What lav microphones are there on the market in 2024? Are they good for recording nature and wildlife in the field? Let’s have a look.

Quick note here: lavaliers (or lapel mics) are of course intended to be worn close to the body so they can pick up voice in most cases. While their intended purpose has nothing to do with nature or wildlife sound recording, they are surprisingly good at it because of their diminutive size.

Back when I started my journey in field recording, some 15 years ago, I had to spend more than $10k on a selection of equipment that worked well and also made me look like a professional. In those days, if you showed up to a gig with cheap equipment, you would not be called again. A lot has changed since then, and the barrier to entry is much lower. Someone who is just starting out will not have to get a business loan to get a foot in the door. That is encouraging and I’m very happy with this new status quo.

Unfortunately Leafhoppers aren’t great as windjammers for lavs

As with everything, there are some disadvantages as well. One of them is the potential paralysis of choice. As field recording has become a much larger niche, many manufacturers have started to make affordable yet decent quality equipment. Lavalier microphones are some of these, and there are many options on the market. With so many options to choose from, it can be a bit difficult to decide and there can always be a lingering fear of missing out by not buying something else. Let’s have a look at what the options are.

Disclaimer time! Before I start talking about these microphones I have to mention that I’ve worked with some of these brands in the past. I have received free equipment and some of them have sponsored my expeditions. They did not pay me to say good things about their products. Every time I work with brands the agreement is that I get paid in exchange for testing equipment in harsh conditions and getting photos, videos and sound recordings for them. Sometimes I also write about my use case and talk about my experiences online or in person. What is attractive to these brands is the fact that I’m brand-agnostic, and will use whatever kit does the job. If a microphone works well and sounds great, it will keep surfacing in my trip reports and expedition updates. If it’s not, I will be very clear about why that is and won’t bring it along on my trips again.

How to set up a lav drop rig

1. Lom mikroUsi regular and Pro versions

If you’ve been following me online for a while, you probably know how much I love these tiny mics. They’re not the first little lavs I’ve ever tried (that would be the DPA 4060 below) but they’re the first boutique/indie mic manufacturer I’ve heard of. Lom has a peculiar business model. It doesn’t seem like they’ve ever been in the industry to make money or to expand rapidly. They release small batches of their products whenever suits them, and as they grew in popularity their microphones have become somewhat of a prized commodity. They routinely sell out their entire stock within minutes of releasing it. I agree there’s a lot of hype around these mics (some of which I’m probably responsible for) but it’s all warranted.

I’ve probably owned hundreds of their mics over the years and lost most of them to humidity or wildlife. They’re quite affordable and they sound great, reaching high in the frequency spectrum. They’re tiny and can very easily be hidden in tree cracks, among rocks or in bushes. They don’t use a lot of power which means they are ideal for long-form drop rig sessions. What is important is that these mics allowed me to record quality material for films such as Dune part 2 and Mufasa the Lion King.

Lom have recently revamped the mikroUsi lineup with a new form factor and material/texture. According to them the electronics are the same as the old version and the new ones should not sound too different, but I have a feeling the new shape does affect the sound of the mics somewhat. I’ve used these on several expeditions though and I love how they sound as much as I loved the old versions. The new design feels nicer in the hand and should make it easier to use tiny windjammers though.

Lemur sounds recorded with the Lom mikroUsi Pro microphones

2. DPA 4060, 6060, D-screet, Core and HD

I first had a chance to try the DPA 4060s on a trip to Norfolk with Chris Watson. He kindly lent me a pair and I managed to capture some decent seabird activity, although there were lots of boats and aircraft around. Up to that point I had thought the only good mics for field recording would be small pencil-style ones like the Sennheiser MKH 8000 series or Schoeps CMC 1u with MK2 or MK4 capsules. Chris Watson famously used a wire hanger to set up the 4060s in trees and other creative/unexpected locations. It was a very interesting experience to observe this and to realise that a lot of the strict rules we have in the studio don’t translate to field work very well, or at all.

As soon as I returned from that trip I ordered a pair of second hand 4060s that have been used in theater productions as head-mounted mics. The great thing about these lavs is they’re somewhat humidity-resistant as they need to perform well in sweaty or spitty situations like that. As a result, they are equally great at performing in light rain or thick fog. They are slightly noisier than the mikroUsis but they can take slightly higher SPL without distorting. As everything in the field of audio, they come with their own advantages and drawbacks.

Setting up a lav drop rig out of the reach of big mammals in Zimbabwe

Over the years DPA have renamed these mics and offered so many variations that it has become difficult to keep track of them all. For a while they had the Heavy Duty versions, of which I got a couple of pairs and had great results with. Then they changed the name to Core, without changing anything else (unless I’m mistaken). More recently they’ve released the 6060, an even smaller lav that is completely waterproof. I’ve got 5 pairs of 6060s and have submerged them without any problem. The sound is not very different to the 4060.

Other variants to mention are the 4061/4062 and 6061/6062. These are even higher SPL versions that come with more noise but can deal with louder sound sources such as explosions or engines close up. I have a few pairs of these as well but rarely use them these days as I focus more on subtle nature sounds.

The big downside of DPA mics is that they aren’t terminated in XLR so you will need to use a microdot to XLR adapter which costs as much as a pair of Clippy or Lom mics. I’ve got loads of these but if you’re just starting out and building your mic collection this could be a problem. The price of the mics is also rather high, some of these costing as much as 4 pairs of clippies. These mics are worth their asking price though.

