Problem with Sony A7s and Rode Videomic Go

Essami

Essami

Well-known member
Hi

Just got a Rode Videomic Go for my Sony A7s and am hearing a lot of intermittent interference.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3241184/C0016.MP4

I tried a different cable and tried to turn all my electronics off in the room. Also tried to see if there's an autogain feature on in the Sony A7s but apparently not... Anyone with any ideas? Is this normal or is the mic just broken?
 
Based strictly on that :07 video, which isn't a whole lot to go on, the interference comes in when the camera drops down to your waist level.

Was your cell phone in your pocket? That sounds almost like bluetooth transmission, so was your phone's bluetooth on as well?
 
It's like that all over. My phone was no where near nor was there any bluetooth devices active. Wifi yes and laptop 3 meters away. I tried to take the camera/mic near all my equipment but could not locate "the source" of the interference...
 
To add, if this is not a broken mic I don't see how I could confidently take a mic with me to a shoot that is so prone to interference. I'm just very surprised because I would imagine someone out there would have noticed this and posted about it. But I can not find anyone with this sort of issue...
 
RF is tricky beast.

Are you in a house, condo, or apartment? If you have adjoining residences, it could be from the neighbors. You could be in the transmission path of nearby towers. Does this just happen at home, or have you gone to other locations?

Also, you're working with a mic that has a very thin, unbalanced output cable that likely isn't well-shielded. I've not used the VideoMic Go, but it's the cheapest of the lot and I wouldn't have high hopes. I keep a VideoMic Pro on my camera much of the time and have never had issues like this.
 
Yep, it could be from the neighbors. Hard to tell... But yeah, I watched a lot of comparisons between this and the Pro version and decided on this since it doesn't require any power. I use LAV mics on my subjects for doc work but sometimes you just need an easy run and gun. Ill do further tests with the mic, will probably return it.
 
It sounds a bit like an oxidized connection. It could be dirt corrosion in the jack or on the plug or a bad solder joint. One problem with mini phone jacks is that they are not very strong. To check some of that I would try moving the camera and see if the noise shows up semi consistently with certain positions or moves. You can try contact cleaner in the jack and exercising the connection a bit (plugging and unplugging a bunch of times) to see if that clears it out. If it's a bad joint then manipulating the cable should cause the problem and should be repeatable.

It's also possible that it is RF that that mic doesn't shield enough against. If that is the case moving to a different location (as in a mile or two away) should noticeable change the problem.

I have a non cheapie mic that I couldn't use in some parts of the Bay Area because it would pick up the Navy radar sweep. Everywhere else no problem. None of my other mics had the problem and I rewired and tried different shielding etc. But I believe the problem was with the capsule. It also picked up the underground antenna array the Navy uses to talk to submarines. You could literally walk a field and follow the lines using the mic as a kind of geiger counter.

Your sound thugh has some crackle which says bad connection to me, and a bad connection can act as a radio receiver and the "noise" sounds a lot like off channel radio noise. So my bet would be bad connection some place.
 
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