RØDE VideoMic Me-L Compact Directional Microphone for iOS 11 Devices

To me, this is a must-have for anyone wanting to shoot video on an iPad or iPhone.It's small and it's simple and it solves the two main problems of the inbuilt mic:First, because it's directional, it doesn't pick up breathing and sniffing noises from the operator like the phone's inbuilt mic does.Secondly, it comes with a fuzzy windcover, which is extremely effective at cutting out wind noise, which otherwise ruins so many videos.Now, this is not a "shotgun mic", and never claims to be, and it's all the better for it. A shotgun mic is a log tube mic that is highly directional. Short shotgun mics are rarely much use. The VideoMic Me has a cardioid (heart-shaped) pickup pattern, so it picks up more sound from the side than a true shotgun would, but it really isn't an issue.The only problem I have with this is that it's only for phones, so there's no way to mount it on a DSLR camera for instance. It's nice whendevices can be easily shared between different filming rigs, but sadly this isn't one of those times. This also means the VideoMic Me is really only for the phone/tablet in a plain configuration. I've just bought an iOgrapher case for my iPad Mini, and the VideoMic Me doesn't fit. Well, you can just squeeze it in and no more, but the mic contacts the case, picking up a lot of handling noise, and the fluffy windcover often brushes against your hand, making it an extra source of noise. I was going to look into building an adaptor to site it elsewhere on the case, but as this mic has no suspension, the handling noise would still be a problem.Oh, and one little tip: the VideoMic Me doesn't come with a carrying pouch of any kind, but with the windshield on, it's just the right size to fit in the end of an old sock. This keeps the fluffy material from getting trapped and pulled, or embedded with dirt.

There are cheaper options than the Rode iPhone mic but they have a good pedigree in video and DSLR mics so I spent the extra to get this.It's well made and attaches to the iPhone securely.The mic is fataly flawed for many applications because it is not insulated against interference, this means the phone has to be in flight safe mode while recording video which makes it useless for streaming video or FaceTime, Skype etc if you are working over a data connection.I live streamed from several events with the Video mic me and everyone complained about the terrible crackling and noise.I've since discovered that to avoid interference you need a mic that goes not into the headphone socket but into the lightning connector.After trying several solutions I have found by far the best is the Shure MV88, it angled 90 degree to record front and back, comes with a small protective case and a foam windjammer. So far it has performed flawlessly with perfect sound and no interference even when live streaming over 4G. I'm delighted with it...sorry Rode, I have several of your mics but on this occasion you've dropped the ball.

To preface, I'm a professional audio engineer and I've taught music and music production for two years.I used one of these a few years ago when the college I was working at bought some. Initially I was impressed. The improved directionality and 'focus' from what is essentially a mini shotgun mic was notably better than my phone or the college's iPads could capture internally.Since then I've bought a new phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 10+) and its mics are much cleverer than those on the iPad Air, to the point that doing an A/B test of this versus an internal phone mic recording showed very little difference. While it was noticeably better through the Røde, the difference only presented itself through professional-grade reference headphones (when I'm just recording little demos on my phone, I don't usually plug in headphones at all - let alone the big fragile expensive ones).I think that's the main problem with this mic. For the kinds of things I'm likely to record with it it's less convenient to have to plug it in every time - so much so that after a few weeks I think I'd just not bother. Not to mention that my phone (and most others these days) doesn't have a 3.5mm headphone jack, so it's dangling off a 1" dongle cable.As for its main role as a video mic, on a device that has a headphone jack it does clip on nicely and point at your subject, ignoring lots of surrounding noise...but my phone's mic is just as good. The Røde's larger diaphragm definitely helps in terms of frequency range, but for acoustic instruments and vocals it makes little difference.This is not a bad microphone. I got it for £40 and would've kept it if my phone weren't so good as to make it superfluous.

I bought this to improve my YouTube videos for my sons channel (Henry's Hysterical History). The videos before this were suffering from wind noise and were picking up a lot of background audio that I didn't want.The microphone comes with a wind muffler to reduce wind noise. This is effective, but doesn't fit as tightly as I would like - I am genuinely worried at times ti will fall off if I'm tipping the mic forwards so might look at other attachment methods.The clipping method is brilliant and works flawlessly on my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. I also use this with my DJI Osmo Gimbal so have bought an extension cable to mount the microphone onto the gimbal instead.Directional audio has vastly improved the sound quality and allows me to focus the audio recording on the subject of the video and cut out a lot of background cars or chatter.Overall I highly recommend this if you plan on using your videos for anything more than home use. Audio is hard to fix in post production so getting it right first time is a life saver.