Mounting a Zoom H2n near Ceiling Speaker to Capture Audio
 

Working at a catholic church the pass weekend where the church people are not friendly. Won't allow me mic the priest. So I mount a voice recorder on light stand to reach up high close to the ceiling speaker. Here's a sample clip.

Its only 30 seconds. Please take a listen especially near the end .

Re: Mounting a Zoom H2n near Ceiling Speaker to Capture Audio
 

How high was the ceiling Taky? This is also my issues with catholic churches, I have to beg priest to mic them and its really difficult. Sometime what I do is use my xlr shotgun mic hook it up with a G3 wireless transceiver and mount it on a light stand as high as I could and point the shotgun to where the church sound system is coming from.

It is very important for me to mic the priest because his the on who does a lot of talking and even though I mic the groom the priest sometimes is far distant from the groom to pickup audio, while the acoustics from the onboard camera is not that good.

Re: Mounting a Zoom H2n near Ceiling Speaker to Capture Audio
 

Loving the comment about the photographer :)

I never mic the priest and always do it this way - In the past I've found them pretty resistant and so can't do with the hassle.

Pete

Re: Mounting a Zoom H2n near Ceiling Speaker to Capture Audio
 

A fellow videographer keeps a 30' light stand in his truck. He uses a dual bracket on top, and mounts a H4N as well as a Gopro. His video and audio was surprisingly impressive in a cathedral!

Re: Mounting a Zoom H2n near Ceiling Speaker to Capture Audio
 

the church has high ceiling but there is a small room right next to it has lower ceiling. Also not much reverb too. Its always challenging. Sometimes I also mount a RODE VideoMic on top of light stand to record to a voice recorder for a more directional sound recording too.

Re: Mounting a Zoom H2n near Ceiling Speaker to Capture Audio
 

Same here, enough bother without anymore :)

Re: Mounting a Zoom H2n near Ceiling Speaker to Capture Audio
 

Pete, what is your solution to bad acoustics since you don't mic a priest, do you just use what your onboard mic pick ups and give that to the bride? For me if there is a way to use clear audio work around like what Taky did, I will conform with that. And that small room that he mentioned, now I have an idea what to do next time.

Re: Mounting a Zoom H2n near Ceiling Speaker to Capture Audio
 

At another church, they have ceiling mount right at the entrance foyer. It was noisy before the ceremony start. After I started, they close the main door. The ceiling speaker was very clear. I did the same trick too.

Also for catholic ceremonies, I placed several voice recorders everywhere. One near the choir piano. One on the podium where guests speaker do bible readings. One hide at the stools where the couple will be kneeling. Together with putting a lav mic on the groom.

Someone suggested a good tip when mic'ing the officiant.... always ask to mic that officiant in front of the bride and groom.

Re: Mounting a Zoom H2n near Ceiling Speaker to Capture Audio
 

My favourite priest related clip ever:

http://www.ashtonlamont.co.uk/images/cameras.mp3

This priest is catholic and aged 80 if he's a day. Around here the Catholic clergy tend to be far more easy-going than the CofE. The latter are more often than not a nightmare to work with and its good practice to assume that you must make you own arrangements, surreptitiously if needs be.

The church audio decks are usually pretty much no-go. If you are lucky enough to find anyone who knows what you are talking about when you even ask where it is, then you soon discover that its bolted down in some inaccessible area and you cannot get to the output sockets which are invariably on the back of the unit.

Even at some of the most tech-savvy venues you cannot assume that the output you get from the board will include all the channels you wish for. I learned early on that the music during hymns is all well and good but without the voices it is unusable :- )

The OP's recommendation is solid for the shoots I normally do. I would add that it can be good to have a Sennheiser G3 or suchlike on the stand near the speaker rather than an actual audio recorder because then you can at least adjust the levels once things are underway rather than just guessing it beforehand.

Pete