Good, budget lav for camcorder

[Paul Ekert]

Anyone yave any experince of using the 3350 with a zoom h1?

[John Nantz]

Jon - I'm glad to hear the first mic purchase went fine and your budding videographer significant other (wife) liked it. This almost sounds like a major beginning of a new creative interest area. There is so much to learn.

With regard to the VideoMic, I've got the VideoMic Pro model and I've used it a lot for family-type shoots. As a step-up from the on-board camera mic it will be nice. Whether it provides the bang-for-the-buck or not is something that only you two will have to decide but for me, I like it.

The camera you mentioned has no accessory shoe (aka hot shoe) (at least I didn't see one in a search) so there'll be an added expense of something like a flash bracket. If the camera is to be tripod mounted then the bracket will need a way to attach the tripod. Most will have a threaded hole for that.

At the rate you two are going I envision a new camera sometime your future so the VideoMic Pro will be a good way to go. For outside use there is a windscreen available for it that the onboard mic doesn't have. It's a nice mic. Let us know what happens.

[Kyle Root]

Originally Posted by Helen Habib

I will back up this comment, along with the other comment made about this lav. I've used it many times to record outdoor interviews and it did an excellent job. It filters out the wind and crowd / background noise nicely, giving you a nice clear end result.

I'm about to receive my second one this weekend only bec that first one was misplaced.

I bought one of these last year to use as a backup audio recorder for weddings. I plug this into a Tascam DR-05 and the sound quality is amazing.

Not as good as my Sennheiser G3s , but it is very rich, clear, and robust sounding. I acutally have the previous model which did not have the smartphone part included... it was like $18 in 2014 for the lav. An excellent purchase. Highly recommended.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Hi John,

I've already got a VideoMic Pro (and a bunch of other gear). My wife is in the place where she knows the difference between good and bad video/audio, but she's not a gear head. She wants cheap, easy, and as good as she can get - but she won't tolerate complexity.

Good tip on no shoe. I'll need to see if there is a simple way to bolt one on. Since she'd just plug it in and turn it on and need no crew, I think it would work. But if the quality improvement is slight, no need to bother.

Note that I'm leaving auto-gain on for her. To add headphones and need to monitor levels would definitely cross the complexity barrier.

And there's something to be said for that. Better to capture so-so audio than none at all. With simplicity comes robustness. :)

[Dave Farrants]

Originally Posted by Paul Ekert

Anyone yave any experince of using the 3350 with a zoom h1?

I bought one this week to use with an H1 this weekend, on initial test it needed a lot of gain (85+) to get reasonable levels. I'm loaning the kit to a guy for a conference this weekend, will let you know how it performs when I get it back to edit on Monday.

[Dave Farrants]

Just got my H1 back after loaning it out for a series of seminars. They used the 3350 with it, in manual mode the H1 needed high levels so I'd set it to auto levels as there were several different speakers who probably couldn't adjust the levels. Listening back to the results it all worked well, levels are peaking slightly but nothing that can't be fixed in the edits, overall for a £22 mic I'm impressed with the sound - does it sound as good as a mic costing 10 times the price? - not sure, but it's done the job, sounds good and the client will be happy.

[Battle Vaughan]

A little surprised at the low output level you experienced, as in my Edirol R09 and Tascam DR60D recorders the 3350's output is fairly robust and requires less preamp than my shotgun or any dynamic mike.. Is it possible you had the mike input on the Zoom (which also accepts line level) set to line? Just a thought....

[Dave Farrants]

No option to switch that I can find in the manual, the socket shows a Mic / Line symbol but no option to switch, plugging in a mic and 'Line' shows on the display. Interestingly the manual states 'plug in power' mic requires 2.5v but the 3350 is only a 1.5 button cell.

[Rick Reineke]

"A little surprised at the low output level you experienced... Is it possible you had the mike input on the Zoom (which also accepts line level) set to line?"
> I don't think it would even register in line mode
> The 3350's stated sensitivity is -54 dB. (average.. if that's @ at 1Pa). Maybe the recorder's mic gain was set to the lowest (if it has that adj,).. or it doesn't have much gain to begin with (usually the case w/ budget preamps) or the sound SPL was low.

[Jon Fairhurst]

My wife tried the AT3350 today. The first thing that happened after she took it out of the package was that the clip broke when mounting it to the mic. The plastic snapped in two. The comparison video mentioned that the clip was poor because it slipped. Maybe it's a bit worse than that.

Anyway, she rigged it up with a twist tie and a pin, shot some video, and she was happy with the result. (I haven't heard it yet.) When I asked about quality, she said I should judge. I clarified that I wasn't asking about if the sound was "sweet", but if there were any problems like hum or buzz. She said, "no". It sounded fine to her.

Aside from the fragile clip, it seems we have a winner. :)

[Jon Fairhurst]

Okay the jury is still out. And my wife has now learned about "EMI".

She had only listened to playback from the camcorder before. After hearing it on her laptop, there was significant 60 Hz buzz. It seems that she allowed the camcorder's power cord to be near the mic cord.

I rescued her work with noise reduction and she's editing it now. Her voice sounds a bit underwater after NR, so I can't really judge the overall quality just yet. Next time she'll take care with the cable run and it should sound much better.

For her application and target audience, the NR'd audio is okay, but her goal is to be able to do this independently. I'm confident that by managing the cable path, the buzz will all but disappear.

[Battle Vaughan]

I have had 60-cycle hum on camcorders caused by a ground loop between a powered mike and a camcorder running on AC power, if that's any help. Also, PM me, I have a spare clip from my little incident with the phantom power that I mentioned earlier...happy to send it on...

[Dave Farrants]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

.....Aside from the fragile clip, it seems we have a winner. :)

Agree the clip is 'fragile', the trick is to slide it in - bottom to top, rather than push it into the jaws of the clip.

[Jay Massengill]

Did you order the kit that also includes the smartphone adapter? If yes, have you tested the lav with a phone and an app that allows manual audio levels to be set, such as MoviePro?
I'd be interested in your opinion of this for noise level, interference, and sound quality for interview style recording.

[Dave Farrants]

I didn't, it wasn't shown as an option from the company I ordered from. It does work (without turning the mic on) in my iPhone with the default memo app, sound is ok'ish, maybe a dedicated App with different file recording options would sound better than the Apple m4a.