Summary
- The system offers an easy setup with minimal controls, making it ideal for on-the-go creators seeking professional-grade audio solutions.
- Despite a few shortcomings like clipping issues, DJI Mic Mini impresses with its wireless range and performance, offering excellent value at $170.
- DJI Mic Mini provides a long battery life to ensure continuous recording without worrying about power levels during shoots.
You can post a video with grainy footage, but choppy audio is a dealbreaker. DJI has entered the race to deliver ultra-compact, affordable, and professional-grade systems with the DJI Mic Mini. It’s surprisingly powerful, considering DJI isn’t known as an audio company.
DJI Mic Mini
The tiny DJI Mic Mini has incredible audio and just enough features to make it a near-perfect choice for the creator and influencer.
- Works right out of the box
- Excellent audio quality
- Powerful wireless trasnmitter for long-distance recording
- Small enough to slide the mic and receiver into a pocket
- Simplistic controls offer few adjustmetns
- Occasional clipping even with proper audio levels
Price and Availability
The DJI Mic Mini is $169 and comes with one receiver, two wireless microphones, and a charging case. It’s available on the DJI website, Amazon, Best Buy, and other major online retailers.
Alternatively, for $89, you can buy the Mic Mini with a single microphone and no charging case.
A Lot of Tiny Gear Packed in a Tiny Box
DJI already has a hit with the $349 DJI Mic 2, a full-featured, pro-level wireless mic system housed in a battery-charging case. Now, the company has taken this excellent audio system and compressed both its size and price while still giving creators exceptional sound quality.
The DJI Mic Mini kit includes two microphone transmitters and a receiver that fit inside a case with a built-in battery. The battery charges the components when they are docked inside the case. The setup also includes a mic cable, an adapter for using the mic with a USB-C-based phone, a charging cable, a little microphone magnet, two windscreens, and an adorable carrying pouch.
DJI says the kit has a 48-hour run time, but that’s a bit misleading. The mics and transmitters can run for about 11 hours before recharging, and the case has enough power to recharge them several times. It would take multiple trips to the case to record for 48 hours, but those trips are short. With only a five-minute charge, an hour of runtime is gained.
In practice, no one will try recording for 48 hours straight with the DJI Mic Mini setup, but it still solves a common issue. After a shoot, I typically stash my audio gear back in my bag and forget about it until the next shoot.
You see where this is going. When I pull my mics out the next time I need them, they’re often very low on power. The DJI battery case ensures I’ll have the power to keep running when I forget to charge the mics and even when I forget to charge the base.
The Latest in the Miniature Mics With Pro Sound Category
The first generation of wireless mic transmitters relied on a lavalier or other microphone for input. Lavallier mics, also called lav mics, are the small cylindrical mics you see clipped onto the shirts of news anchors on TV.
Those transmitters did not include a built-in mic, so a lav mic or other wired mic needed to be connected to the transmitter.
The next generation of transmitters includes a jack for a lav mic and a built-in mic. These mics are primarily designed to use a wired mic, so the transmitter’s body has to be big enough to accommodate a microphone jack.
The DJI Mic Mini drops support for the mic jack in favor of shedding weight. There’s no way to swap out mics as with a traditional system, but since the mic’s audio quality is superb, there’s no real reason to either.
Surprisingly Simple Setup
The microphones are tiny, some of the smallest in this category. For Lego fans, they are about the size of a 3×2 brick. On the back of the microphone is a clip to put it onto your clothing. The clip has a metal back, and a provided magnet can be attached to clothing if you don’t have a place to clip it.
Controls are sparse. The DJI Mini Mic system lacks the comprehensive audio controls typically found on pro systems, which I think is a strength. A system ready at a moment’s notice with little interaction is great for on-the-go creators.
The receiver sports a large side dial that can change the gain in five steps. Almost all cameras with audio input jacks feature precise gain adjustment controls, so setting the camera to adjust the mic’s gain further is easy.
I used the dial to adjust the gain for different mic placements. When connecting the mic to my shirt collar, I would dial down the gain, but when placing it farther down my shirt, I could dial it back up.
The microphones have automatic limiting, which reduces their gain if an audio input is too high to reduce distortion. Despite the automatic limiting, I had problems with clipping on this microphone. I’ll get to these issues in the real-world testing section below.
To handle a variety of soundscapes, each mic can be set to transmit both a normal signal and a “safety channel,” which records at -6dB. Raising a quiet audio track is easier than recovering from clipping.
When they ship from the factory, the mics are pared to the receiver. A button on the microphone powers that mic, and a button on the receiver instantly connects to it.
The microphones can also be paired with other DJI devices with built-in receivers, like the Osmo Pocket 3. This system’s built-in compatibility with DJI’s popular vlogging devices is an advantage over competing wireless systems.
Real-World Testing
I’ve been using wireless microphone systems for years. Each generation of these devices has seen an amazing leap in audio quality. I was eager to see how big of a sound I could get from such a small microphone.
I tried the mic setup in several different environments. The first was inside my house, which has high ceilings and wood floors. Because of echo, these conditions are typically disastrous for audio recording.
The audio quality was excellent in all my tests, with no hint of echo.
I also used the microphones outdoors and tested the noise cancellation in various environments. Like most noise cancellation systems, the DJI microphone works best with the lowest noise cancellation.
The lowest setting reduced much of the background noise. Switching to the higher level of audio canceling resulted in audio that could sometimes sound compressed.
I’d rather have some background noise when shooting outdoors than have audio that sounds too tinny, so I play it safe with noise cancellation.
I also recorded audio from the DJI system alongside the professional microphones in my studio. While both have distinctly different sounds, they both produce excellent audio.
Flaws Are Easily Overcome, but They’re Still Frustrating
DJI says the system features a variable system that automatically reduces gain for sudden loud noises. While loud noises are handled, audio with gain set too high is not.
Despite the audio levels on my camera indicating that I was well within normal ranges, I had several videos with audio volumes high enough to clip at the start of sentences, where most people speak a bit louder than at the end of a sentence.
Now, I keep the gain slightly lower than the audio levels indicate, as it’s easier to raise a quiet audio track than to lower a clipped track.
As a solo creator, I also use the safety track to record a second audio source. Still, when using dual microphones, I need that second track for the second speaker, so it’s important to keep an eye on the audio level indicators.
Impressive Wireless Range
I tested the microphone around my house, where I have walls made of lathe and plaster. A building material that existed before drywall, these walls are essentially chicken wire with plaster laid on top of them. It is a wireless signal nightmare.
I also tested the microphones outside in normal operating conditions. I got perfect audio from hundreds of feet away, well beyond the normal operating range of a creator working alone or even most creators with a second camera person handling audio.
In all tests, the wireless signal was strong, with no drops in connectivity. This is unsurprising since DJI makes drones that can be operated miles from their controllers.
Should You Buy the DJI Mic Mini?
The DJI Mic Mini offers incredible performance for its price. The combination of the two mics, receiver, case, and accessories is $169.
That’s a low enough expense that I expect to see it on a no-name system with awful audio quality. Instead, the DJI Mic Mini is one of the best-performing wireless systems, even without considering the low price. This level of power and audio performance was unheard of at this price just a few years ago.
The DJI Mic Mini will enable starting creators to get up and running, while for experienced creators, the kit is a welcome reprieve from high-cost wireless setups.
DJI Mic Mini
The tiny DJI Mic Mini has incredible audio and just enough features to make it a near-perfect choice for the creator and influencer.
