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What mic set up for recording academic conference type situation?


Alex Fields

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All of my recording experience is with pretty close micing of dialogue or music so I'm pretty unsure what the best option is for a work situation I have coming up. I spent a lot of time trying to do searches for threads or articles about this but keep getting results for situations that aren't quite what I'm looking at (either students wanting to record lectures for notes, or business people who want to use lav type mics for meetings or just operate through a PA system). I'm sure this is a pretty amateurish question really but I don't want to make any assumptions about how various mics will work in situations outside of my experience with them.

I'm going to be filming parts of a small conference coming up at the end of July. I won't be able to actually check out the space until just before the event, if I'm able to do it in advance at all, because I'll be traveling from out of town for this. But basically I expect to be looking at a combination of medium sized classrooms (30-40 people probably) and small-ish lecture halls (100-150 people) with panels of speakers in each. I'm guessing for the former we'll just be using voices with no built in sound system, and some sort of handheld mic set up for the latter, passed between panelists. I'll be fairly flexible about where to place the camera and mic set up (lens variety is not a big constraint) but for various reasons lavs, micing the amps, or running sound from in house system are all unlikely to be possible. I'll be filming with my Sony A7rii which has not great internal sound to say the least, but I have a Sound Devices 702T to record audio with. I need to be able to set everything up together in one spot, and the faster the set up and breakdown time the better, as I may have to move from one room to another during break times that only last 5-10 minutes.

My question is just what kind of mic situation (single or stereo either one) is most likely to cover all my bases in terms of getting good usable from varied sources (either coming from a PA system/amps at side or top of room, or directly from projected human voices in front of room), where in some cases the main source of the sound may be coming from the same direction the camera needs to be pointed and in others not. We don't have a budget for a dedicated sound person but the closer I can get to a clean and impressive sound that can be used for posting professional seeming videos of conference sessions to Facebook, Youtube, etc. (doesn't need to be like narrative film quality or anything) the better. Some audience/reaction noise is not only OK but probably desirable (especially if I want to film parts of Q&A in addition to main speakers), but it needs to be under control compared to sound from front of the room.

I own a Sanken CS3-e but I'm assuming a highly directional mic isn't the best bet here (though maybe I'm wrong!). Is some type of stereo set up what I need and if so what exactly? Cardiod or wide cardiod in XY, AB omni, or an MS set up, or...? I'm pretty familiar with what mics are out there (and how they're used for music and close dialogue recording) but I just have no experience with this type of recording situation and would really appreciate feedback from someone who does. I could likely rent whatever I needed so am pretty flexible in that sense.

Another consideration is that I'm looking to buy, for myself, a stereo pair to use for ambient and fx stuff for narrative film work (hobby projects) and also for instrumental music recording, and have been looking at either a pair of Line Audio CM3s or a matched pair of something like AKG blueline or MBHO 600 series with variable capsules, so if either of those options would serve me really well here, it might be additional motivation to hurry up that purchase. But I know that also contradicts what I said earlier about convenience of setup/breakdown, which would favor a single mic body situation (and especially one that I could mount in the camera hot shoe using a Rycote Universal Shotgun Mount, which I already have--even though I'd likely be recording to the 702T and not in camera).

If it would serve well enough, just buying something like a Rode Stereo Videomic used would also be possible, but I'm skeptical of anything that requires in-camera audio recording.

Sorry for a long post! Thanks in advance for any feedback on what I'm sure is a really obvious question to people with more varied experience than mine.

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Better consult the higher ups and get a schedule and figure out what you are actually shooting and when,

They might be figuring all this out on your breakdown/setup time.

Typically one brings the mics and cables to cover--individually-- each room you're going to be in; set them up before everything is showtime and take the camera from room to room, plug in and shoot.

You would be much better off using a camera with XLR ins than dealing with a dual system.

In their minds a breakdown setup takes a second; in the real world it is different.

Yes, for you, that means mics on desk stands for dais and podium and a mixer and cables for each room.

No dais in the breakout rooms? Fine, but the breakout rooms should have a sound system. No sound system? Plug a stick mic into a Fostex 6301B; that is sufficient for 30-40 people. That would be fine if you were using a good camera mic to capture the speaker

But, typically I would use a mixer in the breakout room (and some auditoriums) and send audio to camera and a use second out for house sound or the Fostex 6301B. You don't need a stand for the Fostex, just put it somewhere where it won't fall over; gaffer tape it to a windowsill or something and tape cable runs to the floor so nobody kills it by tripping and it goes sailing.

