I am one of the ‘sound guys’ for my church and I am looking for some advice or any real world experience with feedback reducers. We are having trouble with feedback from a clip on lapel mic and I’m looking for a little help. If anyone can make any suggestions as to the usefulness of particular models or post any tips I would be grateful.
Preferred features:
Automatically finds and rolls off problem frequencies (not a manual narrow band parametric EQ)
Two channels would be nice but not required
Rack Mounted
Obviously the lower the price the better.
Background
The room is horrible. It was originally designed for a large choir and a minister speaking from a podium. It was purchased by the current church and the stage area was completely renovated and changed. The room has all sorts of weird angles (nothing anywhere is 90°) and an overhanging balcony. The house mains are straight above the podium pointing at an angle toward the back of the room. The sound comes down from the mains, bounces off the top of the podium to the wireless lapel mic and feeds back. We have tried lots of different things but most won’t work for one reason or another; moved the podium out from under the mains (people can’t see the minister), covered the top of the podium with sound absorbing material (looks horrible and only provided marginal reduction in feedback), we have worked on mic placement and taught the ministers about good mic technique (don’t cup your hands or place your books too near the mic) and last, hired a professional sound engineer to ring out the room. Basically shy of spending serious $$ to move the mains and add some fill speakers we are stuck.