What kind of microphones do you use for the wedding ceremony?
 

I am currently using a Azden wireless lav mic for the ceremony. How do I pick up the singer, speaker etc.? I was recently advised to get a zoom mic for my SonyVX1000.

I was told that rather than mincing up everyone who will speak, why not try a zoom mic?

With this mic, the pickup pattern is keyed to your zoom level. Zoom in on the happy couple, it's a shotgun. Zoom out for a group shot, it takes on a standard cardioid pattern.

This has the added benefit of dispensing with bodypacks altogether. What advice do you guys have for me?

If it were only that easy!
There are zoom (= variable focal length) lenses, and there are audio products branded "Zoom" but there ain't no zoom microphones doing the equivalent job to zoom lenses.

"Shotgun" microphones do not work like zoom lenses unfortunately. The nearest audio equivalent to a zoom lens is a parabolic reflector, a large device like a satellite dish used for the likes of wildlife filming and surveillance work. These tend not to be used at weddings :-)

Helpful links please anyone?

Cary, why not not mic the speaker from the sound system (as opposed to the human speakers)?

And as far as a zoom mic.... not for me unless I every else I had failed. You want your mic close to the sound source - at least if you want good sound. I'm not sure of the audio characteristics of a zoom mic - but I can't imagine they're very good.

You might think lavs are a PITA, but they typically produce far superior audio - especially of a speaker unless you have some standing next to the b&g with a mic on a boom pole. I've used a Senn G2 system for the ceremony but am anxiously awaiting the arrival of a Countryman mic to go with it. It is common to double record the vows onto a separate system just in case.

I also use a Senn Me66 at the reception where I'll sometimes mic the sound system or the speaking podium.

Also you may want to get a little mic mixer and play around with it.

for a typical ceremony, first I mic the groom-that get's most of what's said up front. Bride, groom, officiant. I also place a wireless lav on the lectern where the readers speak, the officiant does the gospel there and in many cases also does the homily from there as well. I use an AT1821 dual channel receiver for those mics so both go back to my primary camera and I kill off my hypercaroid on the camera. I don't need it since I don't want a lot of ambient sounds anyway. On my 2nd camera I use an AT897 shotgun. Now while shotguns generally don't work well inside unless it's within a couple of feet of the person speaking I only use it to capture the music that's being played during the ceremony and since the music is considerably louder than a person speaking it does a very nice job of getting the music.
Again, this is for a typical ceremony. Some ceremonies are different so I adjust accordingly but by and large this system works well for me and I've been using this type of setup for about 7 or 8 years although before getting the AT1821 I used 2 seperate systems but still ran both to my A camera.

Can I just buy a couple more lav mic's and use one on the speaker and one on the singer...all on the Sony VX1000?

Nope you can't unless you plan on having a seperate receiver for each transmitter OR use a dual channel receiver to your A camera. A camera so that you can monitor the sound of course. Remember too the VX1000 only uses the mini plugin and kills off the onboard mic so that might be problematic for you.
Getting mics on the right people can be a real problem, so again, if you use one on the groom and one on the lectern your voices are pretty well covered then use another camera to capture the music or get it from the 2 lavs you set up.
As for plugging into the sound board at the church many have a very basic board and or operator that either won't let you plug in or simply don't know how. Then of course you ahve the problem of "is it line level or..." and then the operator might mute the output to you or futz with the levels during the ceremony then you've got problems.
As for the reception same thing as ceremony IMO as to plugging into the board. Many DJs won't let you or really have no clue about their gear or just don't care so I never plug in the board. I use a Sennheiser E604 drum mic with a plugin transmitter back to the wireless receiver on my camera and also use my Blueline Hypercaroid on my camera. Each going to a seperate channel of course and other than the once in a while thing during toasts when the person holds the mic down at their waist my audio is generally just very ightly sweetened during post. No clipping, levels are generally even as can be and I've saved a couple of hours at least in edit.
HTHs

Thank you so much for the advice and input. I will do some additional research this week. I'm very grateful you people are here. It is appreciated.

I'll share what we do. We actually use Olympus digital voice recorders. We place Azden lav mics on 2 of the units and place those on the groom and the officiant. We also place other DVR's with the stock clip-on mic attached to pick up sound from lecturns, or pianos or even just gaff tape the DVR on top of a speaker.

