smartLav

For the price, the smartLav is an incredibly effective solution that delivers very good quality audio in place of a more expensive lapel mic or wireless system.

What it comes down to is if you ever need to capture audio for interviews or you think you may need to one day, my suggestion would be to pick up a RØDE SmarLav and have it in your bag at all times. If your option is the built in microphone or the SmarLav the difference is night and day, it’s a no brainer. The ability to capture professional sounding audio for as little as $60 could be the difference between getting the job or not.

I fully recommend this product based on its value, quality and ease of use.

We tested it outdoors and found the smartLav to do an excellent job of clearly picking up our voices while excluding the extraneous noises of wind and wildlife around us. Drop off was practically non-existent as we turned away from the mic and back again. The overall sound quality was very good.

Microphone of the Year 2013

To be clear, this is not a studio microphone. Rather, this is an inexpensive, totally convenient portable voice recording solution that’s great for recording one person speaking. If you’re giving a presentation and you want to record yourself, this is the best bargain I’ve seen for an unobtrusive, decent-sounding audio track.

Poor interview audio is really inexcusable these days – even for shooters on limited budgets. If you can’t afford a high quality wireless mic or need to mic up multiple people on set then here is an elegant and inexpensive solution from RØDE.