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GoPro External Mic


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Love your car Nathan, you have a Ken Block look about you in the hoodie, cap and shades!

Also, was that a poilce person on a bike you boost past in the first vid? Nice one!

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hahaha well I am wearing a pair of KB's driving shoes in the video :D Been a fan of his shoes long before he started driving professionally. No it was not a person of the blue and white persuasion, it was a postie :lol: . I had been following him for a bit and he whipped his head around and saw me so he slowed and waved me on.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So what's the final recommendation with mic placement Nathan?

And what's the best way to get a separate sound recorder? How hard is it to splice the audio & vision together?

 

Have not had a chance to try any other placements yet but im thinking right at the decklid gap above the bumper. As far as getting a dedicated recorder the Zoom H1 seems to be the best option. Its $160 so quite a step up from a ebay mic for a few dollars but the sound quality would improve dramaticly. Then once you have your audio and vision its just a matter of syncing them in your editing software. This is where a clapper comes in handy or anything thats makes a loud noise you can slap together in front of the camera so you have something to sync with. Of course this adds the extra problem of mounting the unit to the car. You would need to purchase a suction cup adaptor like how the camera is mounted. A much cheaper option is buying a 2-into-1 adaptor so you can run two cheap mics into your gopro, so one in the engine bay and the other near the exhaust. Again this will require some experimenting as you cant adjust the audio levels for each mic. Hopefully I should have some time this weekend for some tweaking.

 

tomoaus Im interested to see how your mic compares to my "premium" $4 mic :D

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Yeah a clapper board is ideal but another more basic method is to just actually clap your hands in front of camera. You need to have your hands in same position as the way a clapper board is used ie arms out to one side with one arm moving down and one moving up, so camera gets a good clean view of hands hitting each other.

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awesome work, what exhaust are you running, sounds magic!

 

From what I can tell JJ its the standard exhaust with a g-pipe and the cat sounds hollow to me. P.O told me it was a RUF exhaust but I think not, maybe a RUF g-pipe.

 

Bruce its all about the right tool for the right job! (and any excuse to buy more gadgets to play with :P )

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I'll be making a clapper board as they are pretty basic.

 

The zoom is a great unit and that or another solid state unit like the M-audio Micro track II, would be my choice if I didn't already have the minidisc. Most of them support 96K recording which is great for handling the dynamics

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Ok so I went for a quick drive today to try a different mic position. While it works ok I am now getting heaps of pop and hiss from the external mic. After a few tests it seems its not the mic but something in the external port of the camera. I plugged just the extension lead in and it started to hiss right away. It did the same thing with just the mic and no lead. Hmmmmm didnt do this last time but now I cant seem to get rid of it. I did some checking online and this seems to be an issue with non-powered mics but it didnt happen the first time. I'm running the video through some audio filters to try and reduce it but I would rather it was not there at all. I will put the video up once its rendered and uploaded.

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Actually now that I listen to my first video again it is there but the exhaust drowns it out. Having the mic further away makes the hiss more pronounced. Might be time for a Zoom.

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Its sounds better on the video than it does in the car driving it! It doesn't sound quite that brutal from the drivers seat. I bought the Mic from ebay, here. They also sell 5m 3.5mm leads too so you can get the mic almost anywhere. Only problem I have found is I get terrible interference if I have power plugged in or the LCD back on. Im not sure if its bad shielding on the lead or in the mic port.

This may be a dumb question Nathan, but, I got my GoPro yesterday & am a new user but where does the external mic plug into on the camera?

Love the sound of your car, absolutely brutal!

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This may be a dumb question Nathan, but, I got my GoPro yesterday & am a new user but where does the external mic plug into on the camera?

Love the sound of your car, absolutely brutal!

Hero 3 requires a USB to 3.5mm adaptor. Check out the go pro website under accessories.

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Hero 3 requires a USB to 3.5mm adaptor. Check out the go pro website under accessories.

Thanks, got it now, I thought it would have to be the HDMI. Did my first gopro test drive today & the battery ran flat after 1klm, but vision was great except for the reflection off the screen, guess I'm going to have to man up & put the camera outside the car.

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Ok well here is a small clip from my footage yesterday just to show you how bad the interference is.

 

 

I think its a mixture of an unpowered mic and maybe some engine interference. When I get my foot into it and the exhaust db's increase it drowns it out a bit but needs to be much better. I think a Zoom is in order.

 

The only effective way to hide the static is with some (wait for the groans) music <_<  So here is the "Hollywood edit" with some music. I know the purists will cry murder for putting music over the sound of a flat six but this way I can share my favorite road without the "nails on chalkboard" static for 5 minutes :D

 

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I like the Hollywood version. You have enough flat 6 and the music just takes the edge off the static. Great road, great car and nice driving Nathan!

Was that Jamiroquai playing? I used to be a huge fan but it all started sounding the same and haven't listened to him in a long time. Maybe I should again!

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Yes it is Amanda although the latest album is not as good as their earlier stuff though. I pulled over half way through the video to check the camera and had quite a large plume of smoke coming from the engine bay :o I really should get my oil leaks fixed.

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Harv 15 minutes west of the coast and you hit the Gold Coast hinterland. There are some great roads and some that would be great if they weren't riddled with bumps, potholes and traffic. At a certain point this road goes from the former to the latter. Still have not had a clean run with no traffic yet. Not that Im driving very fast, interstate suv's move quite slowly  :D 

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No news yet re microphone but I did buy one of these LCD rear screen and control thingys.

 

 http://www.digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au/prod9502.htm

 

Awesome little device gives a viewfinder function plus all camera controls and settings via touch screen. I don't know about anyone else but I can't see anything much using that little (minute) screen on the front. Don't need to use the App to control it anymore, handy and still pocket sized if you aren't using the case. Used it at a party over the weekend at a bar and results are great. A Hero2 was also used and I must say the Hero3 leaves it for dead especially in low light video situations. I was sceptical about the results until we viewed them the next day, even in low light with lots of rear light the faces were all perfectly visible, same with low light indoors with no rear light. Love the GoPro Hero3 Black!

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No news yet re microphone but I did buy one of these LCD rear screen and control thingys.

 

 http://www.digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au/prod9502.htm

 

 

That looks good! I'm often taking video of the kids on bikes and things like that and have no idea if they're in shot or not.

 

I've found the app good for setting up the camera on the car/bike/helmet/windsurfer etc but then I turn the WiFi off to save battery. How was the battery life with the LCD screen on?

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I have an LCD back and they are great for framing your shots although on the car I usually snap it on and line up the shot, lock down my mount and then remove the screen. It does add some bulk to the camera and the screen will eat your battery if you leave it switched on. The Hero3 one might be slimmer.

 

So after the drive on Saturday I pulled the mic off the car and noticed the casing on the mic was a little loose and rattling. Thinking this might have been a source of my problem I tried to fix it today and well.....it fell to pieces before I even had a chance. You get what you pay for I guess. Im currently ripping the mic off an old set of headphones to see if a different mic will fix the problem before I go and purchase a Zoom.

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That looks good! I'm often taking video of the kids on bikes and things like that and have no idea if they're in shot or not.

 

I've found the app good for setting up the camera on the car/bike/helmet/windsurfer etc but then I turn the WiFi off to save battery. How was the battery life with the LCD screen on?

I don't really know as I only took about 10 minutes of video altogether with it on

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