In a seemingly never ending quest to improve my workflow and allow me to record videos faster, I’ve now turned my attention to voice overs. As I state in the video below, I don’t have a quiet studio or even a quiet room to record videos in. Our house was not designed to be sound proof. As such, just about anything the missus, one of the pets, or an neighbor outside does can be heard throughout the house.

This is why you often see me recording introductions outside of the house at random locations. I love doing that and feel it gives my channel some uniqueness so I don’t plan on stopping that, but sometimes it’s necessary to record inside as well.

My biggest issue is not being able to go back and do voice over, either to add more explanation or to adjust what I said because the quiet times are few and far between. With that in mind, I went looking for a microphone shield. My first stop was the local Guitar Center, but as expected, they were expensive and probably overkill for my needs.

A quick look on Amazon uncovered the Aokeo Portable Vocal Booth. At the time of my purchase it was $39.99 which is right in the impulse buy zone for equipment so I purchased it and a day later it arrived.

After trying it out for a while I have nothing but good things to say about it. The construction is good. The included adapters and accessories are reasonable and useful and it does what it advertises. The 3 different mounting options (sitting on a table, screwing onto a microphone stand, clamping onto a pole) give it a diverse range of uses. It makes it more of a one size fits all device.

I can’t weigh in on the quality of the sound foam because I have no experience with others, but to my ears in the audio tests, I can hear a reduction of echoing. Download the unedited audio samples to check yourself: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1om2qb9FUzSkKNz98qVtGdgpaPV0V3Oyf/view?usp=sharing

Just keep in mind that you may need to get creative with the microphone mounting if your mic setup is larger than what I used in the video. A great, inexpensive microphone arm that I reviewed and use is the Etubby Microphone Suspension Arm. You can see the video for it here.

Update July 13, 2019:
See original post below

I contacted Rode’s customer service via email explaining that the Power button on my receiver unit was faulty. I wasn’t expecting much because the device technically still works. I also am always leery of getting a replacement for a brand new product that I can’t just return to the store. I was afraid they would need me to send back my defective one and then wait for weeks while they fix it, but I thought I’d give it a try contacting them.

I got the standard automated response back saying someone would get in touch with me in 48-72 hours, then almost immediately after, another email that said due to higher support volume, it may take longer than 72 hours. My hopes weren’t high at this point.

However, less than 48 hours later, Peter emailed me back and no questions asked offered to send me a replacement provided I return my defective product in a prepaid envelope. Of course I would.

I sent them the information they wanted the following day and waited.

6 days later I got an email saying that the shipment was delayed, but they expected it to ship in the next 72 hours. I wasn’t surprised by this because from what I could tell, this product was in high demand (hence why it was sold out in stores and online when I bought it) and I assumed their supply was low.

7 days later, so a bit longer than the 72 hours promised, they sent me a UPS tracking number. 3 days later (accounting for the timezone difference) the box was at my front door.

All in all, it was a very pleasant experience and I was so distracted by other things, holidays, preparations for a trip, etc, that it seemed much faster than it does now that I go back and look at time stamps of emails.

I was really surprised when I looked at the customs form and saw more than just the replacement unit. (Yes, I admit that I knew what was in the box before I opened it). I decided that this level of customer service quality needed to be shared. However, I did not know if the button would be fixed or if there would be another issue so I also felt it would be beneficial to let the public know if the faulty button was a systemic problem or a one off.

As you can see in the video, the replacement unit works just fine. I’m going to contact Rode about sending back the faulty unit though so once I hear from them, I’ll update it here.

If you like the audio quality in this video (shot entirely with the Rode Wireless Go) you can pick one up here and help support my channel:
Rode Wireless Go: https://amzn.to/2XrQPyd

The Follow Up Video

Original Post June 24th, 2019:

The Rode Wireless Go microphone uniquely combines the mic directly into the transmitting pack, eliminating the need to wire up the speaker with a corded lavalier mic, but is the audio any good? Let’s compare it to the competition in its pro-sumer price range with an audio test!

I’m pretty happy with the audio quality from the microphone so far and really looking forward to not having to use my lavalier mic. The cable on those drives me nuts, plus the audio quality on mine that came with the Zoom F1 Field Recorder doesn’t have much dynamic range. The Rode Wireless Go on the other hand does a much better job capturing the bass and tenor fluctuations of my speech.

1 Amazon Reviewer said they had issues with the transmitter not switching back to internal microphone after plugging in an external mic, but I haven’t experienced that issue. The only issue I have, as I said in the video, is that the power button is hard to press on the receiver. I’ll update this post if/when I hear from Rode on getting it serviced or replaced under warranty.

If you decide to pick one up for yourself, please consider using the affiliated link on the right to support this channel.

The Original Video

The rest of the items
Rode Wireless Go: https://amzn.to/2XrQPyd
Rode VideoMicro: https://amzn.to/2Y8QAVZ
Zoom F1: https://amzn.to/2FtD4Vw
Zoom H5: https://amzn.to/2Y8yu6p
Zoom Stereo Shotgun Mic: https://amzn.to/2XpHPcX
Fujifilm X-T3: https://amzn.to/2WZ6RLF
Sony FDR-AX53: https://amzn.to/2FvNFPA

Aokeo Microphone Shield

Rode Wireless Go Mic Update

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