Rode Wireless Pro vs DJI Mic 2

Feb 20

Choosing the right microphone can make or break your content.

That might sound a bit dramatic, and to be honest it probably is.

I know for most creators it might not be a huge deal if you go with a dynamic microphone when a condenser microphone would have been better suited.

Sure, a slightly different range in frequency response isn’t going to be noticed by the majority of people consuming your content.

But there is something so satisfying and almost unquantifiable about listening to audio that has been captured the right way with the right equipment.

With that in mind, I went looking for the best wireless microphone system for content creators.

As I started looking at what creators were already using, the Rode Wireless Pro and DJI Mic 2 emerged as direct competitors.

And so began the tests.

I’ve been using these two systems for a solid four months on locations that I know a content creator would go: hotel rooms with concrete floors, windy outdoor environments, city streets, the beach, studios and multi-speaker podcast panel discussions.

In each location, I’ve made sure to compare not only the ease of use, portability and functionality of each system but more importantly the sound quality.

If you’ve been trying to decide between the Rode Wireless Pro and DJI Mic 2, let this article be your guide.

VOCAL TONE:

Rode Wireless Pro: I was instantly impressed with the depth and richness of this system. It delivered a full-bodied sound that was close to my natural tone. I’ve come to expect Rode will deliver high-quality sound, and this system even with a small microphone performed very well. Gold star Rode. This pleased me greatly.

DJI Mic 2: This system was thinner in tone and I noticed it immediately. The full-body depth that the Rode delivered was missing in the DJI system. The audio was clear and easy to understand, my voice was captured well but it just sounded a little lack lustre. Audio levels were fine so that wasn’t the problem - there was just no depth to my tone.

On Lapel vs Handheld: Obviously holding almost any microphone closer to your mouth is going to produce a clearer sound, but I was happy to report that even in the lapel position the Rode Wireless Pro microphones sounded great. The DJI Mic 2 also performed well in a handheld location, but the further you took the microphone away from your mouth (onto your lapel area) the more it started to sound a little “meh”.

So for vocal tone and overall depth, Rode Wireless Pro came out on top.

NOISY ENVIRONMENTS:

I tested these systems in some of the noisiest locations you can find. City streets, beaches with crashing waves and even right near noisy air conditioning vents. I would hope that content creators will be a little more picky with their recording locations to avoid so much noise, but if you do have to be in the thick of it. Here is what I found:

Rode Wireless Pro:

Due to its deeper and fuller bottom end (that sounds sexy but I promise it isn’t) the “hum” or “drone” of noisy locations was obviously very noticeable. You could still hear me very well, but the noise from passing cars, crashing waves and any manner of noises was evident. With no noise cancellation feature available on the Rode Wireless Pro it meant that I had to just accept the fact that there was noise I couldn’t remove.

Post-production will make it possible to remove some of this noise and a high pass filter will go a fair way to remove the background hum/drone that you have in some locations, but it wasn’t ideal.

I did appreciate that my vocal tone was kept intact though and my voice was clear above the background noises.

DJI Mic 2

As the DJI Mic 2 favours the higher-end frequencies the background noise wasn’t quite as noticeable in almost every location I tried. My voice was clear and although the background noise was evident it wasn’t quite as in my face as the Rode.

Then I switched the noise cancellation feature on to see how that compared.

I can say, it definitely removed the background noise which I was quite impressed with, but then when I listened to the quality of my voice I wanted to throw the DJI straight into the bin.

I’m not even exaggerating.

The noise cancellation feature on the DJI is at this stage an abomination in my opinion. It completely ruined the tone of my voice and I could hear that the feature creates some sort of “gate” with the background noise which removes a lot of frequencies. With those frequencies gone, it’s also removing a lot of what makes my voice unique.

I do not like the noise cancellation feature and I would not recommend using it ever. Unless DJI releases some sort of firmware update to fix it, this is a gimmick that isn’t usable in my opinion.

