This is a follow up to my previous article to record, stream and chat while drawing, with your phone or a webcam pointed down to your table, giving another perspective on collaboration, education and inspiration.
So, the one thing that has been bugging me as an audiophile is of course: sound quality. Although the mic of the phone/ webcam is pretty near to your face, in most cases it’s not pointed to your mouth. I wanted to improve the sound, yet not compromise on its mobility and upgraded to this new setup:
That made me get this very, very nice and probably a little too expensive microphone. It’s the Røde VideoMic NTG, a microphone with a double lineage: one of professional and semi professional film and music audio, the other an affordable and noticeable boost to your mobile phone setup.
Røde unified these two families into one: a very good sounding shotgun microphone (so very directional), that can be connected to either your camera, iphone and laptop! With that combination they created a very versatile microphone. This makes the cost of the mic reasonable. Judge for yourself and your situation of course.
I also use a little ‘magic arm’ of Manfrotto to mount the VideoMic NTG to the previously used microphone-stand. It perfectly compliments the shock mounted VideoMic NTG.
By the way: do you ‘need’ the Røde VideoMic NTG? Nope! For this particular use you can also use the older and batteryless Røde VideoMics, or any other brands like Diety. They are all good.
The main concern is you have a good mic pointed and near to your face. For me: I have learned that if you can invest into a mic of quality it makes you buy the thing once. If you don’t: prepare to resell and buy upgrades through out time.
Streaming and example
I got one and mounted it to my previously cobbled together setup to create better sounding videos with my iPhone and perhaps even stream it to Twitch, Reddit Public Access and Youtube Live.
Here’s an explainer video saying pretty much the same, but now you can also judge the sound quality.
Waiting on an improvement
The one caveat is: I would like to use it as a iPhone microphone for my Zoom, Whereby, Skype and Webex sessions and this is not possible yet, because unlike the setup for laptop, the iPhone does not allow it to be connected through USB.
When I connect with an iPhone, or iPad through USB, I can use the headphone as a monitor and listen live to myself and other people in the call. I can also simultaneously charge my iPhone with a little adapter and keep the microphone powered. This way I can listen and stream indefinitely with just the mic and my iPhone on high quality.
Perhaps this will be fixed in a later update. We’ll keep you updated.