Yichuang Wired Lav Microphone
Having a wired lav mic positioned near the speaker’s mouth is probably the easiest and most inexpensive way to improve your video’s audio especially when spoken words are a big part of your creations.
Opening
For the beginner, a wired set like this is a great place to start. Wired mics with short cords work well when recording into a portable digital recorder but they don’t work very well when the plan is to record into a camera. Sets like this with a long connection cord allows you to set up a camera across the table or on a tripod allowing you to frame yourself in the shot while having a mic close to your mouth.
In fact, I started with a similar model some years ago. They are just great for beginners. What is interesting about this mic set is that it doesn’t require a battery.
Condenser microphones require a bit of current to generate the signals that are turned into the sounds we hear. Most condenser mics require electricity from a battery or from the recording device itself. My earlier wire mic used a small button battery and many of the similar mics found on Amazon require such a power supply. This mic, however, is different.
Wired Lav Mic Operation
This mic uses an electret condenser mic. Instead of a battery-supplied current, these mic use a permanent charge in an electret material. What this means to users is that you won’t end up losing audio on your recordings when a battery dies and you didn’t notice. For me, that’s a big deal. I tend to go out with a plan in mind and start shooting. What I sometimes forget is to double check signals to my recorder or camera before each shot. Unfortunately, I’ve been disappointed when this has happened in the past.
The mic comes with the mic and long wired mic with control switches for a low pass filter and to control the inputs to the TRRS plug. With the phone icon selected, a smartphone will recognize the plug as a TRRS plug and with the camera icon selected a camera will recognize the plug as a TRS plug. No extra pigtail converter is necessary.
The pros to this mic are that it is inexpensive and sounds pretty good; certainly better than a camera-mounted mic placed yards away from a speaker and it requires no batteries.
The big con is that it is wired. That means that you can get no farther away than the length of the wire. For many, the approximately 20 feet of wire will be plenty and 3.5 mm extension cords can also be used in some settings.
Closing
If you need to up your audio quality and don’t have the money to invest in a wireless mic system quite yet, this wired mic set will help you move forward economically on your productions while saving up for more expensive solutions.
