GoPro Mission 1 Pro Audio: USB-C Mics, 32-Bit Float, and a Dedicated Audio Page

Good day, folks. Shawn here from Air Photography. I’ve been plugging away with my GoPro Mission 1 Pro review, and so far so good, but we’ll save all that for the review. In today’s video, I want to talk about the new audio capabilities of the Mission 1 series, because GoPro has really stepped things up.

It’s kind of always been a problem with GoPros in the past that there was no real easy way to connect a microphone. You had to either use the media mod or their microphone adapter. Of course, you could always connect a Bluetooth mic directly to it, but Bluetooth audio connected directly to a GoPro just did not sound very good, and sometimes it wasn’t very reliable. Now, with the Mission 1 series, we can connect USB-C mics directly to it.

Connecting Just About Any Microphone

On top of that, it doesn’t even have to be a USB-C mic. You can actually just use any USB-C adapter, and it will work as well. For example, here I’ve got a USB-C lavalier. We can now plug it directly in. And of course, you can plug a wireless microphone receiver directly into it. But you can also use any standard mic that you have. If you want to use a shotgun-style microphone — this one just has a standard mic jack on it — I can use this adapter from Rode. It’s got USB-C on that end, and I can plug that directly in now as well. We don’t have to use any adapters.

Of course, if you’re going to be using that style of connector, a frame comes in handy — something with a cold shoe on it. That way you have a simple way to mount your microphone.

Why You Might Want a USB-C Door

The other thing you may want to consider, if you are going to be connecting a USB-C microphone directly to it, is some type of USB-C opening door for your GoPro. The nice thing about the Mission 1 series is that, while not all accessories are compatible, these doors are. So if you have a door with a USB-C cutout for your Hero 13 or Hero 12, that will work with your Mission 1 Pro series as well. This is the official GoPro one that GoPro sells, and of course, it fits.

The thing you have to be careful of, though — as you can see with this GoPro one — is that it has this kind of stick-out, and some other third-party ones have something similar. It’s not going to work with every type of microphone. With this one, we can’t connect a receiver; it just doesn’t fit down inside. Something like the lavalier will still work just fine — it plugs in with no issue. But if you are going to be connecting a microphone that is very bulky, then you want a door similar to that one. This is just a third-party one. It’s going to keep the battery covered, but it still allows you to plug in a microphone. And as you can see, it will still work with a receiver-style mic.

32-Bit Float on the Built-In Mics

Now, not only can we plug a USB-C microphone directly into it, they’ve also updated the software, giving you more flexibility and settings that you can adjust. To start out, if you’re just using the built-in microphones, there are a couple of different audio options that we can adjust. If we go to our settings, then preferences, you can see we have an option for audio and voice control. And if we scroll down, we have an option for raw audio. We can tap on that and actually enable 32-bit float. So for those who want more flexibility in post-processing, we can enable 32-bit float while using the built-in microphones. That’s going to allow you to make some adjustments to it, and that can be really important for some people.

A Dedicated Audio Page

But if we go back to our main settings, they actually have a dedicated audio page now. If we scroll all the way over to the very end, you can see we have two options: main track and track two. Track two is saying “no device” because we don’t have any external microphones connected. The main track is using the camera mics, and that will switch if we plug in a microphone, which I’ll demonstrate in a minute.

We can tap on that, and it gives us some options. The first thing we can do is turn on an audio meter. It’s visible now there on the screen, off to the side, and it’s also visible on the front. You can actually add a second audio meter once we connect an external microphone, so I’m going to do that now. I’m just going to plug in this USB-C lavalier mic.

You can see right away it’s picked it up, and now we actually have two different audio meters. When you plug in a USB-C mic, it always becomes your primary audio source, and that’s why it’s labeled number one. Number two is the built-in microphones. So if we go back to our audio settings, you can see we now have the main track, which is the USB-C microphone, and track two, which is the built-in microphones of the GoPro.

