The Newest Innovation in Stereo Recording.

Video transcript... slightly revised to remove Guy’s “ooh’s and ahh’s”. Enjoy!

Hey, Guy Cochran here today.

We're going to be taking a look at the  RODE Stereo VideoMic X. I'm just really impressed with this packaging. So I wanted to do a little bit of an unboxing video, so you guys can see the quality of the box, and what it looks like when you get yours. It kind of reminds me of an Adobe box. When you used to have to buy software, you'd get boxes like this. I mean, this is just something else. Look at that X. Nice lighting, too. The first thing you're going to notice is that there's a little red piece of cloth, held down by magnets, and when you open it-- voila.

So there it is. You've got the mic, here, and it looks beautiful. In here, you've got another piece of cloth that is concealing your accessories. Looks like we've got the pop shield here; we've got an instruction book… pretty hefty instruction book; 3.5 to 3.5 cable ; a battery; and a beast of a windshield. So this [windshield] is going to be for your more intense outdoor winds, probably 10 mph plus, I’d say. And this will be your all-around, for protecting the mic.

Let's take a look at the mic itself. It is heavier than you would expect. This is a beast of a microphone, wow. So here's the side. Looks like there is a rubber gasket here. And here are the capsules. These are much larger capsules than was in the previous versions of this microphone . Underneath we've got a mic out; a 3/8 thread for a boom and you could throw it on your hot shoe. And then, here is where you insert the battery. Doesn't look like that there's a whole lot of shock mount there, but there is the shock mount, here. Now, on this side you're gonna notice it says, P48 balance. So this'll be an unusual connector to a lot of people- this is a mini XLR, they'll call it. So you'll need a conversion cable—something like this ( shows a Mini XLR to XLR cable), that will do the mini Ta3f to a full-size XLR if you want to throw this on a pro camera. Comparing the  RODE Stereo Videomic X to the old Stereo VideoMic-- I mean, this is, like, anodized aluminum. This piece- when you feel it, it's heavy . It just feels like quality. Although, I like lightness on a run-and-gun type shoot.

Let's see if we can get a comparison of what the capsules look like, in size. Yeah, those things are tiny compared to those. In fact, I'm pretty sure that these are the same capsules that are in the high-end studio microphones. Actually, you know what-- they look really similar. So instead of carrying this hefty thing-- this is probably over a pound and a half. I'm not sure what the exact weight is on the Stereo VideoMic X, but it is something else. This is going to be a nice piece for capturing music. In fact, it’s going be nice for capturing any kind of ambient sound. If I have my sound guy that's actually running the boom, and I just want to have some ambience, the battery door flips open, just like that. Then we drop the battery in; power this sucker up; press the button; and there we go.

Looks like here we got a plus 20 dB . So that's great for DSLRs. If you have noisy pre-amps, it's always nice to set the levels on the camera down, so you're not making it work as hard. Then let the fine preamps, in here do all the work.

Looks like we've also got a low-cut. So if you've got some low-frequency rumble or wind, you can cut out the low frequency, right here. And then here's a high-pass increase , so you get a bump in the highs. I imagine that's if you want to throw the big windmuff on, for outdoors you'd roll like that.

Very cool. I can't wait to use this out in the field. Hope you guys enjoyed this, and I'll catch you later!