Rode SmartLav+

After doing days and nights of research for a good quality and affordable lavalier for light interviews and freelancer work, I finally decided to go with the Rode SmartLav+ as it seemed the best investment for long-term use and a good balance between price-quality-features.

This lavalier is designed primarily to use in conjunction with smartphones to record the audio off-camera in situations where it's not possible or feasible. And it does this brilliantly. The audio quality is on-par with more expensive Shure or Sennheiser lavaliers if placed and used correctly. I recommend using RecForgeII for recording your audio, it's available on both Android and iOS.

The lavalier comes with a pouch, velcro cable strap, foam pop shield and a clip. I am not a big fan of the clip design because it's difficult to loop the cable due to the narrow cable slot. I much prefer the Sennheiser free loop system. Also a bit disappointed that the Rode lav is not compatible with other clip systems due to its small size. I have a few other clips mainly from Sennheiser and none of them work. This means you have to get creative when it comes to placing the lav in certain conditions.

Also I think the cable is a bit short, if it was 150cm it would have been perfect. I tried to use it on a laptop during a video call and it pretty awkward to have it routed under my shirt and into the laptop sitting on the desk.

Overall I'm happy with the purchase and can recommend this to anyone looking for a great lav at a decent price.

Oh and make sure to check out the windshield and cable adapter if you plan to shoot outside or use it with a non-smartphone device.

I bought this mic almost as an aside and have been incredibly glad that I did. Having the ability to connect a good lav mic to your smartphone phone in a pinch has saved me on several occasions. Like they say about cameras, the best one is the one you have with you.
If you get this mic, be sure to get the minifur as well for use outdoors.

One thing to be mindful of, if you want to use it with trs devices you'll need to get an adapter cable (rode SC-3).
The only downsides are the clip, which can be fiddly. Also the cable could've been a bit longer, but you can easily buy an extension if needed.

By no means perfect but it is excellent value, and for that one time you need it in an emergency, it's priceless.

You usually can't go wrong with Rode's products, and this one's technically not a bad one either. It comes with a nice leather pouch that has a moisture absorbing bag in it. The wire itself is made or coated with kevlar, at least that's what the warning label says. The cable indeed seems quite solid, even though it's pretty thin. Then the downsides: as so often happens with TRRS lav mics, it does muffle the high end a bit; on the other hand, your phone's preamp might affect tha too.. Rode's own TRRS-TRS adapter cable is sold separately, which is a bit of a letdown; the device should come with one from the get-go, as the cheap Behringer models that are meant for the same purpose include such adapter. At least on my Android phone, the mic takes over my phone's audio output completely, meaning that you might end up needing a separate splitter cable if you want audio out while the mic is attached. The microphone itself is pretty good for field recordings where you need isolation from surrounding sounds, echoes, etc, and it does make the speaker's voice quite clear and pop-free. One should also note that the recording app that Rode offers for this mic only works on Apple phones, which also is a bit of a bummer, since the mic's high-end drop isn't anything drastic, you can fix it with a marginal EQ adjustment. Anyway, it's a good Rode-quality product with some minor downsides, and be aware that you'll need to figure out your audio output cabling/routing if you're using it on a phone (or at least on an Android one) and need audio out while recording.

I bought the original SmartLav and was unhappy with the self noise.
It seems that Rode listened to their customers and came out with this.
For this price range, you simply cannot get better. Yes you need a smart phone to operate this Lav mic but surely everyone has one now don't they?

I regularly produce videos and podcasts and this had made getting audio into my productions very simple.

The app is smooth and the audio quality is superb. I edit a little bit in post (low cut roll off) but apart from that, this SmartLav+ does everything you need it to at a budget that everyone can afford.