audio engineers , those of us who are new to audio are immediately confronted with equally daunting terms like cardioid and proximity effect . The good news is that like light , sound is wave based which means it can be measured and with a little practice captured easily .
While using both a lavalier and a shotgun is ideal for leaving the most options in post , in most situations I ’ ll gleefully choose a shotgun for a range of reasons . Generally speaking , once you ’ ve got your levels adjusted , it ’ s about as ‘ set it and forget it ’ as you could want . Just remember to keep an eye on battery levels on your audio capture device should you be using one .
While shotguns are not completely immune to proximity effect , by design they are intended to be used at a distance where this is a non-issue . They tend to use a super hyper cardioid pickup pattern which means that like your eyes , they primarily focus on what is directly in front of them and reject the majority of the peripheral sound . The Low-Cut switch on the ECM-674 enables you to filter out ambient room noise like the rumble of HVAC ( heating , ventilation , and air conditioning ) that can ruin your audio . One of the biggest reasons you ’ ll hear people use an audio bed is because of ambient noise that bled into the audio at capture .
Noting that computer fan noise is an issue for those of us who live stream or shoot video at a computer the super-cardioid pattern is a great vehicle for dramatically reducing computer fan bleed in your audio . a bunch for hire work where I ’ m not the talent . Collectively , those experiences clearly demonstrated the flaws in a lav-only workflow . Be it earrings , jewelry , clothing , there are a number of audio challenges that generally can ’ t be fixed in post . And if you ’ re a lone shooter , it ’ s far easier ( and a lot less stressful ) to set up a shotgun mic and simply monitor audio via your capture device versus the focus grabbing distraction of working with a lav . From the monitoring for mic-born noise , keeping an eye on batteries in the transmitter , watching out for interference or drop-outs on the receiver , and also monitoring all that takes energy , and can be a big distraction of getting the best possible takes from your talent . Focus being the operative word , the more we can do to focus on what my talent is saying and how they say it is key to getting the best possible results in post – right ? In a perfect world having the option of using a lav and a shotgun is ideal . For most of us that is not always an option , in which case I will almost always choose a shotgun over a lav if I don ’ t have the luxury of using both . every level . It sounds great , and the included accessory pack ( windscreen , stand adapter , short XLR cable , mic holder , and mic spacer ) makes getting up and running a snap . While I opted not to use the windscreen or Low-Cut filter since I shoot indoors and can control HVAC manually ( something that is virtually impossible to control on location ), I was consistently impressed with how natural the sound was . My voice sounded like my voice and production was as easy as connecting the mic , checking levels and hitting record .
The sleeper feature on this mic is the ability to provide phantom power via a single AA battery . This enables you to use an XLR to USB cable to feed audio directly into your computer for livestreams . Noting that old batteries can leak , the ECM-674 also features a battery detection circuit that monitors the battery output voltage . If the voltage drops below a certain level , the power supplied to the mic will shut off and you ’ ll know it ’ s time to replace the AA battery should you opt to use one .
Like most video fanatics , I started off using shirt mounted lavalier mics . As a guitar playing content creator , I quickly discovered that in addition to negative proximity effect ( loss of low end ) I also experienced a significant drop in level if I turned to face the fingerboard while speaking .
WHY THIS SHOTGUN ? Getting back to aforementioned quote , for the money this mic delivers great value at
As I mention in the companion video for this review , I ’ ve also done
$ 349.99 Street Price Pro . Sony . com