II modest pre's, but it does work.

[Guest Ebrahim Saadawi]

Sorry basically all cameras except for professional camcorders, are pretty bad audio recorders. Canons, nikons, sonys, olympus, blackmagic, and sticking a rode mic on top of a DSLR to get great sound is a fantasy created by Rode with all these pictures around

(this specific Canon rebel/5dii+Videomic combination they advertise produces unusable sound, with AGC, clipping, terrible hiss,...)

 

The Rode videomic pro is a fantastic microphone, your money isn't wasted, now all you need to do is get a device that can record that fantastic sound coming off the Rode. A Zoom H1. Cheap, small, light, has as good or better audio than most professional camcorders. It's much of a hassle really just one more little device and one more editing step. 

[animan]

+20db on the mic, camera input level down, auto gain control off.. 

[dvcrn]

3 hours ago, animan said:

+20db on the mic, camera input level down, auto gain control off.. 

that's what I tried but no success. 

I wanted to avoid the H1 at all cost for portability reason. Is there some kind of recorder that I could put on the hotshoe but exposes a hotshoe itself? Something I can stack between microphone and camera? 

[sgreszcz]

2 hours ago, dvcrn said:

that's what I tried but no success. 

I wanted to avoid the H1 at all cost for portability reason. Is there some kind of recorder that I could put on the hotshoe but exposes a hotshoe itself? Something I can stack between microphone and camera? 

I went with this solution as I have/had a couple of cameras without Mic in (Gx7/LX100).  

http://www.shure.com/americas/products/microphones/vp/vp83f

I got it for $200 used from Adorama and I think it sounds pretty good (although Dave Dougdale preferred the Rode VideoMic in his head-to-head test).  It records internally to microSD card, and has a headphone monitor jack as well as a line out (with +20db adjustable output) so you can run an audio backup to cameras with a mic input (like my EM-5II/G7).  Rode was supposed to release something similar, but it never came to market.  I find the H1 a little overkill due to size (and I don't use it much these days due to handling noise - I prefer my Sony ICD-SX1000 which is smaller, but unfortunately discontinued).  I wish there were more decent mini-recorders without mics like the Little DARling or Tascam DR-10C (a little bit expensive) which are much smaller than something like the H1.

[dvcrn]

Took some more time to experiment with the combo. No matter what I tried, the hiss was still too strong for me to consider the audio "clean". The best results were with the +20db settings and -10db inside the camera. Then lowering the volume in post. The hiss was a lot more silent, the audio "usable" but still not at the quality that I hoped for when I bought this microphone + camera. 

I have a older H2N laying around and taped it to my tripod for a little test and yep - the audio hissing was completely gone. Even with no boost on the microphone at all. Sadly this combo is not usable for the kind of on the go stuff that I planned with it. 

Is there anything else I can do? What are some good cameras out there with good preamps? (Preferably MFT / E-Mount with IBIS and articulating screen)

[animan]

37 minutes ago, dvcrn said:

Took some more time to experiment with the combo. No matter what I tried, the hiss was still too strong for me to consider the audio "clean". The best results were with the +20db settings and -10db inside the camera. Then lowering the volume in post. The hiss was a lot more silent, the audio "usable" but still not at the quality that I hoped for when I bought this microphone + camera. 

I have a older H2N laying around and taped it to my tripod for a little test and yep - the audio hissing was completely gone. Even with no boost on the microphone at all. Sadly this combo is not usable for the kind of on the go stuff that I planned with it. 

Is there anything else I can do? What are some good cameras out there with good preamps? (Preferably MFT / E-Mount with IBIS and articulating screen)

You write youre an audio beginner but apologies if this is obvious, you have to keep in mind that simply buying a VMP and putting it on top of the camera isnt a magic key to good audio, audio is always about putting the right mic in the right place (most of the time as close as possible to what you want to record)..

(The silent room that you mentioned can also emphasise the hiss a lot more unless you have a strong source like a voice close to the camera)

(PS I have no experience of EM5, possibly there could be some extra noise related to the IBIS?)

[Don Kotlos]

3 hours ago, dvcrn said:

Is there anything else I can do? What are some good cameras out there with good preamps? (Preferably MFT / E-Mount with IBIS and articulating screen)

To get the best quality in both audio and video in a compact package with IBIS you can get an A7rII/A7sII with the XLR-K2M module that I believe bypasses any gain inside the camera, or you can try @Mark solution with the juicedlink and your EM5ii.