Adjusting Gain and Preventing Clipping

Again, we can tap on each one. We can turn the audio meter on and off, and we can actually adjust the gain of the audio. If you want to do some adjustments there, we can go over to manual, and you can see we can turn it up and turn it down. And if we go over to the main track now, which is the USB-C lavalier, you can see we get some extra options. We can turn that audio meter on and off, and adjust the gain of it as well. You can see limiting has been automatically turned on. We can turn that off, but leaving it on is good, because that’ll help prevent clipping. And it works the same if you’re going to be using a wireless microphone system or a USB-C mic connected directly to it. You’ll see here, once I plug it in, this will become the main mic. You can see there, it’s switched.

Wind Reduction and Audio Tuning

We can also adjust some audio properties when we go into our video settings. If we scroll down near the bottom, you can see we come to this audio tab, and there are a couple of different things we can do there. We can set our wind reduction. By default, it’s going to be set to auto. We can turn it on all the time, or we can turn it off altogether.

They also have an audio tuning feature. By default, it’s going to be set to standard, which they refer to as balanced sound, true-to-life audio. But if you want a more prioritized voice, you can turn on voice auto tuning. It states there that it tunes the audio recording for enhanced vocal clarity while still preserving ambient background sounds. So for some situations, that might be a good option as well, especially if you are going to be doing a lot of talking or vlogging in your recordings.

The Upgraded Built-In Microphones

Now, when it comes to the built-in microphones, they’ve made some changes to that as well. They’ve added two microphones to the front of the camera. You can see we have two right there at the top of the screen — it might be kind of hard to see. And with the Mission Pro, they have a brand new one right under the GoPro logo. You can see that in that reflection. That’s another microphone, which is great if you have the camera facing away from you and you’re doing some commentary or talking. You’re going to be able to still pick up decent audio.

GoPro is also launching their very own wireless mic system. That’s not available yet, but once it is available, I do plan on ordering it so we can test it out. That’s going to be a great option for some people as well. It looks like it could be a promising mic system. They’re going to have their own setup where you can connect a transmitter directly to it, and that’s going to give you better audio than just standard Bluetooth audio.

Audio Samples: Built-In Mics vs. USB-C vs. Bluetooth

Now, with all that said, let’s go out and do a couple of audio samples if you want to hear what the sound sounds like from the built-in mics and by connecting a microphone directly by USB-C.

All right, so we are just going to be doing some audio tests now. Right now, I am using the built-in microphones on the GoPro Mission 1 Pro. I have the camera facing away from me, so it’s going to be primarily using that back microphone, but I will turn the camera from side to side here, and we’ll see what the audio sounds like while the camera is moving. I’ll be doing a full wind test on it, and that will be included in my full review coming up in a couple of weeks. So again, this is audio coming from the built-in microphones of the Mission 1 Pro.

So now, I have the USB-C lavalier plugged directly into the Mission 1 Pro. This is audio coming from a lavalier plugged in by USB-C, so we should have some audio improvements. I don’t have a windscreen, a wind muff per se, on the lavalier — I do have a foam cover. There is a little bit of a breeze today, but it’s not too bad, so we shouldn’t really hear any kind of wind noise. Again, this is audio coming from a USB-C lavalier plugged directly into the GoPro Mission 1 Pro.

Now, for this next audio test, I have the DJI Mic 3 receiver plugged directly into the side of the Mission 1 Pro. So this is audio coming from the DJI Mic 3 plugged directly into the camera. Again, the audio should be better than using the built-in microphones. This is an audio test of the DJI Mic 3 plugged directly into the Mission 1 Pro.

Now, for this final audio sample, I have the DJI Mic 3 connected to the GoPro Mission 1 Pro via Bluetooth. Again, this is audio coming from the DJI Mic 3 connected via Bluetooth.

Available Across the Whole Mission 1 Lineup

So yeah, folks, just a video going over some of the new audio capabilities. These new audio capabilities apply across the board to all the new Mission 1 cameras: the GoPro Mission 1, the Mission 1 Pro, and the Mission 1 Pro ILS. Hopefully you enjoyed this video and found it had value.

Thanks a lot for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.

This article is based on a video from Air Photography, produced by Shawn. You can find more of his work on the Air Photography YouTube channel and read more of his articles on his DroneXL author page.