One of my duties at work is setting up AV for and videotaping meetings in an auditorium. Many of these meetings invite questions from the audience and we need to be able to record these questions on the camcorders.
We have wireless mikes and the system is capable of inputing these mikes to the camcorder, but having someone run around with the mike just doesn’t work. People start talking before the mike gets to them. No matter how we beg.
I’ve seen parabolics at events and know a little about shotgun mikes, and I was wondering if anyone has had experience with picking out audience menbers with either. Wireless is much preferred, and price is, of course, an object. This is the corporate world after all.
We have a couple handheld mikes and two lapel types. Could we add a parabola to ,one of these?
Anyway, your help would be much appreciated. Neither me (I?), nor my partner, are experienced sound engineers
Peace,
mangeorge
Unless the technology has changed a LOT in the last 10 years in re: parabolic and shotgun mics, you ain’t gonna do so great. When I worked with both, the parabolic was a joke and the shotgun was the lesser of two evils. We had a semi-engineer, and he was worthless; what we came up with was getting with the talent before the meeting and letting him know that nobody would perform as expected, so we prepped him about having him stall, fumble etc… (“hey, there’s John Smith with a question! John, before asking your question, I was wondering if you could tell us what city you’re from [tech running breathlessly to John Smith]”)until one of our mics could get to the person asking the questions. It kinda worked, and the profs loved being in on the game.
best wishes,
hh
Thanks for sharing your experience, handsome. I feared as much when my local Guitar Center store guys knew what I was talking about, but didn’t know where to get such a thing.
We do have ceiling mikes. Maybe I’ll turn them back on and try to refine them to do the job. They can be controlled individually. Otherwise, I guess it’ll be back to the “Running Man” solution.
Thanks again,
mangeorge
Two ideas I’ve seen working:
-
Have a few fixed, floor standing mics scattered around. People who want to ask questions line up behind the floor mics.
-
Actively seek out the next question asker when the current one is asking. Have an assistant walk around the floor offering a mic to the next person who wants to ask a question.
I don’t know how well either of those would work in your situation.
I’d buy the shotgun. If it is loaded with the proper shells and wielded in a sufficiently threatening manner, there won’t be anyone left in the auditorium to hear the presentation anyway.
Thanks, Shalmanese. We might try your first idea.
But I think we’ll go with UncleBeerfor now.
So if parabolics suck, what did they used to use to pick up Football coaches conversations from the opposite side of the field? I know that nowadays they actually mic certain players, but I have this image of the huge parabolic mics about 10-15 years ago.
I thought about that too. But then I remembered that the audio from these players kinda sucked. I think they use shotgun mics now, and the audio still kinda sucks.
Pretty much as handsomeharry says (above).
This is exactly what I do (right as I’m typing, actually).
We have three “solutions.”
- Six rows, nine seats wide have mics built into the tables (The cabling for these are not shielded, so they are only useful when nobody in that section is recieving a cellphone call or Blackberry transmission)
- Two (sometimes three) mics on stands in the ailes
- For big events, we also use mic runners
The key to all of these either STRONG floor management or presenter cooperation, or preferrably both.
If the place is too big for one shotgun, what about having shotgun ‘zones’?
Say, if you’re in a room with 200 or so people, have four techs with shotguns strategically placed so all they have to do is point, and the questioner is never too far away. No waiting around for the mic guy. Plus you can avoid the weird stuff people do with microphones. Of course you’d have to buy more than one shotgun.
Oh yeah, and you’d have to but more techs 
buy more techs.
Actually, I think the correct term is hire more techs. Buying people has been frowned upon in this country for several years now.
No, around here we but(t) our techs. 
Anyway, you must work for a school, or the government or something. We don’t have a plethora of techs. Quite the opposite, actually.
I love my company!
Seriously tyough, I’ve been convinced that shotgun mics are too crappy.
Of course, but but(t)ing them is acceptable. As long as they’re consenting adults. 
I know, I know. I was trying to make a parallel. Didn’t quite pull it off.
Of course, it’s been many years since I did any of this, but **UncleBeer ** may be onto something.
hh