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Church and H.O.W. – Forums for HOW Sound and AV - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Church and HOW Forums => Church Sound => Topic started by: Bill Jones on April 29, 2021, 09:40:27 AM
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When we live stream, we have a session where the audience has comments. We are currently carrying a wireless mic to each person, but that has some challenges when it is hard to reach someone in the middle of the row. I would like to add a shotgun mic or some other type ?? that we could mount at the front and leave it there, and point it toward the pews to pick up anybody that has comments. Our building is 50 feet wide and 80 feet long. Any suggestions?
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I'm not sure the specific mic is all that critical. I am using a Shure SM81 (primarily because it sounded the best of what I had available) for ambience in our building. Due to the acoustics of the building-it is an old (1860's) vaulted ceiling with the peak running opposite of what you would expect-I simply put it at the front and pointed it at the big "reflector" in the back. It works surprisingly well with one caveat-it is unbearable with "normal" program material-speakers/singers on platform. Works well with congregational and if, say an usher, is praying from the congregation, but it creates a significant reverb otherwise. Take away is, it needs to be managed mic-not set and forget.
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I didn't say this in my original post, but I assume I'll need two - one for each side of the center aisle. We would, of course, pull the sliders all the way down except when someone is speaking from out in the congregation.
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You probably will not get better sound than using a mic as you are. Audience mics can work, but at the point someone is watching this stream on cellphone or laptop with tiny speakers the end result is that they will likely miss what the person is saying.
You can however simplify how people utilize the HH's, so instead of roving mics the following can be a good way to get participation:
1. Have people bring questions/comments to the front (ie have a Q&A mic upfront, sometimes having a moderator who can hold/pull it away is good depending on the circumstance).
2. Have people submit questions/comments digitally, then having a moderator/pastor etc read them.
(edited for clarity)
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You probably will not get better sound than using a mic as you are. Audience mics can work, but at the point someone is watching this stream on cellphone or laptop with tiny speakers the end result is that they will likely miss what the person is saying.
Some ways to make that easier:
1. Have people bring questions/comments to the front.
2. Have people submit questions/comments digitally
Make sure the question is repeated for the stream audience.
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If you do room fix mics do you plan to bring those into the PA and amplify it or only send it to the live stream?
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If you do room fix mics do you plan to bring those into the PA and amplify it or only send it to the live stream?
We would do both. We have separate sliders on our sound board so that we can control them separately.
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We would do both. We have separate sliders on our sound board so that we can control them separately.
The loudest sound at the mic - wins. Distance from mouth to mic is not your friend.
Lots of hanging mini-shotgun mics can kind of work, but that's expensive and ugly.
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The loudest sound at the mic - wins. Distance from mouth to mic is not your friend.
Lots of hanging mini-shotgun mics can kind of work, but that's expensive and ugly.
I was hoping there was a magic bullet, but the more I think about this, the more I think shotgun mics is not a good idea. We will probably stick with what we have - roving wireless mic.
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I was hoping there was a magic bullet, but the more I think about this, the more I think shotgun mics is not a good idea. We will probably stick with what we have - roving wireless mic.
As much as a pain roving mics are, they seem to be the best solution. I've seen mics taped to a pole to get them in the middle of the aisle. I think we use hockey sticks for that in Canada. :)
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2 words...boom mic.
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Yea a shotgun mic 30 feet away from a person speaking MAY work for the live stream but stands no good chance of working fed in the PA system.
Maybe pick up another wireless mic or two and have the mic runners stationed around
the seating area.
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You need one of the old Sony ECM 31/51 (and possibly others) extendable mic, originally used on shows like "Match Game" (with our UK version using a home made version of the same thing).
(https://farm7.static.flickr.com/6002/5947430472_7b433337a3_z.jpg)
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Phil Donahue 'em!
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You could try a "hybrid" approach -- have a couple of people carrying shotgun microphones with wireless transmitters, and have them go to near where the audience member is and point it at them from the aisle.
You'd get better unwanted noise rejection than just setting the shotgun mic at the front, and the quality of the sound will be better due to lower room reflections. ("Loudest sound at the mic wins" principle.)
Or you could go really nerdy and have someone with a parabolic mic sitting at the front, pointing it in the direction of the audience member. (NOTE: I haven't tried this!)