Does VideoMic NTG have pre-amps?

[dylansmith]

Asking because I am going to use it primarily on a smartphone. Will it bypass the sucky pre-amps and rely on its own for the sound?

Also, will it be a worthy upgrade from the videomicro? I listened to all the video reviews on Youtube, and it didn't sound very different on my Edifier 1600T3.

 

[paulears]

One's a shotgun the other a cardioid both use the preamp in the recording device. The shotgun is not an upgrade, it's a different type of mic that can work further away, and needs more careful aiming. I doubt either would sound very different in any meaningful way you can understand without doing some listening. Phones are very good utility tools, but they rarely offer a sonically superior performance for recording with low level inputs.

 

[Throwback]

Asking because I am going to use it primarily on a smartphone. Will it bypass the sucky pre-amps and rely on its own for the sound?

As per Rode's own blurb 'it is also a fully-featured USB microphone that can be plugged into a computer, tablet, or smartphone'.

Cheers,

Roland

 

[Gweilo66]

Which doesn't answer the question, does it?

 

[Throwback]

Which doesn't answer the question, does it?

Not sure if this is intended for me?! But if so, then, yes, the fact that 'it is also a fully-featured USB microphone that can be plugged into a computer, tablet, or smartphone' means that it has an internal preamp and ADC, and that it won't rely on the smartphone/tablet/computer's questionable preamp. Or, indeed, an unbalanced connection. Paul has addressed the second question about comparison to the (cardioid) VideoMicro in terms of polar pattern (though, obviously, there is a significant difference in quality - not least self-noise - too).

Cheers,

Roland

 

[Noiz2]

Which doesn't answer the question, does it?

You mean if you care at all about quality why would you record on a phone?
The answer is you don't care so the "quality" of the preamps in the mic is pretty imaterial.

That said the preamps in a modern phone are probably the same chips in a small consumer strap on mic so again it probably doesn't make a lot of difference. And as a rule any device that doesn't have dedicated line in jacks routes everything through it's internal preamps always. If you send a line level signal to a phones 1/8" jack it is going through the phones mic pre's. It is just padding that signal down and then treating it like a mic level input.
So again doesn't make a lot of difference. What will make a difference is getting a decent mic and hooking it up to a decent recorder. A video mic and a phone is really pushing the bottom edge of possibly acceptable for anything but the lowest bar stuff like maybe a podcast? home movie?

If you are going in digitally, ie USB, then the phone is just a bit bucket and it should be fine for that (till you get a text in the middle of the shot).