Taping a recorder to a microphone

[D.R. Gates]

Originally Posted by Adrian Tan

The more problematic case is if the DJ cuts the signal to your recorder during the reception without telling you or just without noticing, which from time to time will happen.

Which is why I was interested in that new Tascam that could show it's levels on your smartphone via Wifi. But I've heard that particular feature is too glitchy.

[Michael Silverman]

I've read some posts from people on this forum who place a bluetooth dongle on the recorder's headphone jack and it will send a bluetooth signal to a set of headphones. This will allow them to monitor the audio from anywhere in the room and then if they need to adjust it they can just head over to the recorder. Of course, if this happens during a toast then you wouldn't be able to do anything about it unless you leave your camera.

For next wedding season I'm bringing an assistant along to each shoot to help with various tasks, and one of these will be to monitor and adjust the recorder's levels. This way I won't have any surprises when I get home (at least not in that regard).

[Clive McLaughlin]

Out of interest, I did a wedding last week at a a new venue I haven't shot at before.

I asked a member of staff if I could speak to somebody about sound options. There immediate response was 'Oh, can you just tape a recorder to the mic?'

Quite a contrast with some other venues who have basically banned the practice.

[Adrian Tan]

Had a wedding on Saturday where reception audio worked like this: couldn’t get any signal at all from DJ. So, started looking at the soundspeakers. I could plug into the back of them, and I also dangled a lapel mic from the front, but I could hear before anything started playing that there was a continuous hissing noise, and the sound from these two sources did turn out pretty dirty.

No lectern to mic up. Instead, there was a Shure SM58 attached to an XLR cable. Each speaker wandered in an area 2m from one end of the bridal table.

Seemed to me that the remaining options were: (1) random microphones placed around bridal table or elsewhere in room (wouldn’t have been happy with sound quality from this); (2) splitting the feed from the microphone (but would have been tricky to secure the recorder to it given that each speaker was moving around a bit); (3) miking up each speaker individually (possible, but fiddly; plus, there were two impromptu speakers in there that I wouldn’t have anticipated); (4) rely on on-camera sound (no better than option 1); (5) place a microphone on a stand and encourage people to speak into it (but I'm sceptical that people listen to instructions like this, especially given that their mind is elsewhere); or (6) tape something to the microphone.

Was very glad to have the last option, even when the speakers occasionally waved their microphone around waist height. (When they did, they themselves could hear they were getting no sound, so they self-corrected.)

[Robert Benda]

As the guy who has made his living being a wedding DJ, I can't tell you how absurd I find it you all have so much trouble getting a line out from these guys... except it happened to me recently, too. Rather than fight with the kid, I just did the other options.

Much better to think through all our options here, on the forum, than being screwed with our pants on the day of, that's for sure.

I might start calling the DJ in advance to help discover how cooperative he is and make sure there are no surprises.

Now my videography sound bag has several of the same cords as my DJ rig to help:
headphone to headphone (headphone jack on a mixer won't usually get you mic feed, but can get you music at a church)
RCA to headphone (common mixer output option)
XLR to XLR (should be safe to go from a powered speaker to Tascam recorder)

[Paul Ekert]

Originally Posted by Adrian Tan

Had a wedding on Saturday where reception audio worked like this: couldn’t get any signal at all from DJ. So, started looking at the soundspeakers. I could plug into the back of them, and I also dangled a lapel mic from the front, but I could hear before anything started playing that there was a continuous hissing noise, and the sound from these two sources did turn out pretty dirty.

No lectern to mic up. Instead, there was a Shure SM58 attached to an XLR cable. Each speaker wandered in an area 2m from one end of the bridal table.

Seemed to me that the remaining options were: (1) random microphones placed around bridal table or elsewhere in room (wouldn’t have been happy with sound quality from this); (2) splitting the feed from the microphone (but would have been tricky to secure the recorder to it given that each speaker was moving around a bit); (3) miking up each speaker individually (possible, but fiddly; plus, there were two impromptu speakers in there that I wouldn’t have anticipated); (4) rely on on-camera sound (no better than option 1); (5) place a microphone on a stand and encourage people to speak into it (but I'm sceptical that people listen to instructions like this, especially given that their mind is elsewhere); or (6) tape something to the microphone.

