Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Mar..]

My pastor has asked that I purchase two gooseneck mics for our pulpit. He wants one placed on each of the back corners of our pulpit. I also need to buy one for use on our mixing board for use as a talk back... Ive never worked with goosenecks before...any suggestions??

thanks...

[Tom Young]

Make sure that you and your pastor are ware that in using 2 microphones for *any* single source there will be severe combfiltering (cancellations) if they are both turned on. The reason folks use 2 mic's for spoken word in live (portable) church events, conventions, press conferences, etc, is for backup. One mic is on and the other is off but it may be turned on if the first one fails.

I never specify or provide 2 microphones for pulpits and other permanently installed applications/systems because the equipment we have available today is very reliable.

My current favorite gooseneck mic is the Flex from Earthworks. Second to that is the similar device from Clock Audio. Model C34E/SR. They both sound *very* natural and exhibit very good cardioid response. I recommend the longest goosenecks so that they can be positioned appropriately for any talker.

www.earthworksaudio.com

www.clockaudio.com

Be aware that if your podium/pulpit is not built solidly it may contribute mechanically induced rumble into the mic. For this reason I often use an isolating device such as the Clock Audio Model SM75 and I also employ a channel high-pass filter.

[Kevin Maxwell AKA TheMAXX]

I will try to give the quick answer for now.

For using one as a talk back mic. First, most of the gooseneck mics like what you are talking about require Phantom power. Depending on the mixer that you are using it may not have phantom power on the talk back mic connector. If it does it may need to have a jumper soldered in the mixer to make it active. Also they are very susceptible to P popping if used very close. Since you are likely to use it that way (very close) I would suggest that you don’t use this type of mic for talk back. You can get male and female XLR connectors that screw into a gooseneck (you need to wire it up) and can then plug that into the consoles TB connector and plug a normal mic into it. Or you could get a mic like an EV 635 that will fit into a panel mount connector and then just lean into it when you need to use it. I have done all 3 of the above for talkback on mixers.

Now for the pulpit. When you say in the back corners, I assume that you mean the corners near the congregation. The short answer is don’t do 2. The long answer is people use 2 for various reasons so then people who have no idea why think that’s the way they have seen it done so that’s the way they should do it. Some of the reasons to use 2 is 1 is a back up and only one should be on at a time. The other is certain religions have 2 people up at the podium at the same time and there is 1 for each person. Another reason is to get a wider pickup pattern. This should only be done if the heads of the mics are touching each other and they are cross shooting their pickup pattern. Otherwise you can get phase cancellations between the 2 mics and that doesn’t sound very good. There is a rule in audio called the 3 to 1 rule. This rule states (this is the idea not the actual wording) that the distance from second mic picking up a source should be 3 times the distance from the source (person speaking) as the primary mic is from the source otherwise you will have phase problems. So if mic 1 is 1 foot away from the person speaking then there shouldn’t be another mic that can pick up that person speaking that is closer then 3 feet.

All pulpit gooseneck mics as I mentioned, are very susceptible to P popping so they are not meant to be used very close to the person speaking so be sure that they are not too close. The windscreens that they come with must be used. I saw someone who was at least 18 inches away talking into one of these mics without the wind screen and the P popping was horrible. They are usually also very sensitive to handling noise so be sure to use a shock mount.

You should see what the long answer would look like. Details on what mic I use later. I am going out now.

As I was about to post this I noticed that Tom beat me to the punch so I am probably repeating a lot of what Tom said. I will read his after posting this.

[eclectic-ken]

We went with a Countryman IsoMax IV.  Mostly b/c of the reviews/comments from searches I gleaned at the LAB board archives.  

We've been quite pleased with it.  Very natural sound and low handling noise.  I wish I had read the comment above about getting the longest gooseneck you can--that's great advice--before we bought ours.  I would've bought longer had I given it more thought at the time.  It's the guys that are 6'4" that push the mic to its limits.

I don't have much experience with any others--there's some EV and audio-technica mics that I've used at a school district board room that don't impress me.  But, I'm sure they're not very high on quality scale of those makers.  I've used other types of mics by both makers that were quite impressive.

[Dan Timon]

Tom's and Kevin's remarks about phase interference are spot on. Because pastors and other decision makers often insist on such an arrangement, use an automixer like the PV or the Shure SCM 410 to make sure that only mic will be picking up the voice.

Sorry I would do the links but my arm is in a cast and I am typing with 1 finger.

Good luck,

Dan Timon

[ProSoundWeb Community]