A microphone perfect for budding YouTube influencers

Good microphones are a must if you want to make your own YouTube content. No matter how well-crafted your script, how slick your camera work, or how compelling your subject matter might be, crappy sound will deaden the interest of your audience quicker than a speech about honesty by the National Party.

While many mic options are available, good wireless Lavalier mics (which are easily the best solution when working in a video format) can be hard to find. None of this was wasted on DJI, which has come up with the DJI Mic 2, which boasts a bunch of nifty features including noise-cancelling smarts and 32-bit float recording for capturing super clean audio. Oh, and they’re completely wireless.

Alongside all the techie stuff, they’ve also developed some exceptionally clever design elements that position them as a strong choice for content creators. The first thing you’ll notice about the DJI Mic 2 is its neat charging case. It’s grey and crafted out of alloy, feeling strong enough to weather the odd drop and trips in an equipment bag or even, dare I say it, thermo-nuclear war.

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Keeping everything secure is a handy push button latch to ensure the case stays closed, so if the charging case is dropped, its contents will remain in the case. The case carries two wireless omnidirectional mics, a receiver with an intuitive touchscreen interface and control wheel, and Lightning and USB-C adaptors. If you’re Vlogging with a DSLR, the receiver also has a hot-shoe mount baked in. White LEDs on the charging case’s front panel show charge levels, and the receiver’s OLED touchscreen also provides battery status and remaining storage for each mic.

Getting everything connected proved to be a straightforward undertaking. I took the receiver and mics from the case, switched the receiver on and powered up its display (which shows the mic’s audio input levels in real time). You’re good to go once you’ve hooked the receiver into your phone/camera. The mics are petite and come with a strong but tiny magnet that can be placed under a shirt, magnetically attaching to the mic to ensure it stays put. Controls-wise, the mics have a record button and a power button. In addition to the supplied USB/lightning adaptors, DJI has also baked a 3.5mm headphone output jack into the receiver for live audio monitoring.

The mics also come with an accessory bag, which provides a handy protective storage option for the charging case and storage for the two bundled windsocks, in addition to keeping everything organised. The windsocks might look a lot like a squirrel’s nether regions. Still, they proved super-efficient at keeping wind noise to a minimum on a typically gusty Wellington Day.

The controls for the DJI Mic 2 are simple. The mics have record, link, power buttons, an intuitive touch screen, and a control wheel combo on the receiver; the record button activates internal recording. Firing up internal recording handily gives you mono-with-safety-track and 32-bit float recording modes. The 32-bit float mode uses twin analogue to digital converters. One handles regular-level audio, while the other is set to handle loud audio. The huge dynamic range offered by the 32-bit float mode means that clipping and distortion were extremely difficult to achieve in testing.

The receiver’s touchscreen lets you tweak gain, headphone output levels, mic settings (where you will find the option to engage 32-bit float recording), and LED brightness. You can also choose one of three recording modes (mono, stereo or mono with the safety track.

The safety track is a duplicate audio track that is 6dB quieter and acts as a backup should clipping occur from sudden audio level increases. The safety track and internal record tracks can be easily accessed by connecting the mic using its USB-C port to your PC/Mac, where most existing video editing software can “see” them.

You can connect the receiver to your smartphone using the bundled Lightning, USB-C, and hot shoe mounts for DSLR cameras. While Bluetooth is supported, I found that noise-cancelling and other recording features were not always supported in some cases, which makes the receiver a must-have (the onboard recording feature is also incredibly handy should there be an RF dropout).

Speaking of noise-cancelling, it did a decent job separating my voice from noise on a busy Wellington Street. Cars, buses, and so on were not completely removed but dampened to the point where they didn’t distract, adding to the overall audio ambience. For indoor testing, air conditioning/noisy fan noise almost vanished.

The DJI Mic 2 packs many useful features that have, until now, been mostly the domain of professionals. Add to this a well-executed and super-refined design, and at its very reasonable price point, there’s lots to like.

https://store.dji.com/nz/product/dji-mic-2