JuicedLink Little DARling Review: Like Wireless Lavalier but Different

Wireless lavalier kits are expensive. And they are sometimes finicky. They drop the audio when the transmitter is too far from the receiver. RF interference can cause problems as well. Wireless has its place, for sure, but sometimes you also need a backup. Or perhaps you don’t have the budget for a wireless system just yet.

This is where the JuicedLink Little DARling comes in. It is a tiny little audio recorder which looks very much like a wireless lavalier microphone transmitter body pack. But instead, it records the audio from the lavalier microphone. Then when you’re done shooting, you sync the audio recorded by the DARling to your video clip in your video editing app.

This entire episode was recorded with the Little DARling and a Sanken COS-11D lavalier microphone hidden under my shirt collar. For this review, B&H lent me the JuicedLink Little DARling DAR123.

Hiding Lavalier Microphones

Ted Sim at Aputure brought sound mixer Stephen Harrod on to his recent episode to show us 17 options for hiding lavalier microphones. Good to have a few of these ideas in the back of your mind for the future.

I especially like the Neopax which are neoprene belts you can use to hide the transmitter packs under costume or even on ankles or thighs.

Sound for Video Session: Hiding Lavalier Microphones

** Apologies - the audio is absent until 2:03 - I'm considering moving away from Google Hangouts on Air for the future **

Here are a bunch of ideas on where and how to hide lavalier microphones. I still find boom microphones to be my first choice, but when that's not an option, I resort to these methods for micing.

Here are some of the products we cover in the video:

Moleskin - Adhesive on one side, fine felt on the other. Something you'll definitely want in your kit if you're hiding lavalier microphones.

Gaffer Tape - A must have tape that can be used for almost anything. Don't confuse this with duct tape. Gaffer tape's adhesive is much better quality and much less likely to leave a nasty residue on the things you tape.

Toupee Tape - great two sided tape for mounting a mic under a hat or even under clothing.

Surgical Tape - Usefule for adhering to skin

Hush Lav - Foam cylinder which envelops the lavalier mic and helps reduce clothing noise. Best suited for mics shaped like the Sanken COS-11D or RODE Lavalier/smartLav+

Rycote Undercovers - Another option which includes the two-sided adhesive dot plus some felt to place over the mic.

Three Lavalier Microphones for your Mobile Phone

Need to record better audio to your smartphone or even record video with better sound on your mobile? We’ve reviewed several lavalier microphones over the last few years and in this episode we’ll let you hear three of them back to back to help you decide which may be best for your projects. Each of them are well under $100 USD and two of the are well under $40 USD so there’s an option for any budget. You can get surprisingly good sound, even with a $20 USD microphone.

We’ll have a listen to the GORA Lavalier, the Aputure A.lav, and the RODE smartLav+. I personally prefer the RODE for the great sound quality and robust build quality, but the GORA also sounds really good, despite its lesser build quality. The Aputure A.lav wins as the most versatile as it can record, out of the box, to your phone, your camera, or your camcorder.

Each of these mics can be a great option.

Also, I'm finding the Rycote Undercovers to be a nice way to mount lavalier microphones and avoid clothing noise. We'll take a closer look at those in an upcoming episode.

GORA Lavalier Microphone Quick Review

GORA Products released a new lavalier microphone for recording to your mobile phone. This will record just audio or the sound for video shot by your phone. The GORA lavalier comes in at only $20 USD and overall, looks like a great buy with good quality sound, low noise, and decent build quality. Worth a look if you’re operating on a tight budget and need to get sound for your video that is better than what almost any camera can produce.

We'll follow up in about 2 weeks with a comparison of this versus a couple of other affordable lavalier microphones designed to record to smartphones:  The RODE smartLav+ and the Aputure A.lav.

Record Two Lavaliers to Your Recorder or Camera

One question I've received more times than I can count is how do I record two lavalier microphones with 3.5mm plugs into my camera or small stereo audio recorder (like a Zoom H1 or Tascam DR-05)?

Beachtek has a solution in their DXA-Pocket mixer. In terms of size, it is perfect for a Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera but it'll work with any camera that has a 3.5mm stereo mic input.

