Idea for sound at the reception
 

I like to share information whenever I find a good way to do something in the very challenging wedding video industry. This may be old news to some. But I recently purchased a wireless mic system from Azden. At the reception I hooked the transmitter via an XLR mic cable directly into the DJ's mixer and it allowed me to move my camera any place I wanted and still had almost perfect sound directly into my camera.

I feel that the wedding video business is being hurt by not some much the video quality but the audio quality. Audio plays a major role I have found. Good audio automatically makes the video seem better. I think George Lucas would agree. I think some of his movies are even in stereo.

For the last few years now, I mic one of the speakers with a wireless handheld mic instead of going into the mixer. Reason being one time a DJ thought he'd play funnyman and kept playing with hte levels going out and the audio was not so good. This way I get to control the levels at the camera so if it sucks its on me-no one else. I DO plug into the sound board when possible when I do seminars etc cause these are usually guys I've worked with man times before and we know each other so I trust them. However, its whatever you're comfortable with and what works best for you.

Don

Thats a good pov. I know most of the DJ's I work with, and no problems yet.
Good advice.

At receptions I hook my IRiver up to the DJ's mixer. I set the Line In Input Level to 40 and then normalize on the computer. Sounds much better than on camera mics, and I can keep the number of on camera accessories to a minimum.

When plugging into a sound board, I always make sure I monitor the sound via my headphones. Like most, trust is an issue but always make sure that I have 'double sound'. i.o.w. sound from the board and my own. That way, I can use the best of both worlds and leaves my options open.

This is the only way I have been doing it. One time when I was hired to film a high school grad from one of the students parents I got the the place early and asked if I could plug my wireless reciever into the unpowered output of their sound system. It was a outside graduation and it was very windy and the local acess station set up 3 and got their sound from putting mics infront of the speakers. It sounded horable.... BAD BAD BAD.......... The way I always aproach my videos is that if the sound is bad no matter how good the video (visual part) is, that is all people really remember about the project. If you think about it when you go to see a movie you do not walk out and say "WOW the transitions and camara angles they used were great." What you say is "That sounded INCREDIBLE." The sound is what people remember. I believe that sound should not be a afterthought in Wedding Videography set the bar high. I applaud you in posting this information for others to read.