Wireless Microphone System

A body-pack or clip-on transmitter picks up the voice and sends it to a receiver on the camera or recorder. Creator kits from Rode, DJI and others put the microphone and transmitter in one small clip, record a safety copy internally and pair in seconds, which is why they have replaced traditional radio microphones on most small shoots.

Radio is the weak point. Interference, distance, bodies between transmitter and receiver, and crowded 2.4GHz environments all cause dropouts, and a dropout cannot be recovered in the edit. Systems that record onboard as well as transmit protect you, because the internal file becomes the take when the wireless feed glitches.