What mic for engine sound?

[DanielJames]

Afternoon all,

I'd like to make the audio trackday videos a bit better, so can anyone recommend a mic for me to get that will plug into my GoPro3? I've already got the open skeleton for it which made a good difference, but I do still get a lot of noise through it.

Doesn't need to be anything too fancy, I would prefer one that plugs into the gopro rather than was on a long wire... (unless perhaps having one on a wire and routing the wire towards the front of the car would give a better engine sound?)

As you can tell I don't know a thing so any help is appreciated.

Kind regards,
Dan

[PorscheGT4]

engine sounds are rank, long wire and mic next to exhaust.

[Boatbuoy]

The Hero 3's inbuilt mic is pants, and I never use it. Instead I bought a cheap (£4) tie clip mic from Maplin, and a 3 meter 3.5mm jack extension lead. You will also need the GoPro microphone adapter cable which is a bloody rip off, to connect the jack to the camera. Don't be tempted to buy cheap adapter cables (for Motorola phones) off of eBay, the cunning gits at GoPro mixed the connections up on the camera's mini-USB (ironically!) and the cheap leads do not work, thus cornering you into buying their overpriced kit!

As mentioned above, you can get good results by mounting the mic near the exhaust, but use a wind muffler. In my example below you can still hear some wind buffeting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD1Nlr6TVKI

For comparison, the same mic fitted directly to the adaptor cable (no extension) with the camera on the car's nose (please excuse the crash!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OC2VrhlQzE

[DanielJames]

PorscheGT4 said:

engine sounds are rank, long wire and mic next to exhaust.

My car is pretty quiet, but makes a lovely induction roar! You wouldn't be able to hear that from behind.

[DanielJames]

Boatbuoy said:

The Hero 3's inbuilt mic is pants, and I never use it. Instead I bought a cheap (£4) tie clip mic from Maplin, and a 3 meter 3.5mm jack extension lead. You will also need the GoPro microphone adapter cable which is a bloody rip off, to connect the jack to the camera. Don't be tempted to buy cheap adapter cables (for Motorola phones) off of eBay, the cunning gits at GoPro mixed the connections up on the camera's mini-USB (ironically!) and the cheap leads do not work, thus cornering you into buying their overpriced kit!

As mentioned above, you can get good results by mounting the mic near the exhaust, but use a wind muffler. In my example below you can still hear some wind buffeting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD1Nlr6TVKI

For comparison, the same mic fitted directly to the adaptor cable (no extension) with the camera on the car's nose (please excuse the crash!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OC2VrhlQzE

I think I bought a similar thing from eBay, and found it terrible! Maybe I should give it another go then.

Bad luck on the crash, it's mad how car the light can go as you come out of there. Was raining/hail/sleet when I was there last month too.

[dtiom]

I went through the same process last year and bought an Ultradisk 4033 mic for my Gopro. Nice long cable so you can route the mic anywhere you want, good sound quality and works well on the bike and car.

Testing the mic on car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd41B6dLTdQ

and on bike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWkZ-__2giQ

[AWG]

Can you pick up turbo spool easily on a mic?