GH3 What deadcat to get for my Rode videomic pro.

P

PatrickN

Member
As the title says I need som suggestions on what deadcat to get for the Rode videomic pro.
Been reading some bad things about Rode's deadcat but that might also just been ppl with to much expectation from it.
The ones I have found so far are
Rode
Rycote
Micover windscreen

Which one and why ? :)
 
slightly off topic but is the Rode pro really all that much better then the Panasonic DMW-MS1? I checked the specs and they are pretty close...
 
Patrick, check into what the Windcutter folks have.

http://thewindcutter.com/shop/index.php?route=product/category&path=1_10_173

Their "Stormchaser" is the model I prefer, it has longer denser fur (which helps "bleed off" wind noise), the longer the fur the better wind protection you have.

I was in on the field testing for their "windjacket" for the Zoom audio recorders. I got a Zoom H1 as soon as it came out and the built in mics were horribly sensitive to the slightest breeze. I ordered a Stormchaser muff from them (had to send them the H1 measurements as they didn't have them it was so new) and it didn't do the job.

So they made up a second one following some suggestions I made and that one was better but wind still caused a heckuva problem.

They put me in touch with their design engineer and he made up another model, they kept sending me improved models until the WindJacket evolved. Then they asked to borrow my H2 so they could work a Windjacket out for that one and it came back to me in a week, warmly clad in the Windjacket they show on their website.

I paid for the first one and they made no charges for any of the others because my testing supplemented theirs.

Great folks to work with.

The Stormchaser at $46.95 is what you want.
 
Thank's Bruce.
Newer heard of windcutter before.. but then again I come from 20 year background as a still commercial/ documentary photographer ( I know stange combo lol ) who recently got myself in to "moving stills with sound" :)
I will defenatly check Windcutter out.
 
FWIW, you can buy a yard of fake fur at a cloth store for less than $3 and have your wife/girlfriend/strange room mate make one that will perform essentially as well as one that costs $30-$50. Put the money you save into another memory card.
 
I tried that and it didn't work very well. There is a difference between the "fake/faux" fur found in the fabric stores and what the folks at windcutter.com use.

In Alaska and other regions in the far North, wolf fur was found to be one of the best materials to use in wind protection for mics. It is a very dense, tough fur and "bleeds off" wind noise very effectively. The artificial fur used on the better windmuffs has a much tougher, denser "feel" to it than the "soft" stuff found in fabric stores.
 
I just tried out a few of the Rode Deadcat VMPs in heavy wind and thought they were not very effective. The rear isn't covered and it did not fit the Rode VMP well either. I may try the Micover next.
 
Heavy wind is another animal entirely. In field testing the final prototype WindJacket for the ZoomH1 I got out in 25-maybe 30MPH winds in this video I sent to the windcutter.com folks. We had previously found that if the wind hit ANY PART of the ZoomH1 body (even the non mic end) it caused a noise to record. So in this video I was testing the fully enclosed prototype. When I open it up you can hear how the wind noise "blots out" what I might be saying.

Again, long dense fur makes a big difference. You may not be able to cut out all noise but you can block enough to be able to record voice.

https://vimeo.com/17918160
 
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I have the VMP windjammer and it's useless, the slightest wind gets into the area around the rear where the switches are. This mic requires a blimp to use outdoor in any type of wind fully enclosing the entire mic.

The fake fur idea works really well if the entire VMP mic is enclosed in the fur, that was my solution.

BTW, fake fur on my zoom H1 also works as well as any overpriced bought solution.
 
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