Here are a couple of songs recorded outdoors at CultureLAB Long Island City NYC on November 21st with the DJI Pocket 2 shooting 4K 30fps, Battery Saver, D-Cinelike. De-noised with Neat Video (https://www.neatvideo.com/overview/what-is-it) and color corrected with Cinema Grade (https://cinemagrade.com/) in FCPX.


I think the results came out pretty good... I should have been a bit more careful as I shot, holding the Pocket consistently so that my hand or motion did not effect the microphones (you can hear the levels change a bit as I might have re-arranged my grip, etc, etc,) and I was not really trying to be "cinematic" or really thinking about how I was shooting, I just wanted to capture a couple of songs... but in the end I think these are good examples of what you can get without really trying...






Cheers!

Interesting.  Thanks for posting these examples.

I am a huge fan of the Pocket 2 built in mic sound quality, both in terms of frequency response and stereo image - DJI have done an outstanding job, not only at a technical level, but because they've cared about the sound in the first place, and they've not made it some kind of afterthought - the audio features are perhaps what most distinguishes the Pocket 2 from the first model, and from the 'competition'.

Having said that, unfortunately recording live amplified music is fraught with problems, not least of which is that really you are recording the sound of the amplification system rather than the sound of the instruments and voice, and in the case of this band, they seem to be using (as perhaps is necessary) a simple portable system which sounds raw and blusey, but actually not that pleasant!  Note that I'm referring purely to the sound, not the performance.  In essence, what we have here is a good capture by the Pocket 2 of a not very good sound in the first place.  Not that there's anything wrong with capturing a performance as it really is - for instance, the sound of the remarkable track "Stormy Monday" by John Mayall with Eric Clapton (live performance in the 1960's) is pretty dire really, but thank heavens that someone recorded the performance, never mind the sound.  But I digress.

The other day I was watching a video someone had made on the Pocket 2 when they were walking through the West End (shopping district) of London.  They passed a clothes store where music was being played at a remarkable volume through very large speakers with considerable amounts of bass (and not much else) and the accuracy with which the Pocket 2 captured the low frequency boom boom boom was astounding.  That's why I'm confident that the rather thin and edgy sound here isn't the Pocket 2, but it's the band.

You mentioned that you may have moved the handle about a bit and that might have affected the sound.  Well, assuming you had your fingers away from all four mics, and assuming you had the gimbal head locked onto the performers either by using activetrack, or by holding down the gimbal lock button, you should be able to move the handle a fair bit, and the feature which keeps the front of the stereo sound field pointing towards the location that the lens is pointing to should keep the sound quite steady.  That's one of the handy features in relation to recording live performances - the sound won't waggle if you hand does, so long as the gimbal head stays pointing the the right direction.

As for the sound settings, which are pretty crucial - it sounds like you were on the "all" and "stereo" setting, which is good.  As for the level setting, perhaps you used "auto" which could cause changes in the level of the recorded sound, as it should lower the level if the band got a bit loud.  But even on the high/medium/low settings, I suspect there's  a limiter of some kind in the circuit to help avoid distortion from overloads, and that too might cause changes of level, though if I'm right, any such change should be brief and transient.

Lastly, in my 'bench test' measurements of the Pocket 2 sounds, when I fed it a gliding test tone from good quality speakers in a small space, it looked from the chart as if the frequency response was pretty good - certainly the response at the mic input is essentially flat - but there's a fair bit of harmonic distortion, probably at the encoder stage.  This wouldn't normally be very obvious, but with an "edgy" source as we have with these videos, the distortion might reveal itself as making the sound even more edgy.  But I'm not sure.

It's a pity that we didn't have this camera ten years ago, when I was frequently recording symphony orchestras and other acoustic ensembles for radio broadcast, and I could have popped the Pocket 2 up high on the mic stand or hung it from the hall roof, and that would have given an impeccable source to test the real quality of the Pocket 2 sound system.  But sadly, I'm now retired.  But I shall certainly be looking out for some more informal acoustic music performance, post virus, to give it a whirl.

Good heavens, I've written a novel  Ooops!

fansfe82067d Posted at 12-1 05:46
Interesting.  Thanks for posting these examples.

I am a huge fan of the Pocket 2 built in mic sound quality, both in terms of frequency response and stereo image - DJI have done an outstanding job, not only at a technical level, but because they've cared about the sound in the first place, and they've not made it some kind of afterthought - the audio features are perhaps what most distinguishes the Pocket 2 from the first model, and from the 'competition'.

Wow! Thanks for the detailed reply... I agree, I probably did not go over the audio settings that carefully before shooting, had the Pocket 2 with me, turned it on and just started... That's one thing... not really going through Mimo when using the Pocket 2 can make it a bit harder to quickly set up the camera for how you want to use it and just pulling it out and trying to go over settings via the tiny monitor before recording is a little harder than looking at the Mimo interface... gonna try to be more careful with my setup next time. Another example of some music I shot with the Pocket 2 sounds a bit better, but again, still working out how to get the Pocket set up so I can just pull it out and start shooting.

Just when I was about to fall into bed, you post another interesting example!  (1am here).   Firstly, I love the look of this one - great colour, all the trees different autumnal hues, and the lady in the flourescent clothes...  As for the sound, I think this is more of a balanced sound (from the band) though of course still using portable gear as they must.  My chief observation is that there's a sort of transient pulsing in the sound level, which could either be due to the auto sound level setting, or you used too high a manual setting and the limiter that I suspect is in there was pulsing with the volume peaks.

Frankly, if I were you, next time you find yourself in front of such a group, use them for some tests - I'd stick with the "all" and "stereo" settings, but record one minute each at auto, low, medium and high, then back home see which one seemed to work best.  I notice in the Mimo app that the sound settings can be changed while recording, which of course will show up in the video sound, so don't do that unless you had to in a 'real' shot, but for test purposes, that might be the easiest way to do an experiment - as long as you took note of what you did.  Maybe simply record one minute at each setting, so you know which is which later.

(And having used them for the test, drop $10 in their plate!

Very cool.  

Very cool vids

Cool videos.  Pocket 2 audio is greatly improved over OP.

Hello there net23. Thank you for reaching out and for these information you have shared together with this wonderful video as well. Great work and keep on filming.