Welcome.

I'm looking forward to our resident gentlemen guru's on this question but until then, I would suggest a few possibilities that may help narrow things down for you.

• handheld wireless mic,
• long boom ,

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I want to make sure I'm understanding the problem. It sounds like there's nothing preventing you from technically doing what you want to do. (mics -> mixer -> cable -> recorder)

You're just trying to avoid the expense of renting the wireless mics to run into the audience? Or, are you just unhappy with the results and/or logistics of running handheld wireless around the room?

Can you be a little more specific please?

In the past we had 2 presenters and one wireless handheld to run around the room. This year we have 3 presenters and once we have 4 mics in the room the system needs to be monitored the whole time which adds a significant cost! We are also changing the format of the seminar so there will be a lot more audience interaction, I don't think running a mic around will work well this year.

For some conference events that involve audience questions, I've put a a mic at the head of each aisle, toward the front of the room. Anyone who with something to say can step up to the mic, be acknowledged by the presenter(s), and ask their question.

Would that work in your specific situation?

Complexity has a cost, one way or another. (Money, effort, inconvenience to the presenters, inconvenience to the audience members.)

I often get groups coming to me to hire gear for this type of function.

The most popular piece of gear that hirers take is the [[url=http://[/URL]="https://www.shure.c…"]Shure SCM810[/]="https://www.shure.c…"]Shure SCM810[/] automixer. This can be set up for 8 microphones and will auto-switch to whichever mic (wired or radio) has the loudest signal present. The radio handheld mics are passed round the audience at question time. The chairman's microphone can either be set to be permanently active on the automixer or sent to a different always-live input on the PA.

Using an automixer means that once the levels have been set up for the platform wired mics and the handheld radio mics, it runs unattended with very little chance of feedback. I usually include a compressor set to act as a limiter between the automixer output and the PA, as you always get the shouters.

dvdhawk - The format of the seminar takes a lot of audience participation, not sure placing mics in the front would work very well. It would slow everything down quite significantly.

Boswell - That is a nice mixer but we're a small company that only holds one of these seminars every year. Not sure we would be willing to shell out that money for this.

I was hoping for a simple solution like placing a digital voice recorder in the middle of the room and picking up audience audio but it sounds like it is more complex than that. :/

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bryanprs, post: 443512, member: 50086 wrote: Boswell - That is a nice mixer but we're a small company that only holds one of these seminars every year. Not sure we would be willing to shell out that money for this.

Sorry, my point didn't come over well. I'm sure I'm not unique, and that most audio gear hire outfits have the Shure automixers in their hire stock. It's worth checking what a day's hire charge would be.

Alternatively, automixers come up quite often on Ebay and go for a fraction of their new cost. On a check just now with Ebay US, there are at least a dozen less than $100, although none of those are the Shures, and one is for concrete.

bryanprs, post: 443512, member: 50086 wrote: I was hoping for a simple solution like placing a digital voice recorder in the middle of the room and picking up audience audio but it sounds like it is more complex than that.

Yes, unfortunately, it usually is.

OK, since that's the case, the only other way to come at this is.

You're going to get a lot of ambient noise with a device place in the middle of the room.

How good does the recording have to be?
Is it archival, or does it need to be of a retail-ready quality which you could sell, or give to the participants as a learning tool from the experience?
Do you already own a "digital voice recorder" of some sort?
Do you have the technology to take two recordings from two separate devices and sync and layer the direct feed and audience mic into one seamless audio recording?

As a point of reference, do you mind telling us what the hotel charges to provide a tech? And the duration of the event?

This will be recorded and sold on a DVD. We're more worried about the presenters' audio as which we have figured out. The audience audio is a plus if we could get it without breaking the bank (although we have discussed not recording audience discussion as a incentive to attend the live seminar in the future). We do own a Philips Voice Tracer LFH0662. I do have the ability to sync all the audio.

