XLR vrs 3.5mm Mini Jack for HDSLR Audio
My friend Bill Smith from the LA Film School has decades of experience as an audio recording engineer with street cred from his humble beginnings in an 80′s hair band. I recently asked him about the difference in using microphones with 3.5mm mini jacks instead of XLR cables. I realize that if you already own XLR equipment, then you will want to use them for HDSLR audio but if you don’t, then wouldn’t you be better off using less expensive microphones designed to work with mini jacks on prosumer DV video cameras and by extension HDSLRs? This is keeping in mind that I’m not aspiring to be a sound recording engineer and that the majority of the work I’ll be shooting will be on modern HDSLR’s and the forthcoming large chip video cameras based on HDSLR systems.
Bill explained to me that you can achieve great results with either type of microphone cable in an ideal environment that’s free of fluorescent light fixtures, radio signals, and other electronic equipment that can cause buzzing and audible interference. That doesn’t sound like very many real world field recording situations. He went on to explain that in XLR cables, the signal travels through separate wires that are heavily shielded with a noise canceling circuit in the device on either end (the balanced part) instead of through a single thin cable with little in the way of shielding. I will still probably use 3.5mm style microphones because of cost and convenience on most of my video recordings but now I know what to look out for and when to splurge and rent XLR gear.
I found this video on Youtube that does a good comparison between microphones with and without XLR cables showing what electronic items in his house emit signal noise. It’s not totally scientific but it works to help illustrate the difference between XLR and 3.5mm inputs. I think it also proves that there are a lot of geeks who have too much time on their hands and lots of cool toys tools laying around.
