Rode VideoMic question
 

For anyone that uses the VideoMic, do you find that you need to use pre-amplification on it such as a Bluetube for shooting dialogue from about 10 feet away (indoors)?

A preamplifier of some sort is needed when you need to raise a mic level signal to line level in order to feed it to a device that requires the higher level input. But you'll likely be connecting the Videomic directly to the camera's microphone level input and so a stand-alone preamp is unnecessary, though if your camera or audio recorder has line level inputs you could use it if you wanted to.

There would be several problems using the Bluetube in any case, Blue is AC powered, hard to use on location. Blue is stereo, Videomic is mono. Blue has XLR inputs, mic has 1/8 connector.

There's another problem you're going to encounter evidenced in your post that you need to worry about far more than a choice of preamplifier and that's trying to shoot with the mic 10 feet away from the talent. That's way, WAY too far away for good dialog recording. Even shotgun mics like the Videomic are intended to be used much closer, optimally 24" to 48" away from the source. If your heart is set on spending the couple of hundred bucks the Bluetube costs, you'll get far more benefit for your buck buying a boom pole, shockmount, and extension cables to get that mic up close to the talent where it's supposed to be. It ain't as glamorous as a spiffy tube preamplifier but it's far more important when it comes to getting good sound.

improvising with the videomic
 

Rode makes a 10' mini female -> mini male extender cable for the video mic by the way so you can get it closer by boom poling it or putting it on a tripod close to the subject, rode makes poles and minitripods with connectors to fit the videomic's base too.

You can also mount the mic on a litte consumer camera and put that camera on a monopod to "make" a boompole

Or you can put the extra camera on a mini-tripod, tripod or monopod to "make" a mic stand for it.

Shayne Weyker
http://weykervideo.com

The videomic also has 1/4" female thread in the shock mount so you can mount it direct to a tripod/monopod if you want.

Cheers.

You do have to take off the shoe-mount part on the bottom first though to do that because it blocks the hole.

Shayne Weyker
http://weykervideo.com

It's easier to use a 3/8" -> 1/4" adapter fit into the 3/8" threaded hole. Then you don't need to move anything on the mount.

No mic is designed to be used for dialog indoors from 10 feet.

Indoor dialog requires lavs or a hypercardioid.

Regards,

Ty Ford

what about a 10ft long shotgun mic? :p

LOL!

That's a serious interference tube!

The one on CSI Miami ONLY works on their set.

Ty Ford