Yes that all means running cables back and forth but you have control over the mix at both ends. Avoid taking a shitty sounding patch from the house. You don't want bad sound going into the camera. A good house mix from someone running house sound doesn't happen very often at small conferences.

No need for lavs just tell talent/moderator or breakout room speaker not to move from the podium, or a mic on a floor stand--whether they like it or not.

I would have--at the outset--budgeted it the way I indicated, set up everything and go from room to room, which means audio budget and a second pair of hands.

When a room is done for the day your second pair of hands can be wrapping as you go along, rather than doing all of it at the end of the day.

If they balked at a realistic budget and workflow such as the one I designed above and tried to haggle it back to doing it the hard way I would tell them to find somebody else.

This is all off the top of my head I haven't done conferences of the sort you are describing for close to 17 years. The 'find somebody else' part still happens occasionally.

If you let non A/V and non Vidiots design a chaotic and inefficient workflow (because they get sick to their stomachs at the prospect of getting a realistic budget together) you are gonna get tortured.

 

 

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Hmm Alex, if there is a single important speaker (a 'chair') use your Sanken for them. Then one or a couple of CM3s (are they the wide cardioids?) can get the classroom response perhaps. Ideally I guess you would have either a boom or a mobile handheld mic for the audience. Depends on needs, acoustics and all sorts ...

Jez

... And +1 Gerard. Depends on needs ...

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12 hours ago, The Immoral Mr Teas said:

either a boom or a mobile handheld mic for the audience.

For audience questions a stick mic on a floor stand, near the first row of chairs, left or right aisle, is the current technique. Moderator will ask those with questions to line up at the mic when Q and A happens. Donohue style running around with a wireless stick mic has been out of vogue since before Donohue was in vogue and well after.

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3 hours ago, Gerard-NYNY said:

For audience questions a stick mic on a floor stand, near the first row of chairs, left or right aisle, is the current technique. Moderator will ask those with questions to line up at the mic when Q and A happens. Donohue style running around with a wireless stick mic has been out of vogue since before Donohue was in vogue and well after.

I've seen both still employed.

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1 hour ago, John Blankenship said:

I've seen both still employed.

Sure for TV entertainment the Donohue thing makes for good production value. In Donohue it's practically the whole program.

The Q&A section at conferences are are generally short, at closing, and you would want the mic and stand in a place where you can shoot it.

Additionally, the lag time between the answer and the next question is shortened; thus no dead time getting the wireless to the next questioner.

I have seen instances where an inexperienced Joe or Jane Schmoe type person was handed the duty of getting the wireless stick mic to the next questioner, but they could not see where the next questioner was in the audience pit, nor discriminate where the voice that was trying to get their attention was coming from.

 

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I'm not arguing with your reasoning or logic, I'm simply stating that, in my experience, both methods are still used for conferences.  

I've done medical conferences where, for the audience participation portions we employed both methods simultaneously -- two stand mics and a hand-held.

There are situations where the seating makes it more awkward for participants to move about the room.  There are other circumstances where some participants are themselves not as mobile, so even if you primarily use stand mics, you should also have a hand-held held ready in order to avoid any possible ADA issues -- companies are rather sensitive about that these days. 

 

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Yep, I too am at plenty of conferences that have a stick mic handed to an audience member, and others where people line up at mics. Since it looks like Alex's conference will have at least some small 30-40 person sessions, I think even asking participants to pass around a mic will be tricky; that feels almost like a colloquium...and the Q&A may end up more like a conversation where participants don't want to interrupt and pause to move a mic that's only needed for the recording, not for those in the room.

Alex, can you get the organizers to put you in touch with the AV company supporting the conference? Or if no AV company, someone acting in that capacity? Find out exactly how many rooms and sessions there will be, exactly what sort of audio support will be provided, etc. Heck, will there be any house consoles at all or any of the sessions?

And sorry if I missed this in your original post, but are you expected to create useful recordings of sessions so non-attendees can benefit from the presentations and Q&A, or do you more need just a bit of audio and video to convey "we had a great conference with wonderful session discussions such as this kinda random example"?  

Geez, with what I'm guessing is the current budget and level of support, this sounds like it could be a tough gig...

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