Insta360 has been making a statement over the last couple of years, not only continuing the product lines that helped build its reputation but also dipping its toes into many new avenues that make sense for the brand. When it released its first wireless microphone, it made sense. Its cameras can connect to wireless mics, so why would it leave another brand to provide the mics? But with its latest release, the Insta360 Mic Pro, it has made a leap from filling a need to setting a standard.
The Insta360 Mic Pro is a wireless mic kit comprising two transmitters and one receiver, which is standard among most of these kits. With those components, you get a charge case, removable clips, a mobile phone adapter, incredibly strong magnets, clip-on windscreens, a USB-C cable, a TRS cable and a carrying pouch for all of it.
The receiver on the Insta360 Mic Pro is pretty standard, allowing it to connect to a phone via a USB-C adapter or to a camera with the TRS cable, and it can control the transmitters’ settings directly from its touchscreen display. The pressable knob makes it easy to navigate the menus and, as a design bonus that seemingly no other company has thought of, it has a cold-shoe mount built in, so you can either attach your mic to the receiver or still have a free mount for a light or anything else you use on your camera.
“With its latest release, the Insta360 Mic Pro, it has made a leap from filling a need to setting a standard.”
The Insta360 Mic Pro has a unique transmitter with a three-mic array, offering cardioid and omnidirectional polar patterns, and it can be used as a shotgun microphone with its super-directional pickup when mounted on top of a camera. However, I would limit that to a vlogger’s distance between the camera and the subject, since it won’t be as powerful as a shotgun microphone.
The back of the transmitter has a powerful magnetic surface that lets you put the mic on your shirt with a magnet on the other side, but the provided clips can also be slid securely into place. This is an either-or situation, though. The clips are not magnetic, so you cannot leave them on and use the magnets only when needed. The charge case has space to store the clips, but the transmitters will not fit properly with them affixed, which is a bit of a miss in my opinion, although I do like to see accessory storage in a case.
The transmitter on the Insta360 Mic Pro weighs 19.7 grams without the clip and has a 20 Hz to 20 kHz frequency response, 48 kHz sampling frequency and a 72 dB signal-to-noise ratio. On board, you have 32 GB of memory, which allows for up to 60 hours of recording at 24-bit mono and up to 22 hours when recording 32-bit stereo. Oh yeah, the Mic Pro has 32-bit float internal recording, so you can rest assured that you have an audio track with no clipping.
“Putting the Insta360 Mic Pro in the field, you have yourself an incredibly adaptable mic kit.”
But we are really burying the lede by not talking about the Insta360 Mic Pro transmitter’s biggest innovation, the e-ink display on the front. We have reviewed another mic with a customizable display in the past, the Saramonic Blinkme B2, and Insta360 has some major advantages here. First, the e-ink display picks up video much better than Saramonic’s LCD screen in most scenarios. Second, the e-ink display uses power only when it is configured, so having an image on it uses no battery life.
The displays on the Insta360 Mic Pro are configurable through the Insta360 app, letting you choose from any of the provided designs, as well as any you upload to the app. This allows you to personalize the transmitters to your brand instead of being an advertisement for someone else. Now, e-ink isn’t going to give you a perfect one-to-one copy of a logo with too many fine details or complex colours. But at a distance, say between you and the camera, it will look fantastic.
Putting the Insta360 Mic Pro in the field, you have yourself an incredibly adaptable mic kit. The ability to connect four different transmitters to one receiver, or two transmitters to four different receivers, makes multi-subject and multi-camera shoots a breeze.
Capturing the same audio on multiple cameras means not having to do so much syncing up in post. The native audio will be consistent across all devices, and that is a dream come true. The audio quality is fantastic on the Insta360 Mic Pro. Without any of the processing on, your voice sounds very natural, and using Insta360’s NPU for AI noise removal does a fantastic job of removing the noise, but not at the cost of audio quality.
So many mics still have an issue with that audio becoming tinny as you increase the level of noise reduction, but the Insta360 Mic Pro still sounds good. My own personal preference is to limit the reduction to low for mild crowds and ambience unless you absolutely need it higher.
The ability to connect the Insta360 Mic Pro transmitters directly to Insta360 cameras is also an amazing feature, giving you the best possible audio experience for those cameras with a minimal setup. Connecting to the cameras is fast, and they will automatically reconnect when you turn the camera back on, as long as the transmitters are also already turned on. I have connected them easily to my Insta360 X5, Ace Pro 2 and GO Ultra, and it makes turning any of them into a perfect vlogging setup so simple.
“Insta360 has created a user-friendly, great-sounding mic that is customizable to you and gives you the tools to foolproof your audio so you can record with confidence.”
The Insta360 Mic Pro’s battery life is also impressive, with up to 10 hours on the transmitters and 11 hours on the receiver on a single charge. That does drop off a lot when using things like noise reduction and the transmitters connecting to cameras through Bluetooth, but it should still offer you plenty for a shoot.
Transmitters can also get another 90 minutes of juice with a five-minute charge in the case, and the case can charge all three devices twice before needing to be charged itself. I only needed to charge the case once in all of my time testing.
My only real gripe with the Insta360 Mic Pro is its case. The translucent front of the case makes it look like it is going to serve a purpose, but it does not. You cannot even really see the displays on the transmitters because the tinting is so dark.
Also, the way it opens is more awkward than in other cases because you have to push the latch back, then flip the lid back, which rotates from the top, rather than just pressing a button on the front to pop the lid. It is a testament to the mic kit, though, that this is where my complaints lie.
The Insta360 Mic Pro will retail for US$329.99, definitely on the higher end of mic kits. Offering the display is a big deal and definitely adds value to the kit, and the pickup patterns, for those who may use them, are a pretty unique feature among wireless mic kits like this. Add to that the well-thought-out design features, like the cold-shoe mount and its easy compatibility with so many devices, and you can see why it is worth the price.
The Insta360 Mic Pro, being the company’s first foray into a full wireless mic kit, is a great addition to Insta360’s creator lineup and deserves a place in the upper echelon of wireless mic kits on the market today. That is saying a lot, given what is already out there. Insta360 has created a user-friendly, great-sounding mic that is customizable to you and gives you the tools to foolproof your audio so you can record with confidence.