The avantage to this system? We get incredible sound from the DVR sources, but we also leave each of our videocameras open to record their own audio (one of which always has a shotgun mic attached). So we can come away from a ceremony with 5-6 different sound sources and that is really beneficial.

In addition, they don't transmit/receive, so you won't get interference. For us this is benefit enough to use them. The side benefit is that sometimes church's or other venues will get nervous about outside mic systems, but once you explain that your devices just record and don't transmit ... you get a free and easy pass. It's wonderful.

The only real disadvantage is that the audio from the DVR's will drift over time, meaning you have to sync up the audio to the video and adjust the speed of the audio to match it. Sometimes, for a longer recorded segment you may have to resync the DVR audio at some point.

For us it's a minor annoyance and is a totally worth-while trade off for the stellar audio we get from the DVR's and for the flexibility of 5-6 sound sources. We even use the DVR's during toasts and dancing at the reception (again, gaff tape to the top of a DJ's speaker). So we get great audio from the toasts and dancing and so forth. You could also tap a DVR into a DJ's sound system, but we generally don't like to trust our audio to a line connection as you're left at the mercy of the DJ's expertise.

Anyways, that's our strategy. Hopefully it helps!

I use senheiser wireless lav G3 mics.... and rode NTG2...

I have been known to place the NTG2 on a mic stand in front of the PA if there is no direct inlet... The Sound is actually quite good so long as your volume setting on the camera arent to HOT.... keep in mid to 3/4 range....

One time i duck taped the G3 lave mic to the PA system speaker and let it hang in front the of speaker... work liked a charm as there were 15 speakers at the event!!! no way do i have enough patience or mics to mic up 15 people....

We use up to four radio channels with MKE-3 mics - AT 897 short guns on any unused channels of the six available on the three cameras. In addition a Zoom H4 with mics suited to subject - AT835 stereo or two AT4040 large condenser mics depending on the subject, general music/speech or "proper" music eg string quartet). Incidentally the Zoom needs and has an external battery for wedding work. None of us compromises on the image quality - why do it with the sound?

Anyone micing brides during the ceremony? We've run into trouble with quiet brides, especially when there is background noise (shutters, coughing, passing vehicles). I have heard of using a little white mic and an mp3 recorder to get crisp audio from the bride... think it was from Patrick Moreau.

Could you share which Olympus DVRs you use?

I wouldn't dare to try and hang anything on such an important dress. In any case, everything the bride says (in church or civic ceremonies at least - maybe other reigions are different - we don't do them) is said about 10 inches from the groom's corsage which is where we put our mic - if that's not good enough my suggestion would be to get a better mic.

I did that 2 times in the past. Both brides were in tv news and while I tried to explain the drawbacks to it, they insisted.
See the big problem is where to put the bodypak or recorder. There are really only 2 options. 1) is inside the back of the neckline of the dress so you can only see the antenna and clothing clip or 2) hanging off the back of their underwear. WAIT FOR IT!!!! Yep, both hung it off their underwear. They didn't want to spoil the line off the dresses. Guess who had to hang the bodypak and run the mic up to the front of the dress. Luckily I'm an old man and a TOTAL professional but still....:-)
In the end, (no pun intended) the audio was really no better than simply mic'ing the groom. Both had voices that projected well and the grooms mic picked it up very well, so I really see no need to mic up the bride.

I use a Rode NTG2 on one Sony V1U camera (usually the steadicam), a Azden twin UHF wireless lapel mic setup (one for the minister and one for the groom) usually on the V1U on tripod / Kessler crane, and last but not least a Rode Video Mic on the little Canon HV20 backup camera I have on a wide shot.

I filmed a wedding where the minister somehow moved the wireless lapel mic to where it picked up a lot of clothing noise and had other issues. Luckily during the ministers words and the vows the Rode NTG2 on the steadicam rig was only about 12-15 feet away and the audio was great from it.

At the same outdoor wedding I had thought I would have to dub in the music later since it was recorded music from the DJ's speaker pointed out from the reception area approximately
50-70 feet from the ceremony / camera positions but amazingly the sound from the Rode VideoMic on the little HV20 was very usable.