With all of this taken into consideration, the DJI Mic 2 did handle the noisy environments slightly better (with the noise cancellation turned off) so it takes the win here.

WINDY LOCATIONS:

Both systems have fantastic wind socks that are easy to attach and they handled the wind incredibly well. I tested in some very windy conditions and I was pleased to hear that both systems were exceptional.

USABILITY:

Rode Wireless Pro

This connected very easily to my phone via the included cables (lightning and USB C available). Immediately after connecting, I was able to go into the camera app on my iPhone and start using the microphone. There was nothing to install and it connected seamlessly.

You will want to download the Rode Central app on your phone to be able to adjust some settings and customise the system for your use case. The app is easy to use and seamlessly connected to the Rode Wireless Pro.

I found the online manual a little confusing when I was trying to figure out what mode I should record in. I would have preferred a proper video walkthrough for setup, and in fact I ended up recording one of my own for YouTube so that other users could get up and running more quickly.

The microphones connected easily to my clothing via the standard clip and also the magnetic clip. I found the microphones quite bulky so using the magnetic clip was definitely easier as you could position it more robustly. The magnet is strong and big enough that it doesn’t get lost easily if you drop it (which I did multiple times).

Rode Wireless Pro also has the added benefit of shipping with the wired lapel microphones which is incredibly handy for those situations where you want to have a microphone that is less visible.

Getting the audio that I recorded off the system was also very simple. Again, with the use of the Rode Central app via my desktop I could simply plug in the case and all the audio that was recorded on both microphones was there for me to export. The export options are plentiful (including 32 bit float if that was selected in your setup). They also explain what settings you might need here on the Rode website.

DJI Mic 2:

The connection point to the iPhone took a little bit of getting used. Although I loved the fact that you could swap out lightning for USB C simply, the connection is also quite fiddly. You have to slide the connectors in and out of a tiny space at the bottom of the transmitter and getting them out requires some dexterity. The first few times I used the system I didn’t realise that I hadn’t quite clicked it all the way in and the audio I recorded was useless.

I’ve put that down to user error more than anything else though, and since getting used to the connection, I’ve found it to be simple and effective. It’s nice not having cables to navigate.

The microphones connected easily to my clothing via the standard clip, but I found the magnetic clip option to be a little harder to manage. The magnet strength is fine, but the physical size of the magnet is so small that I dropped it frequently trying to attach it. Depending on where I was (or if I was micing up a client), it was sometimes hard to locate where the little magnet was and I would have to get the client to go fishing for a magnet in their clothing.

At time of reviewing, there is no companion app for the DJI Mic 2 which I found to be a little frustrating. This means that you have to navigate through the settings that you want to change on the transmitter itself and the touch screen isn’t as responsive as I’d like. Although it’s nice to be able to make changes to the setup on the fly when you’re out on location, I personally found this to be annoying.

In order to get the audio off your system, you need to plug each microphone into your computer individually and there is no companion app here either. You plug it in and wait for it to show up as a “device” on your computer. Then you’re able to download the audio. The DJI system was a letdown in this regard as I found it much more user friendly with the Rode system and the fact that I could plug the whole case in and all the audio was there ready for me to export.

Similar to the Rode Wireless, DJI Mic 2 allows you to record in 32 bit float internally and up to 48khz 24bit audio.

From a usability standpoint taking all this onboard, Rode Wireless Pro takes the cake.

There are many other factors at play when comparing these two systems, and if you would like to hear how they sound up against each other, check out my review here.

Now for a quick-fire look at some of the pros and cons of each system:

Rode Wireless Pro

Pros

Superior sound depth and richness.
Easier to manage magnet clips.
Comprehensive functionality with Rode Central app
Includes the wired lapel microphones
Charging case that also allows easy audio export

Cons

Lack of noise cancellation may require post-production work in noisy environments.
Awkward connection to the smartphone via the cables
Quite large so they definitely draw attention in video

DJI Mic 2

Pros

Excels outdoors and in noisy environments.
Sleek design and very portable.
Better connection option to smartphones
Aesthetically pleasing

Cons

Fiddly magnet clips which are easy to lose.
Limited post-capture functionality due to lack of desktop app support.
Sound lacks depth and richness
Exporting audio is more time consuming than it needs to be

Final Thoughts: Which One is Right for You?

