DJI Mic 2 versus Rode Wireless PRO. Which mic system should you buy as a wedding filmmaker? I’m going to share nine differences between these microphones and tell you which one I’d recommend you purchase.
If you want a more in depth look at either one, I have a full review of both. Here’s the DJI Mic 2 review and here’s the Rode Wireless PRO review. I’ll also point you at my wedding filmmaker gear guide, which shows you the best gear to buy to film weddings. It’s completely free.
The Locking Lav Jack
Starting with the biggest difference, which may be a deal breaker for a lot of you. If you’re recording something like a wedding, you have to make sure it gets recorded correctly.
The Rode Wireless PRO has a locking microphone jack that you screw in to prevent your mic from being disconnected. The DJI Mic 2 does not have a screw in lav connector, and instead lets you loop the cord under the transmitter clip.
That isn’t good enough in my opinion, and it can be disconnected far more easily. So in this situation the Wireless PRO wins easily.
The Receiver Touchscreen
Now a win for the DJI Mic 2, and that’s the touchscreen on the receiver.
It’s definitely a small touchscreen, but it is still a touchscreen, and that’s a big win over the Rode. With the Wireless PRO, if you want to change any of the more complicated settings you need to plug it into your phone or computer and use the RODE Central app.
With the DJI Mic 2, all of those settings are adjustable right on the receiver, which is significantly easier, especially if you don’t have a cable or a phone or a computer nearby to plug into.
Bluetooth
Another win for the DJI. The Mic 2 includes Bluetooth, which gives you more connectivity, letting you connect the transmitters wirelessly to some cameras as well as to your phone.
So if you want to use one of DJI’s own cameras to film a wedding, you’ve got a mic system that will work well with it.
Battery Life
This is an area where the Rode Wireless PRO both wins and loses a little bit.
The Wireless PRO gives you approximately six and a half hours of recording time per transmitter, while the DJI Mic 2 gives you about five hours per transmitter if you’re recording 32-bit float internally, which I highly recommend doing. The Rode charging case will also give the transmitters and receiver 21 hours of battery life versus 18 hours with the DJI. So the Rode ekes out a win on battery.
But there’s an interesting wrinkle here. With the Rode Wireless PRO you cannot charge the transmitters or receiver while you’re using them. I’m not exactly sure why, but it’s a strange limitation. With the DJI Mic 2, both the transmitters and the receiver can charge and record at the same time. So if you wanted to rig up a USB-C charger, you could run them indefinitely.
Recording Time
Closely related to battery life, you have recording time. I’m happy to tell you that both the DJI Mic 2 and the Rode Wireless PRO can record 32-bit float audio internally. Where they differ is in how much storage space they have for it.
The DJI Mic 2 has 8 GB of internal storage, so each transmitter can record roughly 11 hours of 32-bit float audio before it’s full. Rode doesn’t specifically say how much storage the Wireless PRO has in gigabytes, but they do say each transmitter can record over 40 hours of 32-bit float.
That’s a big win for the Rode in my opinion, especially if you’re filming a long wedding day or a multi day wedding and you don’t want to have to offload your audio until the end.
The Charging Cases
Speaking of copying your audio, we need to talk about the cases these systems come in, because there are wins and losses on both sides.
The Rode wins in that its charging case supports copying audio files off both transmitters simultaneously. So if you record an interview using both and want to pull the 32-bit float tracks, you drop the transmitters into the case, plug that into your computer, and copy from both at once. With the DJI Mic 2, the charging case’s USB-C port does not support data transfer at all and is limited to charging only. If you want to copy your audio you have to plug in each transmitter separately using their own USB-C ports.
But I did say the DJI has a win in the case department, and here it is. Compare the size and build quality of the two cases and they’re quite similar. But remember that the Rode Wireless PRO requires you to carry two separate cases of similar size, one being the charging case that holds the transmitters and receiver and the other holding all of the accessories.
I greatly prefer how DJI handles this, and I think you will too. The Mic 2 has two cases as well, but the charging case fits inside the accessories case, which makes for a much easier setup to transport, because you don’t have to worry about losing one or grabbing the wrong one. I have lost count of how many times I’ve picked up a case and thought, wait, this one isn’t heavy enough, this is just the cables. Nope, need the other case. So I really love how DJI has done this.
Audio Quality
I’m going to give a slight edge here to the Rode Wireless PRO, but that’s mainly down to the higher quality lavalier microphone they include with it.
Both systems sound fairly similar when you’re using the mics built into the transmitters themselves. But whenever you attach a lav, that’s where the Wireless PRO pulls a bit ahead. It just has a slightly higher quality microphone that sounds better to my ears. And as a bonus, the Wireless PRO comes with two lav mics in the case ready to use, while the DJI Mic 2 requires you to buy its lav separately.
Now, I know I just said the Rode sounded better to me, but its lav is not without faults. Specifically, the microphone clip on the Wireless PRO is quite poor and can become disconnected, while the lav clip for the DJI does not have that issue. So I’m still giving the win to the Rode because quality is paramount, but it’s very close considering that clip.
I also have one big complaint about both of these microphones, and that is that DJI and Rode both decided to put their logo on the lav mic clip. It’s really gaudy and distracting. Just make it black. You don’t need to advertise your brand here. I would gaff tape over this immediately if you’re using either of these lavs in a professional video.
Accidental Button Presses
There’s another con to talk about with the DJI Mic 2, and in my opinion this is its second worst issue after the non locking microphone jack.
It comes down to the power button. If you press it while the microphone is on, it enables a noise cancelling feature where the mic attempts to remove background noise. That is a simple, very quick button press, and there is a real chance that the client wearing your mic could press it and ruin the quality of your audio.
The Rode Wireless PRO doesn’t have a noise isolation feature, and its buttons, which do things like start and stop recording on the transmitter, can be customized in RODE Central so you can disable them from being pressed accidentally. Which is great.
That said, both of these will turn off if you hold down the power button, so that’s still annoying. I would love to be able to lock that and prevent a client from being able to turn the audio off entirely.
Which Should You Buy?
If you’re a wedding filmmaker, the odds are you’re going to want a lav mic on your couple or your officiant, and you’re not going to want to use the transmitter’s built in microphone. Because of that, and because of the need for buttons to not get accidentally pressed while recording, the Rode Wireless PRO with its locking port and customizable buttons is the winner for me over the DJI Mic 2.
That said, both of these still have roughly 5 to 6.5 hours of battery life, and that’s it. If you need to record longer on a wedding day you’re going to want to look elsewhere, possibly to a standalone recorder like the Tascam DR-10L Pro that I love, which provides over a day of battery life. There are other audio recorders I’m still working on testing, so comment below and let me know what you want to see.
For now, if you really want to purchase one of these two, I would go with the Rode Wireless PRO.
Where To Get Them
Rode Wireless PRO at B&H, Amazon, Best Buy, Sweetwater or Adorama.
DJI Mic 2 at Amazon, B&H, Adorama or Sweetwater.
And speaking of pro, if you want to be a pro at wedding filmmaking, I’ve put together a free wedding filmmaker gear guide that shows you all of the gear I recommend, plus links for where to buy it.
Thanks so much for reading, and have a great day!