Am I making the right choice here?

[Nathan Buck]

Audio is one of the most important parts of a wedding video. I now have a Sennheiser AVX and a Zoom H1/Rode Lav combo.

Both work well. With this I can mic up two speakers during the speeches, but I'd like to mic up three.

I've thought about getting a Rode Filmmaker kit on the recommendation of a friend, but actually I think I will get another Zoom/Lav combo. Is this the right idea?

The reasons being:

1. Zoom/lav is marginally cheaper.
2. I don't fancy running two different wireless systems with the RodeLink/AVX combo.
3. Increased interference with the 2.4ghz range.
4. The zoom worked just fine and was fast to get going.
5. I can still feed my shotgun into the camera rather than taking up two XLRs and having to rely on an external audio recorder for ambient.
6. It's nice to have the audio recorder spare for desk feeds.
7. I like the AVX more! It's just a great bit of kit. I'd rather just buy another one of these in the future.

For my own sanity, can we agree this is the correct decision?

Thanks :)

[Noa Put]

How is that avx working out for you, are you getting dropouts in audio recording? I was considering this for my JVC.
The zoom h1 is a great recorder but I find it a bit on the big side to put inside a jacket pocket, currently I use a yamaha c24 with a lav which they don't sell anymore and a sony icd recorder, both are very small and have good enough soundquality, the only disadvantage you have is that you can't monitor audio like you can with your avx. But if your avx system would fail for whatever reason in the middle of a ceremony, you can't just interrupt a ceremony or say halfway the vows, "pls wait while I exchange the recorder"
That's why I always have a recorder (tascam dr05) in front of a soundspeaker as backup.

The zoom h1 also has a quite good auto gain which is nearly not as aggressive in adjusting levels like the tascam dr05 does.

[Steve Burkett]

I'm using the Tascam DR-10c and it's a brilliant recorder, useful for wither wireless or standalone. Having the ability to record audio at 2 different levels is a fantastic feature, I wish was available on other audio recorders.

It's small and light and works with my seinheisser mics, though there's an option to choose a model that works with another lapel mic, when you buy one. I'm thinking of adding a 2ND seinheisser and Tascam to my setup so I can mic up 2. 3 would be nice but expensive for minimum use. Too many of my speeches run to 4 or more speakers, or at least of late. It's easier to get them to share 1 recorder than mic them all.

[Art Varga]

+1 on the Tascam DR-10C. Also look at the Juiced Link Little Darling. I've moved off of my wireless system in favor of these compact but great little recorders.

Art

[Rob Cantwell]

I have two yamaha c24 and two Sony ICD-PX333 plus a Sennheiser EW135G3 Evolution Wireless Microphone System.
They all work very good - quality is pretty ok. The digital recorders will run for hours and hours.

This setup allows me a good deal of choice and enough built in redundancy should anything get FUBARed

[Nathan Buck]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

How is that avx working out for you, are you getting dropouts in audio recording? I was considering this for my JVC.
The zoom h1 is a great recorder but I find it a bit on the big side to put inside a jacket pocket, currently I use a yamaha c24 with a lav which they don't sell anymore and a sony icd recorder, both are very small and have good enough soundquality, the only disadvantage you have is that you can't monitor audio like you can with your avx. But if your avx system would fail for whatever reason in the middle of a ceremony, you can't just interrupt a ceremony or say halfway the vows, "pls wait while I exchange the recorder"
That's why I always have a recorder (tascam dr05) in front of a soundspeaker as backup.

The zoom h1 also has a quite good auto gain which is nearly not as aggressive in adjusting levels like the tascam dr05 does.

The AVX is great - so simple to set up, I've paired the transmitter/receiver once when I took it out the box, as you'd expect. On the day of a wedding I just mic up the groom when I get to the church and make sure it's switched on. That's it. No faffing with levels, nothing. The only time I've had interference was during an interview when I got a little bit - but I was in a hospital so that could have been any number of things.

The receiver is the best part, so clever how it plugs straight into the XLR socket. The only thing I'd say is to buy a spare battery for it (you probably would anyway). The transmitter lasts 11 hours, but the receiver only around 4. The first wedding I ever did I accidentally left it powered on and by the time it came to use it it was dead. It does detect the phantom power of your camera, and will power itself on and off according to that - but if you leave it plugged on your camera for the bridal prep it's just going to be eating up battery by the time you get to the church. I think you can turn it off, but I've found the best way is to just leave it in your bag until you get there and then plug it in when you mic up the groom.

I have a USB power bank in my camera bag with cables that feed into the main compartment. When I put it away after the ceremony I just plug it into that and by the time the speeches roll over it's already recharged and good to go again - or just swap the spare battery in obviously.

I've gone for another Zoom/rode lav combo again. It just made sense not running three different audio systems! In the future I'll get another AVX kit for sure.

How close do you place the recorder next to the speaker, and do you use the auto gain on the Zoom for speeches/next to the speaker? I may start doing this.