It ultimately comes down to your specific needs. If you're after a richer sound to your audio with better tonality, and you don't mind a bit of post-production, the Rode Wireless Pro is the way to go. However, if your content requires more adventurous locations and minimal post-production the DJI Mic 2 stands as a worthy choice.

I personally prefer the Rode Wireless Pro as I can’t go past the tonality that it provides.

Transcript:

Brianna: [00:00:00] Choosing the right microphone can make or break your content. Ha ha ha. Now, look, that might sound a bit dramatic and it's not. It definitely is. But today I'm going to take a look at the Rode Wireless Pro versus the DJI Mic 2. Now these are two wireless systems. They are direct competitors. I wanted to compare these two because it is something that I see a lot on social media.
I see the DJI, I see the Rode Wireless, I wanted to explore whether there was a system that was better than the other, because, you know, they, they both serve the same purpose, but is one superior in the sound quality and other features. This is something I really wanted to take a look at. And I thought that it would be interesting to give my feedback here on the podcast.
Now I'm not going to share with you the full comparison, like I normally do where I like get you to listen to things because the way I [00:01:00] recorded this one in video form actually had me switching back and forth a lot. And I did it kind of live on the YouTube channel. So it doesn't really make a lot of sense.
And also it's not a nice experience for you as a listener to then hear me switching and changing and making all these kinds of quick comments that is much better for YouTube. And it is a very good example of when you should make sure that if you are doing something for YouTube, not to always just do the same thing on your audio platform, not to just scrape the audio from the video and release it on the audio, because
you know, it's different, like it's a different experience for both of those. So today on the podcast, I'm just going to kind of go through what my findings were. And if you have got one of these systems in your mind, uh, then hopefully this will help you make a decision. let's just begin with a few kind of [00:02:00] clarifying details here.
I began the test. I've been using both of these systems for a solid four months or more really at this point. And I use them in a whole bunch of different locations that I thought And I assumed that a content creator would do. So this is in like hotel rooms. This is with concrete floors, windy outdoor environments, city streets, the beach studios, and also in multi speaker podcast panel discussions.
So like where I would take all our equipment to a client's location, set it all up and record them in a multi sort of format way, and, um, I feel like I've got a really good handle on both of these systems using them in all these locations. Now, on the YouTube channel, I didn't do and show you all of those different tests, because again, that would make for a very long and probably boring video for a lot of people.
But do know that I did actually do all of those tests. In each location, I've made sure to compare not [00:03:00] only the ease of use, Portability and functionality of each system, but more importantly, actually the sound quality, because you can have all the bells and whistles. It can be aesthetically pleasing. You can think that it just looks super fancy, but does it sound good?
That's the most important thing for a microphone. All right, so let's go through some things. So vocal tone. If we start with the actual vocal tone, the Rode Wireless Pro, I was instantly impressed with the depth and the richness of the system. It delivered a full body sound and it was close to my natural tone.
So I have come to expect this from Rode, everything that they have provided that is a microphone in this kind of more, Accessible price range. I've been impressed with the tone that they've been able to achieve with these systems and with these microphones. So it was a gold starter road on this occasion with that.
I was very pleased with it. The DJI was a system that I [00:04:00] felt was a lot thinner in its tone and I definitely noticed it immediately. Like there was no full body depth. It sounded very different to the road. It was much thinner.
The audio was still clear and easy to understand, but You know, it was just a little lackluster. Like it just didn't really sound like me as much. And I think if you didn't have the comparison, if you were just using the DJI, you wouldn't notice as much, but when you put them against each other, it's very clear that the vocal tone from the road wins.
I also tested it whether you, like, attached it to your shirt or you held it. You know how you see people on social media, like, physically holding these little microphones? So I tested it in front of your mouth versus on the lapel just to see how they handled those situations. Both of them handled that really quite well.
