In addition to having a superior sound quality to much of its competition, it can be mounted by way of cold shoe and a 3/8? thread for boom pole mounting, as well.
All you really need to use the VideoMic Pro with your camera is a 3.5mm minijack into you camcorder, DSLR, or audio recording device.
The problem many folks face when first setting up the Rode VideoMic Pro is figuring out how to adjust the settings on their cameras for best sound quality. DSLRs have a habit of overcompensating using automatic gain, and the T3i is no different. In fact, the original firmware for the T3i doesn't have much in the way of manual audio settings at all.
Upgrade Your Firmware
The first step to using the Rode VideoMic Pro with a Canon EOS 600D (T3i) is to upgrade the camera's firmware to version 1.0.1 or greater. Instructions as well as a download link can be found here. The most current version of the T3i's firmware is 1.0.2, which can be found here.
Once this upgrade is complete, you should be able to modify the gain control settings through the main menu with little difficulty.
While we're on the subject of firmware, I'm a huge fan of a third-party plug-in called Magic Lantern. This plug-in adds live audio monitoring to the T3i so you can keep track of your recording levels while recording is going on. This isn't something you get out of the box, which was a huge disappointment considering there is no audio out jack for monitoring on the T3i. Keep in mind this camera is primarily intended for photos.
Hooking Up the Hardware
Take a moment to attach your VideoMic Pro to the shoe at the top of your T3i. There is a thumbwheel that should allow you to loosen and fasten the microphone to the shoe. Make sure it's snug as nothing makes more noise than a loose microphone.
Plug the VideoMic Pro's audio jack into the microphone jack as indicated in the image above. It'll be the bottom most port located on the left-hand side of the camera towards the lens.
Menu Settings
The next thing you'll need to do is go into the camera's video settings. To do this, turn it on and spin the control wheel around to video. Once you've done this:
- Press the Menu button on the upper-left area of the back of the camera.
- Hit the right direction button on the lower-right area of the back of the camera until you're over the second red camera menu. Two little red squares should be next to the camera icon in the tabs. (See above picture.)
- Using the Set and direction buttons, switch Sound rec. to Manual.
- Navigate to Rec. Level (just below) and hit the Set button.
- Use the left direction button to bring the cursor between 1-4 points after far left. This will bring the gain down and allow you to use the microphones +20 dB boost feature for better audio quality. You can scale this up if needed, though most indoors recording can be done within 5 notches from the far left. (Furthest left level is absolute mute).
- Hit Set to save your changes and select Menu to get back into the video recording mode.
You can use the audio monitor in this menu to have your subject test the level you're setting. Once you begin recording, you can't change this until recording has completed. Get your levels right here before you do any actual recording.
Microphone Hardware Settings
When recording, you'll want to play around with the options available on the back of the VideoMic Pro, but for me the best options have been setting the tip switch to the far right (causing a low frequency drop off) and the bottom switch to the far right (+20 dB boost).
This, coupled with the low manual audio gain settings in the camera, gives me the perfect audio levels almost every time. You may not want the drop off if what you want is to keep the room noise or an air conditioner in the track, but it's the best option for me if I'm trying to capture clean vocal audio without a lot of the background noise in-between speaking.
This should get you up and running. Do you have any questions regarding the VideoMic Pro or the Canon T3i? Please leave them in the comments section below and I'll try to answer them in a future article.
Photos: Ryan Matthew Pierson
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