Good Audio Recorders for Wedddings

[Steven Davis]

Originally Posted by Taky Cheung

I put together some comparison of 5 recorders

Five Voice Recorders Internal Microphone Shootout | L.A. Color Pros Blog

Ok, I thought you were doing a video on marrying voice recorders, I was about to crack up............. but good stuff. I'm just trying to find a back up since my sennheisers drop out randomly.

[Adrian Tan]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

The only limiting factor is that the surface it sits on needs to be at least a metre square to be really effective so a bridal table is usually plenty enough .... it does lose a LOT of output on a soft surface like a carpet but even a white table cloth over the table doesn't limit it too much!

Hey Chris, I don't know anything about boundary mics, so I don't know how they work and am really curious about them.

What about all the other junk on the bridal table -- plates, flowers, handbags, etc? Does that interfere with the quality of the sound?

And if they're passing the microphone around the bridal table, where does one position the microphone? Would you need an omni rather than a cardioid pattern for this purpose?

[Chris Harding]

Hi Adrian

As long as you make a clear space on the table for around say 30cm square it doesn't affect the pickup at all. Obviously you cannot dump a handbag on top of the capsule ...AKG suggest a clear 400 x 400mm surface around the capsule but I have had to work with far less space than that quite often.

Usually as long as you are within 2 metres of the person talking you will get great audio! I guess bridal table that stretch the entire width of the room might need replacing the position a bit but it's not really that critical ..it uses the surface area around it to also add to the sound "gathering" They are used extensively at conferences where you have groups around a table and putting one in the middle of the table serves the entire table!

It also works extremely well on a lectern where you might have a combined speech session from say, 3 groomsmen who are all standing well back and a lav on the lectern becomes ineffective!

I'm prepping for a big wedding tomorrow where I'm doing both stills and video but after that I'll see if I can show you a quick test using a fixed position desk mic and a boundary mic.

Chris

[Paul Mailath]

I go straight to the desk and also talk to the bride about not using the venue mike.

I came up with this solution which I use all the time now, either as backup or the main sound if I can't get anything else.

recorder mount for handheld Mike by Perbenyik on Shapeways