We don't, but mostly because we don't feel it's necessary. We'll have a mic on the groom AND the officiant, so we pick up the bride just fine.


We currently use the Olympus DS30's. The form factor is really small and compact. They are easy to use and produce excellent results. Even when taped down on a speaker during the dances they handle the audio really well without peaking. Truly amazing little devices. We've been using Olympus DVR's for 5 or 6 years now, and we're very happy with the results.

Thanks Travis, will have to pick a couple up!

We use Tram TR50's, so I don't think mic quality is the problem. We also mic both the groom and officiant, which 4 out of 5 times works perfectly. But now and then there is a very loud officiant who talks over a soft spoken bride. Add to that strong background noise and... well, it's one of those less than ideal situations so common in weddings.

Another challenge is when the b&g speak into a microphone over loudspeakers. In my experience, the mic is always of poor quality, with a cable that seems to be 100 years old, so we don't even bother getting a feed from it. Of course, the loud, booming mic more or less kills the audio we would be getting straight from the b&g.

On one occasion it was so atrocious that we post-synced the vows. Luckily it came out very well.

We're going to try micing the brides at a few weddings this spring, and I'll report back with the results.

Erik,

If you're going to mic the bride, take a look at these if you don't already know about them. They come in 6 different colors - and the performance is outstanding.

B6 Omni .1" Diameter Lavalier - Countryman Associates, Inc.

I just ordered the slightly larger B3 version to go with my Senn G2 wireless system. B3 Omni Round Lavalier (.2" dia.) - Countryman Associates, Inc.

Just an FYI, the Olympus DVR's do not have XLR inputs .. so those mics would not work with them.

I'm with Travis - I've had problems with wireless systems including interference and a reluctance from the church to allow me to use them. I now use Olympus WM-311 recorders (one of the groom and one on the lecturn) with audio-technica lav mics. I also put a zoom H2 set to front and rear record as near the action as possible as a fail-safe. this leaves my rode shotgun mic on the camera as yet another source.


Apart from compensaing for the audio drift during the edit it's been pretty much a trouble free setup for me

Pete

Reluctance to let you use wireless? I've read this before, it must be something in the UK because I can honestly say I've never had the problem here in the states. I have had a few raised eyebrows mostly people un-educated in the proper use of wireless, (afraid I'm going to mess theirs up but when I explain they run on a freq that is no where near mine and it doesn't go out on the PA they're usually OK) but never been told I couldn't use it.

You're joking, right?? With today's dress styles (universally here in UK anyway: strapless, sleeveless) any micing of the dress will involve running a cable INSIDE the dress from the top/front. I can't see ANY bride allowing that. No-one interferes with the dress, especially in that area, especially in the tension before the service.

I suppose it depends on the dress. I've never mic'd a bride but checkout this earset mic. - I guess you could use it if she had the right hairstyle.

E2 Earset - Countryman Associates, Inc.

They make each mic to suit - depending on the connectors needed. So you special order each one.

I'm not going to say a bride should never be mic'd, but I would tread very carefully in this area. Brides on their wedding day want to feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet. For most of them, everything has to be perfect and feel just right; hair, makeup, the dress, the jewelry, the shoes. All of it is very feminine and designed to make the bride more beautiful.

Once you try and add a mic to the bride you alter that experience for her. Obviously if the mic is visible then you've taken away from her appearance, and that is huge. But even if you cleverly hide the mic, many brides aren't going to like it because they're going to feel the mic and know that it's on them. A mic is not a feminine 'accessory'. It's not something that adds to her beauty. Mentally it IS going to affect how they feel about themselves.

Again, I'm not saying never mic the bride, but I would definitely recommend against it.

Now that sounds ike a nice challenge for the audio industry - a Gucci/Sennheiser or Versace/Schoeps wedding accessory range for example?

Wish I was! It's just that I've been comparing the sound of the bride's voice in our videos to those in a "certain other company's" (Still Motion) and found quite a large difference. I couldn't figure out why their audio was so immaculate.

Then I read the "gear list" ... look under audio.

the stillmotion gear list stillmotion

Once you've heard how good this sounds in SM's videos, it's tough to be happy with some of the audio we've been getting from the bride via the groom's lav. As mentioned, it's usually great, but once in a while not good enough.