I didn't have any big issues with that. qualms there like if you held it close to your mouth. Obviously the sound was good. It was still a bit thin on the DJI but it was definitely better in that location than on the lapel. So for vocal tone after doing those [00:05:00] tests overall depth Rode Wireless Pro definitely wins for me.
It came out on top in that test. When I went into noisy environments, so this is like city streets, beaches with crashing waves, right near noisy air conditioning vents, you know, these situations definitely come up for content creators. And for the Rode Wireless Pro, I felt like when I was listening back to it, you could hear the hum and the drone of these locations and the noisy environments.
Quite a lot. And that's because when it focuses on lower frequencies as it's, you know, that's where the depth and the body actually comes from, then that harm and that drone is often in those frequency areas as well. So it means that it makes sense that the hum or drone would be more prevalent there because those frequencies are being favored in the road wireless system.
I could still hear myself very well. I could still clearly, like, that I was above the noise and it [00:06:00] wasn't excruciating. Like it wasn't the worst thing in the world. And I also knew that in post production you could easily. Minimize some of that using a high pass filter or some other, you know, tricky EQ stuff, which I do as well.
So, although not ideal, the noisy environment was okay for the Rode Wireless Pro. It doesn't have any noise cancellation features on board. So you can't do anything in the system to negate the noise right then and there. You have to do it in post production.
The DJI, because it favors the higher frequencies, that's why there's, you know, I sound a bit thinner. There's not much sort of body in the DJI. It did mean that the background noises weren't as prevalent with the DJI. It definitely favored my voice more. I could hear myself more clearly it was definitely more crisp.
But what I did do is then when I turned, because the DJI has a noise cancellation feature, you can just like switch it on and then it says it's going to remove the background noise. [00:07:00] It definitely removed the background noise, but then I sounded like absolute trash. Like, whatever they did there is, It's just the worst thing.
It's an abomination. I would not recommend using the noise cancellation feature on the DJI because it just made you sound like a robot. Like it's got this weird gate thing on it, if you understand what gates are in audio speak. whatever they're doing there with the gate feature is is not it's not ideal So I really hated that I would not use it but in saying that I did think that if I was comparing apples to apples, like both with noise cancellation off, which is what I would suggest, the DJI won because it wasn't as noticeable, the background noise, so it won for that.
When I tested for windy locations, both systems were fantastic. The wind socks were great on both systems. There were no issues with that. So whatever you do there with wind outside, you're going to be fine. Now [00:08:00] usability is where things kind of changed up a little bit too. The Rode Wireless Pro was very easy to connect to the smartphone and also to cameras.
It's got a cable that connects to the cameras or your smartphone. There's two included cables, one for lightning, one USB C. Very easy to connect, easy to It was a bit chunky though, like you've got a cable and then the cable you've got to put somewhere, like if it's with a smartphone, where do you put the actual transmitter?
Like I found that a little bit strange as to what to do with that. It was just a bit clunky. But it does have a road central app, which was another part of the usability that I really appreciated because you could just plug, I don't know. The charging case in with the microphones in there, just the one case.
And you come up with this app and then all of the audio that you want is there. It's very easy to get off. It's very easy to export. It gives you some different features and options, and you can export things out really quickly and easily. I. Love that. That is like a big tick for me as [00:09:00] far as usability goes, just being able to plug it in and get everything off of the one system straight away.
Yeah, really, really good. I did find the online manual confusing when it was like, when I was trying to figure out what recording settings I should have for the optimal setup for the road wireless. The manual was pretty smear and kind of confusing. You know, I understood it because I know what I'm doing.
But then when I was thinking about other people, if they don't know what half of this stuff means, then it was going to be very confusing for them to figure out what actually they needed to switch on. And so I ended up recording one of my own videos for YouTube to explain to people how to set this up.
