Is the Sennheiser Profile USB Mic a Must for Filmmakers?

An Endorsement from Audio Editors

What you want out of a podcast microphone can vary widely, but today the goal should be something very simple to use, which is where the profile from Sennheiser delivers.

Sennheiser is of course hyper-conscious of the audio sounding good; it’s their reputation on the line, and the profile delivers clear, crisp audio that meets professional standards.

We’ve been using them on the NFS podcast even since NAB and haven’t gotten any complaints from the editing team, which is high endorsement indeed and not something that is true of all microphones.

Ease of Use 

But where the profile really shines is in the ease of use. While most modern USB microphones are easy, they usually require something like a driver to be installed or some other fiddling under the hood to work.

The work that has gone into the profile has made this feel seamless. Plug it into a Mac or a PC, and it’s just there as a source in your inputs. No muss or fuss.

Controls and Pattern

On top of that, the Sennheiser Profile USB Mic has simple, clean, and very usable onboard body controls. This was one of those features that made our setup before each show a breeze.

You can mute it on the body, adjust your headphone volume, and gain. These controls are right on the front, so they are easy to adjust while you are in the middle of using the unit and have nice displays to make it easy to read even in relatively low-light scenarios.

There's also an indicator light to tell you if you're muted or not, which is a nice touch when you need to glance at your setup and know if you have audio or not.

One thing to be aware of is that this microphone only has one pickup (polar) pattern.

It’s the right setting for audio recording use and feels like a reasonable and even smart decision for the designers at Sennheiser. Having used a competitor's microphone with multiple pickup patterns for more than a decade, I have never actually found myself switching pickup patterns. I chose one, and the switch has remained in place for all those years. Switching pickup patterns requires another switch and internal technology to enable.

Having a microphone designed for just one thing is a smart compromise, but it means this microphone won’t work as a room microphone or for sharing with a partner. Still, those are different situations entirely, and you might as well get a separate microphone for those scenarios.

Two Versions, One Choice (At Least for Us)

The Sennheiser Profile USB Mic comes in two flavors. One with a stand and one with an arm. Unfortunately, they are not interchangeable, but for our use case, the arm version was the perfect fit.

It seems like a small thing, but it is head and shoulders the best arm out there. It’s a little bit stiff out of the box, but once you put your microphone somewhere, it just stays right where you put it.

As someone who constantly had to readjust his old microphone to stay right on the edge of frame without it sneaking in, it’s been a miracle worker with this setup.

Hopefully, in the future, they’ll make a pop filter to go with it with a similar power to stay in place since, right now, every pop filter I’ve used tends to gently sink over time.

Overall, for an in-studio setup (there are other microphones that are easier to travel with, like the Rode NT-USB Mini), the Sennheiser Profile really nails the price-to-benefit sweet spot. It might even make a great Christmas gift for the filmmaker in your life.

As someone who constantly had to readjust his old microphone to stay right on the edge of frame without it sneaking in, it’s been a miracle working with this setup.

Hopefully, in the future, they’ll make a pop filter to go with it with a similar power to stay in place since, right now, every pop filter I’ve used tends to gently sink over time.

Overall, for an in-studio setup (there are other microphones that are easier to travel with, like the Rode NT-USB Mini), the Sennheiser Profile really nails the price-to-benefit sweet spot. It might even make a great Christmas gift for the filmmaker in your life.