Of course, we would never ever *insist* that the bride allow us to mic her, in fact I've been hesitating to even ask for almost a year because of ... "personal space concerns" (though we do have female videographers who would look after this aspect).

We have an extremely exacting and enthused couple for a wedding in March, and that may be the place to start.

Does the DS30 have an audio output?

I'm similar to Travis, I guess. I use iRivers with lav mics on the groom and podium. I also have a Zoom H2 for extra coverage depending on the ceremony and the church.

I'm always rushed because of the way our scheduling works, so I'll plug in to the church system if I can, but it's rare that I have the time. I barely have time to mic the groom and podium before the ceremony starts. I almost never mic the officiant, except for outdoor weddings, where it can be very useful.

I used to use wireless, but find them just a bit too long to set up, and once I did create interference. Thank god I did a sound check just before the wedding started. With my mic on, when I spoke into the PA, I got a godawful noise. Had to shut off my mic. Almost gave me a heart attack.

As a side note, getting sound from the church system is not always better. I'm editing one now where I piggybacked a lav to the podium mic, and plugged into the board as well. The church sound was full of popping because everyone was too close to the mic, but my lav was a foot farther away, and the sound from it was great.

I've been plugging into the dj with the Zoom at the reception, and that's been a huge plus. So far, the djs have been most accomodating, and the sound is great. Just plug into the tape out/record on the board using RCA. The djs, however, often have no idea how to do this.

As Travis mentions, you get some audio drift, but it's no big deal.

One of the problems with using sound from a sound board is the lack of control you have over the way the board is operated. One of the worst problems that you can have is to have the volume turned up on the board in the middle of the event so much that you overdrive your recorder and you get clipping. There is a way to get more margin with this. If the board operator is savvy enough to do so, use stereo out and set one channel 12 or 18db lower than the other. You can choose to use only the lower channel output when you edit if you have a problem with clipping.

Another thing you can do to prevent clipping is to set your recording level deliberately low. Even though your signal to noise level isn't optimum when you do this, that's less of a problem than badly clipped audio.

Jim's right. I don't think I would look at plugging into a board as something more than an extra source for insurance, not as a primary sound source that you rely on. Because you never know what the sound guy or dj might do.

Believe it or not, they often don't know much about the equipment and/or may not care about your needs. So levels might be unreliable or worse.

I edited an event for a client last year who plugged into the board only to have the sound man cut off her feed halfway through. On-camera sound only from then on. Sounded terrible.

I have little experience of DJ's currently equipment styles but I would recommend to any video person wanting to take the route of using the PA sound in their videos to invest some time learning the sound business as well as they know their cameras.

Many professional mixing desks will have Auxiliary outputs to which the outputs of all channels can be sent pre-fade ie they'll remain unaffected by whatever the operator is doing to the main faders - and the levels of each channel going to these outputs adjusted by aux out pots.

I still wouldn't rely on these arrangements for my own wedding sound personally, but it's a perfectly adequate and inexpensive way of taking event sound - and avoiding the calamity which Jim rightly cautions against.

I have had 2 main problems with taking sound from the board at churches, schools and hotel lounges:

1) The level of hum - mainly but not exclusively harmonics of the 50Hz mains. This gets a lot worse if there are any guitar pedals in the system and it doesn't seem to matter whether they are battery or mains powered. I do know how to minimise earth loops/ground loops but it is still an issue.

2) Operators messing with (OK then, 'adjusting') the trims as well as the faders. This means the prefade routing is not always reliable. Again, guitarists with pedals that are not properly adjusted for unity gain are often to blame.

I do like guitarists, really I do.

Well, there have been a bunch of really good posts to this thread. Many have been of the "this is what I do" variety. In that spirit, this is what I do:

Most of the time I work by myself .... a clarifier for my approach.

Wireless lapel mic on Groom.
Wireless lapel mic on officiant (unless I am in a house of worship whose sound system I understand)
Two wireless hand mics on floor stands for family/friend commentary and musicians.

Those four microphones feed into a microphone mixer which is placed within easy access of my left hand at my primary camera location. That mixer feeds, at my option, the most important mic or collection of mics, into camera 1 in either mono or stereo mode. I need to decide the mono/stereo mode before the ceremony at this point in time. If mono, then Camera one has some kind of hard wired microphone feeding the other channel.