It up properly. And so I will link that in the show notes as well. And I think that that really will help a lot of people. Hopefully the microphones connected easily to my clothing by the standard clip and also the magnetic clip. That was very easy to do. I did find the microphone. So with the road, [00:10:00] wireless pro quite big, like if you've seen them on socials, you know, they're like this box, it's like a black box and they take up a fair bit of real estate.
Like if you're looking at a video and then you see this big road box, it's, you know, it doesn't look great. It's definitely better if you're doing it with the magnet versus the clip because the magnet, you can kind of move it around your clothing, whereas the clip you've kind of got to have an edge to clip it onto.
Other added feature, which was really good for the Rode Wireless was the fact that it does ship with a wired lapel microphone. So as I just said about this big bulky black box, because it ships with the wired thing too, you can connect the wired one into the microphone, the black box. You can put the microphone as in the black box in your.
Pocket or somewhere else out of you and then just have this little wire with a little tiny microphone like a lapel mic as the thing that you actually see. That is perfect. Like that's very important for me to be able to have that feature. And the fact that I didn't have to buy it [00:11:00] separately was just fantastic.
So Røde did a great job with that there as well. They both, um, Recorded in 32 bit float if you select it in setup. So that's really good for taking that into like DaVinci resolve or Adobe premiere or any of those systems. Uh, and they both have high export quality there as well. So no real differences from that standpoint, but if we go into the DJI mic too now for the usability, they don't have cables, they have like these little tiny connectors that you can.
You can swap in and out on the transmitter. The transmitter is then connected straight into the smartphone without a cable. This is a double edged sword. It's cool and then also not cool because when you've got this transmitter thing that then is connected to your phone, it does make it a little bit harder to.
To use, like if you're trying to be a selfie mode and then you've got this connection transmitter thing at the bottom of the phone, it's kind of harder to navigate. I [00:12:00] didn't love that. And also sliding the connectors in the first time I, the first couple of times I used it, I didn't slide it all the way in properly.
And then the recording was useless. It just didn't record. So. That's a little bit of user error because I should have just pushed harder, but in saying that, like, you know, it shouldn't be that fidgety to get this thing in to make sure that it actually works. So, didn't love that. Although I think it's cool that you can swap in and out without cables, I do think the design needs a little bit of finessing with that as well.
Again, the microphone's connected easily to my clothing via the standard clip, but I did find the magnetic clip to be harder to manage because it's much smaller. So there's this little magnet that comes with the DJI and it gets lost so easily. Like if you're trying to get it out of your clothes and then you drop it because it's tiny, you're sort of like, where the hell does that thing go now?
You know? And there was a few times where I was with a client and You know, I was trying to reposition the mic and then the magnet thing would drop and then it's like [00:13:00] in their shirt or down their bra or, you know, you know, so like, I think that the magnet could be bigger. And again, this is such a small thing, but from a design perspective, if I'm comparing the two, uh, you know, that's, that's actually significant for me.
Also at time of viewing, there was no comparison app for the DJI mic two, which meant that, uh, You know, I, I couldn't go somewhere to like a desktop or, or my iPad or my iPhone or something and select some changes that I wanted to make, like change it from stereo to like split mode or like, yeah, merged mode, or maybe I wanted the safety on, or, you know, I wanted to turn the noise cancellation, things like that.
That I know that you can do that on the touch screen on the DJI, but I also found the touch screen kind of annoying. Like it wasn't the best, uh, like function and the touch screen wasn't super reliable. I just wanted to be able to plug it in and go, cool. Okay. For this session, what am I going to need?
Click a few buttons, make a [00:14:00] few changes done. Yeah. So I did find that. A bit schmear, but then in saying that for people, like for the DJI market, for people that are really interested in this system and they're adventurers and they're out and about, they're not going to potentially have a laptop or something with them and want to fiddle around and do the cables and connect and stuff.
They just want to be able to change the settings on the device. So I get why they did it, but for me personally, I didn't love it. Also, in order to get the audio off the system, off the microphones, you need to plug in each individual. I'm going to your computer to get the audio off of it. And again, there's no app at that point to do help you do that or do anything with that.
