Help with audio for vows
 

Hi,
I had some trouble with my audio from a wedding this weekend. Even during the ceremony the celebrants wireless mic and the wireless mics I was using on the groom and readers appeared to interfere with each other.

I've never had that before so when I got back I checked it to see how it came out.

It was very very low (I am pretty sure I kept it on the same settings as I always do) and when I boost it in audition it gets alot of hiss. I tried the filters but am kind of just guessing.

Does anyone have any specific steps that I could follow to improve the audio.

I have uploaded a ten second sample of the audio to:
http://www.yamatotraders.com/vows.wav

If anybody has some some suggestions I would be very grateful.

Regards,
Troy

Were they getting married under a highway overpass? :) Sounds like there's a lot of traffic noise coming from somewhere. You might try applying noise reduction and some low-pass equalization to clean up the background sound so you can raise the lower levels into balance. The celebrant's mic (that's the female voice?) sounded normal but in that clip it sounds like the groom's mic wasn't even on and his voice only being picked up on her mic. Could he have accidently pulled the mic cable out of its socket, pulled the mic off his lapel, or taken it off during a washroom visit and forgotten to reconnect it? Don't be offended at the question but did you remember to put in fresh batteries immediately before the ceremony and test to make sure all mics were working properly after they were placed on the subjects?

Thanks
 

HI Steve,

It was near a busy road but not near enough that it should have picked up that much noise. I usea new set of batteries for every shoot so that shouldn't be an issue. And I also do a sound check with the groom immediately after placing the mic.

I will try your suggestions. Thanks for helping.

Regards,
Troy

Don't know what you use for monitoring but when I listened to the clip you posted with my setup (Windows media player --> Echo Audiofire interface --> Mackie mixer --> Sony MDR1706 headphones) the traffic noises are very apparent.

Could the groom have gone to the washroom or something that could have disconnected his mic or pulled the lav off of wherever you placed it after you finished setting him up but before the ceremony started?

Possibly?
 

The ceremony was outside (obviously) and he probably didn't have time to hit the washroom however, I place the transmitter in his inside jacket pocket. There is a chance he could have put his hand in, put something else in there (mobile phone etc.). So can't rule that out. The connections actually screww into the transmitter so the cable shouldn't have come loose. I have checked them now and they seem firm.

I actually had another wireless mic set-up going into a different camera and the result is pretty much the same. Both volumes on the lav mics recorded very low. If it was just my main camera then I would suspect more likely I had the settings wrong but both cameras came out just as bad. However both mics were in the fairly close proximity to the celebrants mic, and/or speaker so I am not sure if they were all interfering with each other in someway.

She actually even had to stop in the first minute to ask me to move one of the mics as it kept cutting her out.

Looks like I may have to get the b&g to do a reading of their vows again. Not great but could be the only way.

Thanks Steve.
Troy

Are you operating with a VHF or UHF system?
Had you checked to make sure her mics were not operating on or near the same frequency as yours? If her frequencys were close enough and her output high enough, that could cause a problem especially in the VHF range.
Another possible problem could be multi-path cancellation which could lead to phase problems in the radio signal that might cancel out your system.
Allen W

Coiled antennae, looped mic cable, transmitters too close to each other can also create interference as well.

It sound to me like you got NO audio from the groom, only
from the officiant.
Either the grooms mic was not on, or the receiver audio
did not make it to tape.

I tried cleaning it up in Audition using the Waves X-Noise plugin, and although I was able to reduce the traffic noise to an acceptable level under the well-recorded vocals, I was not able to pull the groom's lines out of the noise.

I agree that your best option is to ADR the vows.