Rode Wireless Go II -Wireless Lavalier Microphone Overview and Concise Review
The Rode Wireless Go II is a popular wireless microphone system that’s reasonably budget friendly. I’ve owed and used the Wireless Go II since late 2021 for personal and professional use.
The system comes with one receiver and two wireless transmitters. All three units charge via USB C, and the kit comes with three USB C to USB A cables. The transmitters also come with small windscreens. It also comes with a TRS to TRS cable, which plugs directly into a camera.
The system will also works with a smartphone, you just need to use either Rode’s SC7 cable or a separate TRS to TRRS adapter. iPhone users will also need to use a 3.5mm to lightning adapter.
The transmitters are versatile, in that they can be used as microphones themselves. Or you can plug in a separate lavalier microphone that can then be clipped or otherwise fixed to your clothing or body. The transmitter automatically recognizes when you plug in the lavalier microphone, and there aren’t any settings or buttons you have to adjust to make that happen. Although some folks will just clip the transmitter itself to a shirt or jacket and the audio works just fine, I don’t find this look to be acceptable for professional level work.
As a fun fact and very practical convenience, the width of the clips on all three units are precisely the right size to fit into a cold shoe adapter, so that’s always an option to mount the units.
Rode says the receiver will pick up the transmitter’s signal from up to 200 meters away with clear line of sight. In my testing, you’re definitely not constrained to a small radius from the receiver, but I recommend not pressing your luck. The signal will cut out sooner if there are walls or other obstructions between the transmitter and receiver.
Here are the three coolest features of the Rode Wireless Go II:
(1) Local recording on the transmitters. Anyone that’s made enough videos knows the importance of having backup audio. Trust me, back up your audio!
In the Rode Central App, you can configure the transmitters to also record locally. That means you can have a backup of your audio saved right on the transmitter, as well as “baked into” your video footage. Just note that “backup” means audio is saved locally on the tramsmitter only when paired to a receiver, while “always” means audio is saved locally on the transmitter anytime the transmitter turned on. I recommend just setting and staying with “always.” The transmitters hold 7 hours of uncompressed audio and 40 hours of compressed audio. If this storage gets filled up, it automatically overwrites the oldest files as it needs more room.
(2) The ability to split the feed from the transmitters into left and right channels. Without going into too much detail, this just means you can edit the audio from each transmitter independently. This is a huge help if the different sources are different volume levels or if you need to eliminate sounds being picked up on one transmitter.
(3) The ability to pair a transmitter with a shotgun microphone to use as a wireless boom. At first, I didn’t think this was so amazing because it’s pretty simple to just run a cable. But, this is actually great for two reasons. First, if you have a cheaper shotgun microphone without adjustable gain, you can turn up the gain on the Wireless Go II and then turn down the gain on your camera. Although I’m not an audio engineer, having the gain set lower on your camera typically helps audio quality. Second, this once again allows for a backup of the audio recorded by the shotgun mic. If the camera gain was set way off, or if perhaps you didn’t plug the receiver all the way into the camera (which I’ve done!), the transmitter will still record your audio locally, and you can use that.
So, is the Rode Wireless Go II the greatest wireless microphone system ever created? No, but it is a very solid option for use by content creators, live streamers, and even filmmakers for professional level work. And with a retail price of $299 (as of this writing), it’s a solid recommendation for anyone looking for a wireless audio solution.