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[adarnellb]

My church is currently in a community center, so we are limited by space (~50' x 40'). I have been trying to eliminate feedback we get from our lapel mic but am having little success. We have a basic all in one Peavy sound system that has 5 channels, and an equalizer. Using our handheld cordless mic, I get no feedback, but with the lapel I get feedback and can't figure out how to cut it out. Any suggestions?

I have attached a diagram of our setup. Help would be greatly appreciated.

Arik

[Mike Sveda]

Looks like the speakers are pointed at the podium. Not the ideal layout. It be better to have the speakers forward of the podium pointed at the audience.

[adarnellb]

I agree on the layout. However, we don't have enough space to move the speakers up to the front. Musicians sit to the right of the room, and the entrance to the room is there as well. I wish we had a bigger space.

[Bob.Witte]

Most likely you have an "omni" lapel (many are) whereas the pickup pattern of the hand held microphone is most likely cardioid. With the speakers out front, an Omni pattern will give you very low gain before feedback.

The speakers location must make the musicians, listening to what they are playing, a real treat - they'll hear the monitor sound, then the main speaker sound.....

How are the speakers mounted? Is it possible to move them to the podium area - making a "center cluster"?

Options - if you can't move speakers - try a cardioid pickup pattern lapel.

[Mike Sveda]

Perhaps some pics of the place with a digital camera?

[txsound]

You definitely have the speaker placement working against you and the lapel mike may be as well if it is an omni directional mike.  If it is an omni, switching to a cardiod or hyper cardiod will certainly help, but you won't be able to achieve maximum gain without changing the speaker location.  An EQ will help some, and a feedback eliminator such as Sabine could give you some improvement, although it too can be limited by speaker placement.

[Erwin Mol]

Def. agree on the posts above. It seems a bit weird to me to see the preacher preach in front of you and hear him from the back.

What kind of EQ do you use. Is it a 31 band? You could place the eq between your lapel input and mixer. This way you can find out at which frequency the mic is ringing.

How to do that?
- Gain the mic until you can hear the first squeal
- Bump it down just a bit so you cant hear it ringing anymore
- Find out which fq it was by bringing a slide on the EQ up a bit, when you hear the same freq as at step 2 that's the one!
- Put that slide down to about -3dB
- Repeat these steps until you hear it ringing on about 3 different freqs, now you cant really go any further.

Maybe this helps, good luck!

Erwin

[Bob Payne]

Forget the lapel microphone and go with a headset mic.  Some of the smaller ones, such as the Countryman E6, are nearly invisible beyond a dozen feet or so and will offer the highest possible gain before feedback.  

In other words, if you can't get the speakers further away from the pastor (or re-direct them away from him), than you can still increase your immunity to feedback by moving the microphone closer to his mouth.

[David Haile]

We're presently in a similar room, used to have the same problem, used to "ring it out" into submission.  Good advice and some experimentation and I can now officially declare that we have it fixed and know how to keep fixing it if it comes back again.  The speaker placement and direction is important, but our solution was a 31-band EQ set flat with a deep 12db cut on the particular frequency that was causing a booming sound (400-450Hz - corresponds to the distance from the pastor to the speakers).  Also - maybe more important - keep your volume down!!!  A highly reverberant room really can sound OK only if you keep the levels down.  If you try to recreate a rock concert it is going to sound terrible if you can get over the feedback issues.

Before this change the pastor often sounded like a duck with a cold.  Now his sound is nearly effortless and very natural.  Per Radio Shack sound meter, we're almost always less than 90dB when the Praise Band is playing.

[Jay M]

rlp wrote on Tue, 19 April 2005 00:38

Forget the lapel microphone and go with a headset mic.  Some of the smaller ones, such as the Countryman E6, are nearly invisible beyond a dozen feet or so and will offer the highest possible gain before feedback.   In other words, if you can't get the speakers further away from the pastor (or re-direct them away from him), than you can still increase your immunity to feedback by moving the microphone closer to his mouth.

It is my opinion that NO professional speaker should EVER be without a headset mic.

It will make the single biggest improvement in the sound system.  

-You will be able to EQ for sound quality instead of feedback elemination.  
-There will be no off axis coloration.
-People will be able to pay better attention to the preaching.... isn't that why we are there??

If the pastor is hesitant to wear one and says that he doesn't want to look like Garth Brooks or Britney Spears, just point out that they care less about image and more about being heard!

~Jay

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