Rode Microphone Quality Sucks! What Do?

MegaBoringGuy

MegaBoringGuy

Biggest Painted On Muscles You've Ever Seen, Baby
I use the Rode Microphone (standard, not pro) with the Canon T3i and the quality sucks. There used to be a lot of fuzz with the microphone, so I had to turn down the gain levels in the camera menu and then turn them up in Sony Vegas. Doing that it still sounded like s**t and recently I found an audio plugin for Sony Vegas called Floorfish that cuts out background noise, but makes it sound like I'm partially robotic.

A lot of YouTubers use Rode Microphones and they sound great, a few good examples are JacksGap, charlieissocoollike and the rest of the English crew. Why does mine sound so terrible? Check out my channel for an audio example.
 
Rode mic is awesome. I don't really know what to say but do you have noise cancellation on the mic? like a fur or something? forgot what they are called.
 
Two things. Gain from the mic side is less distruptive to the final product usually than gain added during post production. It's a garbage in, garbage out scenario so play with the levels a bit rather than just dumping the gain all the way down to skip the fuzz.

Second, relating to what Karl said is that generally DSLR mics need a wind screen of some kind. It will look like a big fuzzy sock you stick on the end of the mic, or could simply be a foam cover. This depends on what you're recording though. If you're recording indoors, then that won't help you with this particular problem.

It is possible you have a faulty one, but poor mic quality with a good mic is usually a user error situation. I would start to work with each step more moderately. Turn the gain up a bit, and turn down the amount of noise reduction. Noise can be removed, but it's a touchy process because you're physically removing parts of the audio signal so when you remove too much, yeah you will get that wierd echo robot sound.

To test the mic for faults, I would hit up a store that sells them and take your DSLR with you. Preferably the place you bought this one if you can. Ask them to help you out with a test of a new mic for quality purposes and see if the same sound is had. If it isn't, then you're mic is faulty but as I said, that's the least likely scenario here.
 
Tarmack said:
Two things. Gain from the mic side is less distruptive to the final product usually than gain added during post production. It's a garbage in, garbage out scenario so play with the levels a bit rather than just dumping the gain all the way down to skip the fuzz.

Second, relating to what Karl said is that generally DSLR mics need a wind screen of some kind. It will look like a big fuzzy sock you stick on the end of the mic, or could simply be a foam cover. This depends on what you're recording though. If you're recording indoors, then that won't help you with this particular problem.

It is possible you have a faulty one, but poor mic quality with a good mic is usually a user error situation. I would start to work with each step more moderately. Turn the gain up a bit, and turn down the amount of noise reduction. Noise can be removed, but it's a touchy process because you're physically removing parts of the audio signal so when you remove too much, yeah you will get that wierd echo robot sound.

To test the mic for faults, I would hit up a store that sells them and take your DSLR with you. Preferably the place you bought this one if you can. Ask them to help you out with a test of a new mic for quality purposes and see if the same sound is had. If it isn't, then you're mic is faulty but as I said, that's the least likely scenario here.
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Thanks for the detailed reply. I do have the "foam thing" attached while I record, I too forget the name. I will toggle with the settings and if that doesn't work, I'll email Rode again (I got it online). They didn't reply the first time.
 
I have used both the RØDE VideoMic and the RØDE NT1-A studio condensor mic, both are very good quality mics which should give you great recordings. First things first, make sure the gain level is set right, try to get a nice decent level without clipping, that will make sure you don't have to push up the gain in post, bringing up the noise-floor of the audio signal. Second, the environment you shoot in has a great effect on your final audio quality, for instance stuff like computers, fans, air conditioners, elevators, noisy neighbours, your camera itself and basically anything that makes sound will affect the audio recording. So make sure to record in a spot that is nice and quiet to minimize background noise, also take a look at the direction the mic is aimed at, since most mics have a particular build pattern in which they record the sound. Some are pointed at a specific region (like the VideoMic if I remember correctly), others record all the way around (omnidirectional), then my NT1-A records everything except sound coming from the back of the mic, so I always keep the computer on the back of the mic to prevent fan noise in the recording. Same goes for using a mic on the camera, look around at any electronic equipment before you shoot and turn it all off.
 
the best thing you can do to get good crisp audio is go into your manual audio setting turn the mic level all the way down to 3 notches from the bottom then turn the mic levels up to +20db gets you great results
 
Hey, there's a guy on youtube who answered this question if you are filming with a canon 600d/T3i, not sure if it works with all rode mics though, but worth a go :)

 
I bought a optika microphone, shotgun mic, and it was biggest mistake I've ever made, so I feel your pain... I'm not sure why, but I personally decided to get myself a Lav mic... there is good rode smartLav.
just for 60 bucks...
 
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