Best Microphones for Audience Recording (in science lectures)...

[NEWTON IN ORBIT]

For applause, or singling out a speaker for a question?

For applause, if trying to pick up the wide picture of the entire audience, a shotgun mic is the opposite of what you want. Maybe some omnis?

I'd use those, or maybe even try some cheapo PZM's on the sides, and back walls, with one omni in flown over the center aisle or something.

The shotgun will single out one or two people in in the audience with it's narrow pickup pattern, and make the crowd sound very small. It will sound like a crowd of 3-4 people with a bunch of people in the background.

If for the question to the speaker thing, a shotgun (still get as close as you can with a boom / fishpole) or come to the speaker with a wireless handheld cardioid, like an sm58 or something, or re15?

john

[front2back]

Thanks for the reply John - very useful. It's for picking up the questions from the audience (and some applause) but the problem is these questions often lead to much debate from other audience members (other scientists) and the speaker. A boom mic from question to speaker would be great but I think it would be impossible to jump between so many people plus we don't have someone available to do be hands on with so many talks. I think as you said, covering the whole room with omni's and PZM's would be best.

Do you know of a good omni that would work for this size of room on the ceiling??

Thanks again!

[NEWTON IN ORBIT]

Well, keep in mind, if not using a shotgun on a fishpole, or a close cardioid or lavalier, the "debate" you speak of will be a little distant and unfocused no matter what else you use.

I suppose you could try one crazy thing if you are not going to pursue mic placement, but positioning the mic will always get the better results.

Here's the half baked idea.

On ebay sometimes you see people selling auction "lots" of many Shure, Audio Technica, Beyer, Sennheiser, Crown, etc. PZM (or "Boundary) mics. These were typically used in conference and board rooms, or placed on tables and such at large conventions etc., to pickup every speaker at said table. Probably mixed in multi track later, or maybe just used for pa, although feedback would be a nightmare scenario live.

These do NOT have a wide freq response typically, are tailored for speech only and are a couple notches up from conference table telephone communications type omnis etc. Well, maybe a bit better than that.

The ones I have used and own however, are EXTREMELY sensitive, almost to a fault, and have a ton of reach, meaning they will pickup whatever from quite a distance.

Anyway, you could potentially grab one of these lots with like 8-10 pzm mics in them or whatever, and arrange them in "zones" around the room, record them to their own track, and mix them later. Arrange them so that none of the mics is too far from where anybody in the audience is sitting.

Later, on mixdown, you mute ALL other mics save the one that the speaking audience member was nearest at the time, and this could probably give you clean enough pickup to use. It's still never going to be as good as somebody pointing a mic at the speaker though.

That said, if I had no other choice, and I wanted to be covered, I'd maybe try this. If doing the recording by yourself for example, and you don't have the capability of making it to debate speaker #2 in time to catch his rebuttal, so something like this might be the only way to go?

A couple of lots here (see link at bottom), and some cheap deals.

None of the huge ones I had seen before though.

I once saw some crazy auction with like 30 of these AT mics.

You will have to experiment to see how far you can be in your room before the sound starts to suck, and lose intelligibility. This will tell you how many mics you need to cover the whole room.

Thankfully, there are some singles as cheap as $29.00. I have some Beyer models that are very good at this type thing.

Don't know how good the other cheap ones are, but that's probably used price to begin with, and you are not going for a studio vocalist on a U67 tone anyway right?

Good luck, hope it helps some,
john

boundary mic | eBay

[Go Nigel Go]

Bear in mind that if you mic everything evenly, everything will be louder but still the same relative loudness. That is the same problem you have now, only not as loud. The beauty of something like a shotgun mic is that it focuses on a narrow slice of the pie and makes that louder everything else gets no help. The downside is that someone has to keep the mic pointing the right way as the focus source changes or else it only helps one person, like giving them a mic and nobody else.
Since you obviously can't afford to mic everyone individually and have a bunch of sound people riding faders as the speaker changes, you will need to come up with a different system. I think even a boom/fishpole option or shotgun mic would be distracting and lead to "hamming" in the audience. The time tested and proven method is an audience podium that a recognized speaker from the audience approaches and is allowed to speak. This reduces spontaneity perhaps, but has the side benefit of forcing people to think before they speak. Not such a bad thing really...

[NEWTON IN ORBIT]

Thats a great idea, if he can get them to play along. I still think if you get enough of those pzms around, and in mixdown, mute the ones that are not closest to the active speaker, he will get a better pickup than flying one mic over the entire audience.

The major issue with pzms is that they have this great "reach" and all, but that reach will not only pickup the speaker, but any other non-desired sound a bit too, unless the crows is extremely quiet. Even then, clothes rustling, fidgeting in seats, a loud chewing gum chewer, all this will be picked up by a sensitive pzm with its forward gain boost, and slight treble lift. Unbelievable how sensitive these things can be.

If you had enough of them taped to chair backs, or sides of seats in aisles etc. you might be able to make it go though. Just mute everything esle while audience member is asking question, even the stage mics.

If this all is going via the PA, no dice, ain't going to work, and Go Nigel Go is entirely correct. Going to have to do it his way, or get a student or intern whatever to position the mics if you can't pay anybody.

Good luck,
john

[front2back]

Thanks for both of your replies. I've decided I'm going to test some boundry mics out first (side and hanging) and see how this goes during the mix. If it is becoming a problem with unwanted noise then I will look to the old tried and tested method of questions being answered by using a dedicated mic. Never easy is it .

[jwh1192]

416's on the audience ... have 2 hand mics available, one on each side of the room ... get a mic to anyone asking a question and you will be good ...

without the handmics you will be going for full tilt gain on the Audience Mics to get a question and bringing up every sniff, scratch, and cough in the room at the same time ...

the other thing is to have people come to a central mic location or locations for their question ...

just a few thoughts ..