Ant sounds recorded with the DPA 6060 microphones

3. Clippy EM172, EM272, EM272Z1 and Ultra

Clippy mics (made by Micbooster in the UK) could be called the poor person’s mikroUsis. They’re chunkier than Lom lavaliers, don’t reach as high in the HF realm and sound a little less nice to my ears, but they are a decent replacement if you can’t get your hands on the Lom lavs. I first got some of these when I ran out of mikroUsis, but I found them a worthy replacement and kept buying them over the years.

They are more or less the same price as the mikroUsi counterparts and I won’t think twice before putting them in risky situations. Of course this is all relative, but for the results you can get with them they are definitely on the affordable side.

I’ve recently noticed they released an Ultra version that captured ultrasonic material better. I used a few pairs briefly on my trip to India and they are indeed capable of reaching higher, but the frequency response curve is a bit all over the place. There’s also heavy variation between capsules, but that’s completely expected at this price point and doesn’t mean you should not buy them.

Countryside ambience recorded with Clippy EM272 microphones.

4. Sonorous Objects SO.2

Sonorous Objects is a newer player in the field of boutique mics and lavs. I’d only heard of them last year before my expedition to Botswana and Zimbabwe so I ordered a few pairs to see if they’re worth recommending. I like their website and branding, and the design of the mics is nice as well. There was a bit of a hiccup with my order as it seemed late with no comms, but it was solved quickly once I reached out to them.

Price-wise they’re on par with others in this list, but if you order them from the UK you will have to pay import taxes on top. The mics themselves sound nice to my ears. I will need to use them for longer before I can get a good opinion but so far they’ve not given me any reason to not like them. I’ve even used them in light rain and high humidity in Zimbabwe and they did not skip a beat. Hear them in action below.

Capybara sounds recorded with Sonorous Objects SO.2 microphones

5. Deity WLav Pro

Deity has been making mics for a while, and while they’re at the lower end of the price spectrum, I don’t think they can be called a boutique mic maker as they’re part of a bigger conglomerate. I’ve only used them on one expedition and while they are advertised as waterproof, they seem to suffer from humidity more than others (DPA 6060 comes to mind). I left these mics in pouring rain several times and it took them 5 to 6 hours to recover after they became wet, while the DPAs only take a few minutes.

It’s also worth noting that the two mics I got have a very different frequency response, with one of them capturing a lot more HF content than the other. This could be due to a manufacturing or Quality Control defect and my sample size was too low to account for this.

One other downside of these lavs is that they come wired for microdot connectors so you will need a DPA DAD adaptor to use them with XLR inputs. While they are fairly cheap, the additional cost of these adaptors makes them more expensive than other options.

African savanna ambience recorded with the Deity WLav Pro microphones

6. O-Mini P48 by Chris Trevino

I’ve been friends with Chris for years and it was great to hear that he started making microphones last year. He recently paid me a visit in Brighton and offered me a few pairs of his O-Mini P48 lavs. They look very similar to the old mikroUsis, with all the design advantages I mentioned above. Their price is also in the ballpark of clippies and mikroUsis.

I took these mics on my recent expedition to China and they survived a few nights in a cold and humid rainforest. They also sound pretty similar to the mikroUsis above, which is great. Listen to them in the video below.

Cloud forest soundscape recorded with O-Mini P48 microphones

Others

Of course there are many others I’ve left out. Sanken, Rode, Countryman, Sennheiser, Shure etc also make lavs but in many cases they’re not ideal for work in the field. I might try and get some samples but I can’t promise anything - I’ve got loads of work and I do all the reviews and blog posts in my already non-existent spare time. Please consider buying me a coffee or supporting me on Patreon if you want me to dedicate more time to my blog and Youtube channel.

Additional info

Of course picking a lav is just the start. If you aren’t careful you could lose it in a few hours like I’ve done so many times. The two biggest hazards I’ve encountered are wildlife and weather. With drop rigs it’s very difficult to protect your rig 100% since they equipment is unattended for extended time, but you can make sure the chances are in your favour by making it as inconspicuous as possible and by protecting it from humidity as much as you can. I will go into more details about these two aspects in a different blog post or video, but suffice it to say that the more you do it, the easier it gets.

Find the perfectly camouflaged windjammer!

Lastly, you should use wind protection with your lavs. Lavs aren’t intended for recording wind, although you can do it well if you use a proper blimp. With small windjammers like the Windbubbles or Urchins you will also need to use the environment to your advantage. That means picking an area that isn’t directly exposed to wind gusts, and potentially in the rain shadow of a tree branch. This way you will maximise the chances of getting good usable recordings in all kinds of weather. You can also try to wrap hydrophobic fabric around the mics so that rain doesn’t reach the capsules, but that will block some of the mid and high frequency content. I’ve done this successfully in the past and will put together a video explaining it.

Unfortunately lav windjammers haven’t exactly been cheap and can sometimes double the price of your kit if you want some spares, but as more manufacturers start to take them seriously the prices will go down. They’re definitely worth their price though. At the moment you can get good ones from Bubblebee, Radius, DPA and Weevee. I’m hoping to see more brands in this niche in the future.

I wouldn’t suggest getting cheap knockoffs from Amazon as they will block a lot more mid and high frequencies while not protecting even from the slightest breeze. Fit is also quite important so make sure the manufacturer is making them specifically for your lav and not just a generic size.

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