So I didn't like that. I felt like that was a little bit of a let down. And from a customer experience, they could have. improve that by having some sort of features there. So from a usability standpoint, you've probably noticed that road wins there because of all the things that I just mentioned. [00:15:00] there are many other factors at play when comparing these two systems.
So if you would like to hear as, as I said, how they sound up against each other and really just get a feel for what I'm, when I'm talking about, like when I say road wireless and I say depth and richness in tone, and then I say thin and a bit, you know, lackluster for DJI. What does it actually mean? Like go and have a look at the video and you'll be able to hear those differences there.
Just make sure you wear your headphones. All right. So now for a little quick fire, look at some of the pros and cons of each system. If we look at the Rode Wireless Pro, the pros are superior sound, depth, richness. It's easier to manage with the magnet clips. It's got comprehensive functionality with the Rode Central app.
, it includes the wide lapel microphones and it's got a charging case that also allows easy audio export. Cons of this system are the lack of noise cancellation. It may require post production, definitely when you're working in noisy environments. It is a little bit of an [00:16:00] awkward connection to the smartphone via the cables, and it is quite large, so the actual microphones themselves definitely draw attention in video.
Yeah, as I said, you could use the wire to negate that, but I did have to put that down as a con. DJI Mic 2 Pros. It definitely excels in outdoors and in noisy environments. It's got a very sleek design. I like the way these microphones look. It's cool that you can see like the insides of them. It's very portable.
It's got better connection options to the smartphones. Although, you know, I was a bit of a novice trying to connect them in the first place. And yeah, just more aesthetically pleasing overall. The cons were fiddly with the magnet clips. They were easy to lose. It has limited post capture functionality.
So it's, you know, got no desktop app or things like that. It's sound was lacking in depth and richness. It was a bit too teeny for me, a bit too thin. And the exporting audio [00:17:00] is more time consuming than it needs to be. So with all that in mind, what's my final thoughts here? Well, I mean, ultimately it's going to come down to your specific needs.
If you're after a richer sound to your audio with better tonality, and you don't mind a bit of post production, then the Rode Wireless Pro, I think is the way to go. But if your content requires more adventurous locations, you want minimal post production, you're going to be out and about, you're like connecting it to your iPhone And then you're just doing lots of like voice to camera, face to camera type stuff. You're doing YouTube shorts and you're doing Instagram stories and stuff, you know, That's probably more of a DJI thing because I think that it's, although tinnier, most people won't really notice that on their smartphones if they're watching you on their smartphones.
Yeah. I personally prefer the Rode Wireless Pro. I really can't go past the tonality that it provides. I just [00:18:00] sound nicer. And when I was recording other clients as well, and it was like a, you know, a A podcast production. It was a panel discussion. The ones that had the road wireless pro systems on just sounded better.
They really did. They sounded better than the DJI microphone to people. I had to do more in the post production for the DJI to try and make them match. The RODE wireless, like the actual EQing from there. So that is my wrap up. They're about the same price as well. So, you know, that's not really something to worry about.
You're going to be fine either way. The next situation that I'm looking at here is now the two mini versions. RODE has released a mini. Wireless and so has DJI. I've just actually got the DJI in the last week. I haven't got the road yet. So there is many comparisons to come for those as well because they're like half the price of these ones that I've just reviewed.
It would [00:19:00] be interesting to see whether half Price means half as good, or, uh, you know, I dunno, I dunno yet. We will wait and see for that. I hope this has been really valuable for you. You've enjoyed it. If you're on Spotify and you want to leave me a comment, please go for it. If you want to go and watch, as I said, and really hear the differences, go to the YouTube channel. I'll link to that. And if you're interested in either of these systems as well, I'm going to put links to the Amazon affiliate links for Rode and DJI, as well as all my other normal links there as well.
If you want to go and suss something out and purchase one, you're going to be good either way, to be honest, they're both great. But my personal preference is RØDE.