The Sennheiser MKE400 Shotgun Mic
Jan 13, 2007 at 8:41 pm in location sound gear by Josh Mellicker
Over a year ago I had the opportunity to examine a little shotgun mic from Sennheiser called the ME36. We’re talking tiny – look at your pinky finger and imagine a shotgun mic that small! This little wonder was initially released as a podium mic and that is where it has existed its moderately successful life. Well…I thought it would make an awesome on-camera mic if they would make a few changes.
In my testing I found the ME36 to be warm and natural sounding yet surprising directional. I waved it around and “Whooomp!” Overly sensitive on the low end with any movement. The mic definitely needed a high pass filter or “low end cut” to remove the rumble that made my headphones bottom out.
The bigger question was, how would this mount to a camera via the accessory shoe mount? No one had a shockmount even close to this small. And – how could we get power to this mic on a consumer/prosumer camcorder – the ME36 requires phantom power. Also, how would we get from the propriety mini XLR over to an 1/8″ miniplug?
Well, Sennheiser engineers listened and answered all these question. Here you are seeing a pre-release version of the new Sennhesier MKE400 camcorder microphone.
This folks, is going to be a killer mic for smaller cameras like the Canon HV20. You see, even the highly popular, extremely successful RODE Videomic can seem overwhelming on a palm-sized camcorder. It can also remind people they’re on camera. When you have a mic this small, you can really be unobtrusive and “blend in”. From what I’ve heard so far, the unit will be powered for 300 hours by a single AAA battery. There will also be XLR support and the unit will weigh less than 3oz. Amazing sound in a small package! Good things are yet to come!
Sennheiser MKE400
Availability: Currently back ordered/Please contact us for expected ship dates
Price: $199.00
Sennheiser MZW400 Kit
Professional accessory kit for use with the MKE 400 Shotgun microphone
Kit Includes-
1- MZW 400 Windshield with attached “Hairy Cover”
1- 3-pin XLR adaptor
MZW400 Accessory kit
Availability: Usually ships same/next day
Price: $49.00
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If this mic lives up to the marketing hype, I’ll be looking to sell my Rode VideoMic and replacing it with this – the size and weight of this unit falls very much in line with the rest of my gear.
Cliff Etzel – Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt
How much “bump” noise do you get on the audio track from handling the camera? I’m debating this mic vs Rode VideoMic. I have been using a hotshoe-mounted Zoom H2 for audio, and it gets a ton of this type of handling noise when I move/handle the camera.