You can connect two microphones with 3.5mm plugs and this will send them to separate channels so that they're recorded cleanly and that makes post-processing a lot easier.

Looks like a simple solution to a problem that we all encounter at one point or another. Through the 10th of November, B&H Photo has the DXA-Pocket for $80 USD

Aputure A.lav Quick Review: Best Cheap Lavalier 2015

I’ve reviewed quite a few inexpensive lavalier microphones (~$50 or less) over the last several years. And to be honest, I haven’t found one that sounded better than the Giant Squid or JK MicJ 044 in over a year. Until the Aputure A.lav was released, that is. I’m quite impressed with this little mic and what’s more, it runs about $35 USD so it won’t break the bank.

I suspect the reason this one sounds better than many of the others is that it has its own power module. So yes, this is potentially a little more cumbersome, but it also allows you to monitor your audio while recording and to ensure you can use this with just about any device with a 3.5mm microphone input.

If you want to improve the sound of your videos but the budget's tight, the A.lav may be worth a look and a listen.

Good Budget Wireless Lavalier: Azden PRO-XD

One of the most common questions I've received from YouTubers: "I'm going to start a prank channel at YouTube. What wireless microphone should I get?"

I've never done a single prank video so I don't pretend to be a master at understanding all the nuances of quality prank videos, but Azden was kind enough to send me a copy of their PRO-XD Digital Wireless Lavalier system to review.

After working with it for about three weeks, here’s the review. Overall, this is a great budget digital wireless lavalier system priced at $200 USD. While it isn’t as robust as more expensive wireless systems, this system does have a lot going for it and is very good value for money.

Azden PRO-XD

The upside? Great performance in terms of keeping a signal, battery life, and producing solid, quality audio. Oh, and the price: $199 USD. This is the best sub $200 wireless lavalier system I've used.

The downside? The included lavalier microphone isn't amazing, but you can clean up the audio in post or replace it with another 3.5mm TRRS lavalier microphone.

Would I opt for this over the RODELink wireless lavalier kit? No, not if I had the budget for the RODELink (see our review here) which is twice the price. But if you're operating on a tight budget, the PRO-XD is definitely worth a look.

Azden PRO-XD Digital Wireless Lavalier Initial Test & Moving Help Sessions

Azden sent over a copy of their PRO-XD wireless lavalier system and in this episode we're doing an initial sample so that you can hear what it sounds like after routine, mild post processing (mild noise reduction, mild compression, loudness normalize to -16LUFS and true peak limit to -1.5dB true peak). We'll have a quick review later this week.

Someone already asked, do you like this or the RODELink better? If money was not a factor, of course I like RODELink more but if money is a factor, and it usually is, the PRO-XD is half the price of RODELink.

The Azden kit has a few unique features and one of the biggest is the size of the transmitter and receiver - they're tiny. They also have in-build lithium-ion batteries which can be charged via micro USB cable and the wireless works as well as RODELink and Sennheiser AVX in terms of keeping a signal in my tests so far. Audio quality is good, though not as good as AVX. It also includes an adapter so you can record to mobile devices which is a nice touch as well.

Seems like a good kit if you're on a tight budget.

And as for the help sessions, we've received feedback that it would be better if we would move those to a different channel. I agree, they're different enough (i.e., an hour in length, Q&A style instead of focused topic) that they should probably be somewhere else. So we’ll post them here.

Sennheiser AVX Digital Wireless Microphone System Review

So here it is, finally after 4 weeks of working with it; my review of the Sennheiser AVX wireless microphone system.

Sennheiser recently introduced their new digital wireless system called AVX. There are various kits available and in this episode I used the kit with the body pack transmitter, receiver, and MKE2 lavalier microphone (their higher-end pro lavalier microphone). We looked at various aspects of the AVX system including how well it does in terms of outdoor distance, dynamic range which Sennheiser touts as preventing clipping distortion when your talent suddenly gets very loud, sound quality of the MKE2 lavalier microphone, latency, rejection of RF and WiFi interference, battery life, and others. Let’s see how it does!