BMPCC4K Mic has low volume

I recently got the BMPCC4K, but I am not sure if its microphone is Broken, because the cameras microphone is recording at pretty low volume. It hardly picks up any sound. Even when I set the gain to 100%. Is that normal?

Mine does the same thing.

Yes, it has a weak mic preamp.
Cheers

True it has a weak pre-amp. In Davinci Resolve one can 'improve' the volume of the sound, so I am quite happy with the onboard mics for some occasions. I have a Rode Video Mic Pro and of course that gives a better output.

No matter how many YouTube videos I've scoured, not one proper review that I've found gives any kind of indication of how strong a signal any mic sends to the 3.5mm input.

Many manufacturers provide specifications for the sensitivity of their microphones. In principal, that ought to allow you to calculate what you need to know.

I am kinda disappointed because People claimed that the camera has one of the best internal mics

I am kinda disappointed because People claimed that the camera has one of the best internal mics

Who claimed that? Some Youtubers?

For a tiny $1300 camera that offers both miniXLR and 3.5mm stereo directly on the body (meaning no additional expense for heavy, poorly shaped and located adaptor add ons needed like with Panasonic and Sony) the audio options it offers are more than adequate.

As other posters have mentioned, if you want to run an on camera shotgun mic, use something like the Rode VideoMic Pro that has it's own pre-amp to boost the signal. That leaves the miniXLR port free to run in a wireless lavalier, most of which provide enough signal boost to work plenty well. I use a Sennheiser AVX set and the results have been great on the 4K Pocket.

And, if you really need to have the absolute highest in audio quality, then just run two system and add a little Tentacle Sync box to maintain timecode sync between a pro audio recorder and the camera. The 4K Pocket has the ability to directly read external timecode from a Tentacle Sync (or other LTC based timecode generator) into the 3.5mm port. To offer external timecode is a feature that, as far as I've ever seen, doesn't exist on any other camera under $5K, much less on any other tiny mirrorless/DSLR size camera.

I wonder if there is significant variation between units. The internal microphones on my camera seem to have quite good sensitivity. I can clearly hear footfalls on grass/and leaves from a few metres away and if it wasn't for the problem of fan noise, wouldn't bother with a camera mounted microphone (NTG1). However the 3.5mm inputs for me are barely usable, even with a Rode VideoMic Pro set to +20.

It is a bit hard to quantify the difference there might be. I'd really like to do a side by side comparison test between several PCC4ks to see if there are technical fluctuations or if it is just the way of personal perceptions.

I own 2 BMPCC's, purchased many months apart. The mic performance is identical on the two cameras. And, because the gain is so low on the camera mic, it is virtually unusable. I've never heard of any microphone that needs to be set to 100% all the time. How is it that my iPhone produces better audio and I can't even see the mic. Why does the BMPCC have 2 large mics if they don't capture any actual sound?

I used to get decent sound levels from my Senheiser shotgun mic but since the last update I have to use the camera's internal mics to get any useable background sound. All levels are at 100%, on the mic's preamp and camera.

Found the solution: If ONE of the levels in is at maximum amplification, a cut off kicks in. All (or some) of the other amps get also cut off. Turn all the amplifications down (sure the mic in ones) and mic in levels are usable again.

Just set the mic-in, in camera levels -10 db lower and set the pre-amp of your mic a bit higher if needed.

It’s this bug. Don’t know if it was ever fixed.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=183536

Good Luck