[Mars]

If you want to see how this looks like: 


Would be interesting to see if the Sony solution is better... Btw, does it really "bypass" amp gain in the camera? On the NX1 I set mic level to 1 or 2, auto mic control off and the gain on the juiced link to max. Works quite well if your sound source not too far away.
For the attachment underneath I'm using a quick release mounting plate.

[Don Kotlos]

47 minutes ago, Mars said:

 

I don't know if it is better than the juicedlink since it will depend on how much noisy the E-M5ii input is.

I used the juicedlink with a low noise xlr mic and I got great results, and the mke-600 is better than what comes with XLR-K2M. But while it can probably offer better audio (at least when connected on the A7rii) I did not find it ergonomic.  I found the mounting of juicedLink on the bottom of the camera kind of problematic for two reasons 1. I switch quickly from videos to photos. 2. It really obstracts my type of handheld shooting since with my left hand I change the focus and it comes from the bottom of the camera. 

In the end I mounted on the top with a hot shoe adapter and then the mic on the top, and that was not a great solution either... 

But for rigged cameras your solution with a proper recorder offers the best results. 

 

Also I believe the XLR-K2M does bypass the internal gain since you can only adjust the gain from the external unit. 

[Mars]

But for rigged cameras your solution with a proper recorder offers the best results.

Yes, changing the focus works only from above, your hand is between the lens and the mic. So I'm currently thinking about getting one of these

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Varavon-ARMOR-II-NX1-PRO-CAGE-/281932011610?hash=item41a475185a:g:juQAAOSwll1Wuwbb

... but haven't made up my mind yet.

[dvcrn]

8 hours ago, animan said:

You write youre an audio beginner but sorry if this is obvious, you have to keep in mind that simply buying a VMP and putting it on top of the camera isnt the recipe for good audio, audio is always about putting the right mic in the right place (most of the time as close as possible to what you want to record)..

My setup before was a portable audio recorder (h2n) with a lavalier microphone clipped somewhere on the target. I got the RODE in the hope to replace this setup with something more dynamic that can be carried around easier. I did my homework on audio but didn't think the camera preamp would play such a important role. 

Sadly for most of the stuff I'm doing, I don't have the power to set up a scene, position microphones and co. I was hoping for a very lightweld and portable solution that delivers good results without buying too many things on top. Adding a cage and a external recorder into the mix is already scratching the boundaries of what I want to carry around. 

Is there a smaller cage / rig out there that would just hold something like a h1 (or other portable recorder) without adding too much weight / width / height to the setup? 

Alternatively, is there a good shotgun type recorder (besides the vp83f) that I could clam ontop of my camera to substitute the RODE+recorder setup? (e.g. how would a mounted h4n sound like). I can still return the RODE back to amazon and if I find a more convenient setup I would do that right away. 

 

Again - sorry for the beginner-ish questions. I don't have that much money to spend and want to avoid buying more wrong decisions

[animan]

H4N on the camera is not really a good idea, without a shockmount youll hear your hands every time you touch the camera to change something.. Honestly I think it will be hard to beat your lavalier+H4N results with a camera mounted mic (unless you had a very cheap lavalier?). For dialogue or interviews a camera mounted mic will unfortunately almost never give satisfactory results. One option could be a minijack extension cord and then put the VMP on a small tripod or gorillapod as close as possible to the speaker out of frame?

One other thing to keep in mind, a shotgun mic (like the VMP) is sometimes the wrong choice for indoor shooting due to the way the mic picks up sound.

Maybe you can attach a short clip to listen how bad the signal:noise ratio youre getting is?

[dvcrn]

23 hours ago, animan said:

H4N on the camera is not really a good idea, without a shockmount youll hear your hands every time you touch the camera to change something.. Honestly I think it will be hard to beat your lavalier+H4N results with a camera mounted mic (unless you had a very cheap lavalier?). For dialogue or interviews a camera mounted mic will unfortunately almost never give satisfactory results. One option could be a minijack extension cord and then put the VMP on a small tripod or gorillapod as close as possible to the speaker out of frame?

One other thing to keep in mind, a shotgun mic (like the VMP) is sometimes the wrong choice for indoor shooting due to the way the mic picks up sound.

Maybe you can attach a short clip to listen how bad the signal:noise ratio youre getting is?

I like the lavalier but as said, needed something more dynamic. I'm of course willing to sacrifice a little audio quality for it   In my tests I really dig the Rode Videomic Pro (with external recorder) but not sure where I can tuck something like an h1 on the camera. 

I will try to record a little test snippet later when I'm back at home.