Bad sound with Boya BY-M1LV-D

[Doug Newman]

Has anyone used this mic? It has noice reduction turned on. The only problem is it creates such an awful phaser tunnelled effect that the microphone is completely unusable. I have heard reviews of similar mics and the noise reduction also has this awful effect. The only problem is that I have read the manual and there seems to be no setting to turn it off.

In that case it is really such a piece if junk that it just needs to be binned and something decent needs to be bought.

 

[Andrew S10]

You're probably better off returning the Boya and getting a Rode.

On-the-fly software noise reduction is a gimmick; noise reduction should be accomplished by using the proper type of lav for the surroundings, mic placement, gain staging, and acoustically treating the environment when possible.

Turn off the noise reduction if you can, noise reduction in computer software is much better, and can be finetuned.

I think your audio quality will improve if you connect a lav mic, probably a unidirectional if you're concerned about ambient noise, or better yet, an earset or headset microphone.

A Sennheiser MKE 40 would be a good unidirectional lav, but you could try a JK MIC-J 017 unidirectional lav on the low end.

It's a cheap Chinese mic, temper your expectations accordingly; there's a reason a Sennheiser AVX costs $763.

 

[BobKo]

I don't know anything about the Boya mic, but I've had pretty good luck with reasonably priced mics. Always remember that nothing is more important than proximity when it comes to audio. A cheap mic placed 20cm from the sound source will always sound better than an expensive mic placed 200cm from the sound source.

Here is a video of me interviewing people in fairly noisy environments using a cheap ($60) Tascam ATR6550 shotgun mic:

And here is a video of me using a $35 Tascam ATR3350 lav mic:

Here is a video where I compare the sound of 4 different lav mics, running from a $480 Sony ECM-88 to a $19 el-cheapo:

Good luck!