Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 ATR-35S not suitable for a computer sound card August 22, 2008
Given the glowing reviews, I bought the Audio-Technica ATR-35S Lavalier Microphone to connect it to a Sound Blaster Audigy sound card for narrations. Unfortunately, the volume level was always to low, even with the Microphone Boost +20dB on in the Creative software, which introduced some noise. Although the sound was fine when I held the mike close to my mouth, it is obviously not the purpose of a lavalier. There seems to be a mismatch (impedance or sensitivity) between the card and the microphone. I think this mike needs a mixer or mike pre-amp to boost the signal when connected to a computer sound card.
 Will make you look and sound more professional August 15, 2008
I picked this mic up after being hired to shoot a small training video, and I'm glad I did. We were shooting in a small office with trains going by and the on board mic would have never cut it. I have a wireless mic, but I was worried about interference. One pined the the client it picks up voices perfect, even when she is turned away from the camera. Just make sure to turn the mic on! I'll be picking up another for doing multi subject interview very soon.
Decent but not great August 12, 2008
I bought this to use for a series of video interviews but found it to fall far below my expectations. I have been an avid Audio-Technica user for years and love their pro microphones. I was hoping this would be similar in quality but my results were mixed.
First of all, the sound quality from the microphone itself is fantastic for the price. It is clear and crisp without being too bright. It sounds far better than I expected for a microphone of this price.
However, the output level of it is very low and makes it pretty much worthless. I tried to use it four different ways and found only one of them to be usable, though it still sounded bad.
The first way was plugged directly into a camcorder. It sounded great for about a minute or two but then the sound would fade out and for the rest of the recording, there was nothing but silence. I attribute this more to the camcorder and not the mic since I have had other weird sound issues with other external sources on that camera.
The second way was on a different camera. That camera has some sort of automatic gain control that boosted the mic up so loud that it was actually distorted the sound on the loud parts while bringing up the noise floor of the whole thing to about -18dbfs. Obviously, this wasn't working the way I wanted it to.
I then plugged it into the mic jack on my laptop and recorded the sound straight into the computer. This was the only useful way that I found it would work but, because of the low output level, there was a lot of noise in the recording when boosting it to a normal level. The background noise using this method came out to be around -26dbfs. Though still pretty poor sounding, this would be usable.
The fourth way I tried it was my connecting it to an XLR adapter and plugging it into a pro mic preamp. Again, the output was far too low and I got as much noise as I did usable signal.
In summary, if you have a camera that will match to the output level of this mic, you will get good sound. However, I wouldn't hold out much hope that many cameras will meet that expectation. Of course, at less than $20, you can probably afford to give it a shot. I am giving it three stars mainly for the sound quality and the chance that I may eventually find a way to use it effectively.
works well August 12, 2008
As the old Volkswagwn ad used to say 'it goes forward, it goes backward, it turns in circles. What else do you want?'
It does what it claims to do, and it does it well. 'nuff said?
Its okay July 27, 2008
I guess you get what you pay for. I am picking up background noise with the video camera
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