Was very glad to have the last option, even when the speakers occasionally waved their microphone around waist height. (When they did, they themselves could hear they were getting no sound, so they self-corrected.)

How did you solve it in the end and what were the results like?

[Michael Silverman]

Originally Posted by Robert Benda

I might start calling the DJ in advance to help discover how cooperative he is and make sure there are no surprises.

I began emailing the DJ ahead of time this summer and I found that the DJs really appreciated me contacting them prior to the wedding. When I met one of them at the venue, he thanked me a second time for reaching out to him before the wedding and he said that he would get annoyed when some videographers would run up to him 10 minutes before the wedding introductions and ask him for a line out but they wouldn't have their own adaptors. He said this can be tough because he's got to finish getting ready for his own responsibilities and did not have time to search through his gear for a 1/4" to XLR adaptor for the videographer.

So I think it's very wise to reach out to the DJ beforehand just to confirm that it's not a problem to get a feed from him. They have never said no to the request, but I think they appreciate it as a courtesy (kind of like asking a father if you can marry his daughter...except totally different lol).

[Adrian Tan]

Originally Posted by Paul Ekert

How did you solve it in the end and what were the results like?

Hey Paul, here's a sample.

Password: "sound".

Private Video on Vimeo

I guess one thing to pay attention to is the silences, and what the quality of the noise is like.

The on-camera sound I think is being affected by noisy preamps on the DSLR. The lapel microphone and plug-in to the speakers I think are affected by noisy speakers. The only thing I did to the Yamaha sound in Audition was noise reduction then raising the lower frequencies.

Yamaha still sounds "thin" to me, whatever that means, in comparison with, say, the plug-in to the speakers. I know next to nothing about sound, and don't know, without playing around with effects, what to do to fix it.

If the other sources were noise reduced, I think they'd sound a lot better, but Yamaha was clearly the cleanest sound to start with.

[Michael Silverman]

Which recorder did you use Adrian? It sounds quite good.

[Adrian Tan]

Taped to mic: Yamaha C24.

Plugged into soundspeaker: Tascam DR-100.

Lapel mic: Tram TR50 into Roland R-05.

[Michael Silverman]

I was initially not going to try taping a recorder to the microphone but it seems like something that's worth exploring if I can secure it discreetly. I like the idea of using hair bands or maybe black rubber bands to hold it onto the microphone.

In looking online, it looks like the Yamaha C24 is no longer available. I've seen a few posts where people use the Sony ICDPX333 to place in the groom's pocket during the ceremony and this looks like it would be small enough to be less intrusive than something like my Tascam DR-05 (the silver mics on the DR-05 would probably draw attention to it). The downside with the Sony is that is records to MP3 rather than WAV. However, it does have a 48kHz option which is good to see.

Because the Sony is black, thin, and lightweight I think it might be a good option. However, does anyone else have any other recorder suggestions that would be very discreet and record in 48kHz WAV rather than MP3?

[Joel Peregrine]

Hi Peter,

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

One method I might adopt for next season is to tape an audio recorder direct to the microphone handed to the people making speeches.

The iriver recorders I used up until 2013 were great for taping directly to the toast mic. I used a button lav (mentioned in the following forum post from 2009) which unfortunately isn't available anymore.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/wedding-...pproaches.html

Now I'm taping Yamaha C24's directly to the handheld mic when possible. I have a piece of foam that goes between the recorder and the mic for a better fit and use 4" wide gaffers tape to secure it, making sure the on/off on the mic itself is accessible.

[Kevin Fonash]

To everyone attaching their recorders to the DJ's mic... are you running the recorder in auto, or what level? I have an H1.

[Adrian Tan]

Auto here, on Yamaha C24. I know people who run H1 on auto as well.

[Kevin Fonash]

Hey Guys-

Found this Bluetooth Mic System by Sony. Any thoughts on it? Theoretically, I could place the receiver along with my H1 in my pocket, and record/monitor live audio with headphones. I only would use this for Introductions and Toasts. I would tape the transmitter to the DJ's handheld mic. I was looking for something small enough- I had resistance from the DJ this past weekend when I wrapped my H1 around the mic.

Amazon.com: Sony Bluetooth Wireless Microphone System: Musical Instruments