House Mics

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SamIam89

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At our church we do a live recording mix for radio broadcast. Currently, we have two audio technica cardoid studio mics as our house mics. Unfortunalty, their picup pattern doesn't allow for a great sense of reality and tend to only pick up a few people near the mic and some distant mud.

What woud you recomend? I was thinking omnidirectinal. Any suggestions?
 
I can't remember the name of the mic, but there are mics that are designed to pick up choirs as a whole.... might be called lectern mics?(dont quote me). Either way, I am pretty sure that you hang one or two fo them up high in front of the choir, and they do a pretty decent job.

If you do go for an omni, then place it a little further out, so that it isn't "closer" to any one or two person(s)

Simon
 
Yeah, this is what I see all the time - the custodians will put up a couple of SM58s for the choir. Totally the wrong mic for the situation.

You ARE talking about a choir? You didn't say, but...

If it's a choir, you want very sensitive mics which have good off-axis response. Definitely small-diaphragm condensers or ribbon mics. As 2lim writes, there are mics specifically made for live choirs. If you can't get those, just try a couple of Oktava MK012s, Rode NT5s, or Marshall 603s in an X/Y pattern. Even AKG C1000s can do okay when placed well.
 
Oh, sorry if I was unlcear. Im not talking about a choir. We use akg C1000s for that and they work great.

i was referring to mics out in the house for audience noise and room ambiance.
 
SamIam89 said:
Oh, sorry if I was unlcear. Im not talking about a choir. We use akg C1000s for that and they work great.

i was referring to mics out in the house for audience noise and room ambiance.
Click to expand...

Aha! Yeah, definitely omni if you're putting them "out in the house".

If you want a way to "glue" the performers sound with the audience sound and room ambience, a pair of figure-of-eight mics in Blumlein configuration will work very well.
 
I don't mean to rock the boat, but I don't think the problem is your mics. It's your placement. I'm not saying that there isn't a better mic, I'm just saying that a better mic will do the same thing. It will pickup mostly the things that are close to it.

If your goal is to pick up the entire audience, then your mic should be approximately the same distance from every part of the audience as it is from every other part of the audience.

If you are using multiple mics for distant micing, the sum of the distances from any one sound source should be equal(ish) to the sum of the distances from any other sound source.

The easiest way to do this is to move mics further away. Think of it this way... your mic can't "see" the crowd cause of all the people in the way.

Also, the further away you are, the less important placement is.
 
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