Camera 2 is almost always a camera mounted shotgun with the specific assignment of recording ambient sound. Sometimes I will add another wireless receiver tuned to the groom's mic and mix the signals (L&R) with a below camera 2 ch mixer.

Camera 3 is my DSLR, always nearby. Its purpose is to grab short clips whenever relevant or convenient. Sound is only relevant for sync to other audio tracks.

Lastly is a mp3 recorder attached to some other kind of microphone which is placed at the best position possible to provide a backup for the ceremony commentary.

Kinda depends upon where you are physically located. I've got two fixed frequency mics in my wireless kit, and they can get wiped out in the weirdest situations. In church #1, just a few blocks from my home, everything works wonderfully. In church 2, just two blocks North of church 1, one of the fixed frequency wireless systems produces nothing but static.
26 miles north, at a ski area restaurant placed at 10,000 ft elevation, that same wireless frequency is subject to unexplainable dropouts. At the very low end of the VHF freq. spectrum for wireless mic systems, and no visible presence of anything human for at least a couple miles, there are no TV broadcasts, no licensed commercial channels, no police or fire channels.
Back home, at the local art museum theatre, which borders a residential area, one of my UHF systems behaves wonderfully during rehearsals mid-afternoon. But, just before curtain, when the house is full of 250 cell (mobile) phones waiting for call, and every residential neighbor has fired up their wireless broadband internet connections, that system fails to receive a signal from a microphone just 3 meters distant.

Wireless is an adventure. When it works, it is wonderful. When it doesn't, you wish you were somewhere different.

yep and that's why about 12 years or so ago I got out of fixed frequency units and went to mulitple freqency units.
I've worked in venues that are on the same block I'm on but with a little bit of freq movement by me it's never been a problem.
Now of course with clear scan receivers life is good :-)

One thing I discovered, after a lengthy discussion with my wireless microphone's manufacturer, is that some guitar audio feeds will broadcast a very low level radio frequency that may have a range of 2 or 3 meters. The issue is focused upon a specific and narrow frequency range. The fix is rather simple, but requires a trip to a qualified electronics repair shop with expertise in electronic music instruments. Multiple frequency microphone systems usually allow a quicker fix. I would not be surprised to find other accessories for electronic music would also produce similar interference. My personal experience was with a bass guitar.

After years of fighting my wireless setups (all great quality dual UHF systems from AudioTechnica and Letrosonic) I decided to also go with Olympus digital recorders. At first I was worried because I couldn't monitor the audio in camera... But once I realized that there was nothing I could do anyway it didn't matter. If my wireless started getting interference what was I going to do? Run up there during the vows and adjust it? LOL... The only thing I would do was sit there and sweat worrying that I had no good audio! Now I just mic it with a LAV, click the "hold" switch and let 'er rip!

Just curious about a few things b/c these look like the best thing for my situation...

Do they peak much? do they control the recording volume automatically? or do you have to set them up for the volume that you want then hope that the DJ doesn't decide to crank it.. haha I have had one do that before and peaked the crap out of my audio..

Thanks

David, my primary concern when I switched over to DVR's was peaking .. especially since the DS30's don't really offer much in the way of level control. I actually made the switch to DVR's before anyone else I know of, and I took a lot of flack on various forums from others for promoting the use of them. The long-time wireless users just refused to believe that a simple DVR could provide the same (or better) results as a pricey wireless system.

The answer is that they can and do. These Olympus DVR's are one of the absolute best purchases we've ever made. We've NEVER had a peaking issue with lav mics during a ceremony .. and this is after years and years of using them. We also usually tape one down onto one of the DJ's speakers, and we really expected the audio to be unusable once music was playing. But quite often even then there is no peaking, despite the fact that the DJ has the music cranked super loud. It's pretty amazing.

Hopefully I answer your question. d;-)

Travis,

Thanks, and you are right... if you are going to go wireless then you need to get better than the bargain bin if you want good quality. since you brought this up these things are looking like gold :) Might have to get some, at that price and they give the quality that you are saying? simply put I'd be a fool not to try them out..

I also use an Olympus DS30 as well as the Olympus WS100. As Travis said no peaking problems whatsoever. I gotta agree with Travis on this, they are the best change I made to my setup!