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Rode D Power Plug with H4n and NTG2, any experience?
Hi,
does anyone have experience using the Rode D Power plug? I am wondering if it is the appropriate piece of kit to get a hotter signal from my NTG2 shotgun mic into my Zoom H4n whilst out documentary self-shooting with my 7D. At the moment I have to crank the recording level up to 90 or more on the recorder to get decent levels (-12db) and still bump them up further in post to get things peaking at -6db. I know that the Rode D Power plug is not designed for shotgun mic’s but I have heard that they can be used, the question is at what cost to sound quality if at all.
If anyone has a good audio post workflow to simply and quickly bump levels whilst keeping the recordings clean I would also love to hear it (no pun intended). I recored WAV 48/24bit on the recorder and sync and cut in FCP.Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
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6 Replies
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The D power plug is the wrong tool for the job. It’s designed to drive long lines from a dynamic mic. Try your mic w/o the plug and see if there’s a level difference. Is 48v phantom required for your mic or is it internally battery powered?
Eric
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The NTG2 can run from either an AA battery or from phantom power off the h4n.
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How’s the level w/o the plug?
Eric
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Hi Eric,
thanks for getting back to me so quickly. Apologies, because I don’t think I made my initial post that clear. What I was asking was does anyone out there have experience using the Rode D Power Plug with a shotgun mic and h4n? I don’t have a Rode D Power Plug but I had heard that it could be used to boost the signal between my mic and recorder and I was putting the question out there before potentially buying one.
My problem is that the preamps on the H4n seem pretty weak and the signal given out by the NTG2 shotgun mic also seems pretty weak when either battery powered or on +48 phantom so I am having to push my record level up to max. I don’t want to add a mixer in because of the added weight and complication and I thought the Rode D Power Plug might be a cheap fix that kept the whole set-up light.
Somebody here:
https://www.videomaker.com/community/forums/topic/shotgun-mic-zoom-h4n
says it has worked for them but I wanted to see if others were using this set-up.
Thanks for you input, any advice on solutions either in technical set-up or audio post processing of the files welcome.
Best,
Walter
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From one response on your link it seems that I was wrong about the power plug. One poster claimed it was the answer to his problem which appears to be the same as yours. Try the plug, if it doesn’t solve your problem you can always return it.
Eric
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hello!
I am wondering if you have tested it and it worked?
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