Has anyone compared the quality of the rode stereo videomic and rode videomic?

I'm still new to audio. I need something compact though and will eventually invest in wireless lavs (I have the Zoom H4n). I see Phillip Bloom has these 2 mics set as his favorites for the HDSLR's (Which is what I'm using). Can anyone tell me what I could expect as far as a difference (Other than the price) of these 2 mics?

Yep, I have both. The biggest difference is of course the VM is mono, the SVM stereo so you need both for a good mic selection.

Cheers.

I use the stereomic all the time on my 5Dmk2. It gives very good results recording ambient sound when plugged into the camera. I'd rather have this in stereo. It can be converted to mono if desired.

Most of the time it captures speech very well too. But you would need to record separate sound eg to the Zoom, on a paid gig because you don't have any control over sound levels with this camera.

If I were in the business of paid gigs I would hope to have a variety of mics (Lavs are next on my list).

I just put in my order for the stereo mic.

An example of when using it inside a chapel. The hissing noise really bothers me. I will be taking this video again using the H4n

Nella Fantasia on Vimeo

Hi, what u mean when u talk about hissing?

An example of when using it inside a chapel. The hissing noise really bothers me. I will be taking this video again using the H4n

Nella Fantasia on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/9107444)

The mic is far too far away from the vocalists. To compensate for the low level due to distance, you've had to turn up the recording gain and so doing turns up the level on the circuit noise in the mic preamps as well as the desired sound of their voices. Hence the hiss. Given the room slap from the hard brick walls in back of them and to their sides, it's surprising it sounds as good as it does.

This is without the mic, just using the onboard 7D audio. Does this sound somewhat better? This was a smaller room with wood walls and a ceiling I could touch if I reached up. There is no hiss here.

In the first video I posted I had the db set to -10 on the mic.

Chigusa on Vimeo

I don't think the audio does the young lady justice. An on-board camera mic. is always going to sound 2nd rate IMHO. I was also put off by the hand-held wobble!

It was not a situation where I was able to set anything up. I will try at her next performance Friday.

How is this for a slight correction?

Nella Fantansia (Slight Audio Correction) on Vimeo

For me the mic is also too far away for another reason as well - the audio "framing" doesn't seem to match the video. You said that you are using an on-camera Rode Videomic, but the effect is that it looks and sounds like the camera is much nearer the singers than the mic. It needs to be the other way round. For that audio, I would expect to see a much wider shot taken from further away (not even a W/A shot from the same place). You need to separate the mic from the camera much more even to make it sound as if it was recorded from the same spot, and if it is to sound professional, the mic needs to be much closer to the performers as has been said by Steve and Ray.

And while I'm at it, it seems a bit odd not to see the violin that we are hearing with the same clarity as everything else.

Just trying to be helpful - ignore me if you wish, but I do a lot of this kind of thing both as a musician and cameraman recording other people.

All criticism is welcome. I'm new to the audio world.

The purpose of this was to test the mic attached to the 7D HDSLR so I could run around and shoot stuff for fun, not work. I was expecting something with less 'hiss' than what I got in the first clip. Something better than the onboard mic. That's the only purpose of having this mic (Compact and better than onboard) For future work/play stuff I would be using a different mic setup.

Hi Jason,

Thanks for sharing. The singer really has a wonderful voice! As others have mentioned, you really want to avoid having the mic more than a few feet away from the subject if at all possible (especially with a room full of reflective echos). Our enemy is known as the proximity effect, with the audio dropping off dramatically every time we double the distance (the inverse square of distance, not a lineral dropoff).
Inverse-square law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law)

I'm sure your new gear and improved technique will make a dramatic difference.

Good luck, Mchael

Not to be picky, Michael, but what you're talking about is the inverse square law, not the proximity effect. The inverse square law says the intensity of a sound drops by the square of the distance - a sound at 2 feet is 1/4 the level of the same sound at 1 foot and at 4 feet, 1/16th the level. The proximity effect is an unnatural buildup of bass frequency response when the mic is less than a certain distance away from the source. The exact distance where it kicks in depends on the mic type and design. It's why mics have an optimum working distance and can actually be too close as well as too far away.

It appears that by setting your SVM to -10 youre causing the hiss to appear by the pre-amps in the camera to gain up to make up for the gain difference.

I, too, believe the "hiss" is a noise from the camera's preamp amplifying the weakened input from the mic as the result of the -10 dB setting. Again you will definitely have more background noise in place of that hiss if the switch is set to 0 dB.

There is no getting around this problem unless you obey the law of physics by getting the mic close to the source. If the sound source is more than one as in your case you have to compromise by either positioning your mic not one or two feet from the singer but finding the "optimum sound spot" in the room and living with some degree of background noise or asking for a direct audio feed from the band/club.