For more than 3 mics in the room it is $2700 in labor and $500 per additional mic. It is a two day event, about 8 hours each day.

If the audience audio is a purely a bonus, I suppose you would have nothing to lose by trying the Phillips. If you're editing the video yourself, you could always throw in lower-third subtitles for anything inaudible.

That is indeed a big (some might say outrageous) jump in expense. Are you contractually obligated to use their system and/or technician as part of the venue rental? Otherwise, I'd be looking for a quote from an independent sound rental company.

Well, once we come back from the seminar and I have a chance to listen to everything I will let you know how it turned out.

Unfortunately we are obligated to use their system and tech if we want the AV in the room.

My own experience of hotels is that they charge premium prices for basic kit and have no skilled people to work them - as in they set them up and usually leave them. You can get much better value from a local hire company, and they will work it for you. Realistically, seminars that use technology need budget and people to work the kit - if you can't fund it then what choice do you have? running radio mics is what we do in theatre shows all the time, and on some shows that have radio mic runners we use the front of house, unskilled people to do it, but the problems come from the people really - they whisper and hold the mic down near their waist - and the sound guy works really hard to get the level up without feedback. Not a job for an unskilled person, or worse, and automixer. They're actually good at mics on tables or distributed around the room where their distance to mouth remains fairly constant - just perking up when they suddenly hear something. audience mics just don't work. Distant miking might give you something, but I doubt if it'll be useable.

If the powers that be want the recording and radio mics, then they pay - if there really is no budget, don't do it.

paulears, post: 443525, member: 47782 wrote: My own experience of hotels is that they charge premium prices for basic kit and have no skilled people to work them - as in they set them up and usually leave them.

That's what we usually get.

paulears, post: 443525, member: 47782 wrote: the problems come from the people really - they whisper and hold the mic down near their waist

Yes! Very frustrating.

I will have to pass all this information along to the decision makers here and see what we decide. But what I'm thinking is we will throw the Philips device somewhere in the middle and if that audio is usable (sounds like its a long shot) then we'll use it, if not we will know for next year.

Thanks!

I'd see what the hotel's room rental rate is without any A/V, and price out a self-contained, professional 3rd party A/V rental company. As Paul says, you're almost certain to get better techs, and more often than not, better equipment too for a lot less money.

What part of the country are you in? (if you don't mind me asking)

I'd have to look at the contract but I believe we're stuck with the hotel's people no matter what, unless our conference was much bigger. The conference is in Las Vegas.

Now that we're back from the conference and I've begun to listen to some of the audio I wanted to update everyone as to what we did.

We ended up renting the audio equipment from the hotel (mixer, house speakers, 2 lav mics, 1 handheld mic). We hooked the Philips device into the mixer to record. Our presenters used the lav mics while we also ran around the room and tried to get people to use the handheld (some did, some didn't). It wasn't ideal but in the end we were in an odd shaped room where the mic was almost necessary for everyone to hear audience questions.

Maybe next year we will bring our own equipment and just use the house speakers, if that's possible? I'm assuming we just need the correct cords to plugin to their system.

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

That's quite common - just provide them with a left and right into their system.

We appreciate the follow-up.

I'm glad you're satisfied with the results. Next year you will have an even better idea how to plan. For what you're paying in rental fees you could either rent something spectacular from a 3rd party rental business, or buy some pretty nice gear of your own.

Chances are you'll meet with resistance if you ask to patch into the house speakers. So if you do it without their knowledge, make sure you know exactly what you're doing and put everything back exactly as it was before you leave.

Recording an assistance and having a PA in the same room is enough of a bad recipe to have it worst with an audio/visual technician that has no motivation and knowledge..
I guess if you could put some directionnal mics toward the audience and use the directionnal null of the mic to cancel the PA signal. it could work..
Thing is having a mic for many people is bound to fail too if the assistance is out of control and are not quiet when some speaks.

PA speakers aren't point source any more - the sound comes from many places so while you might find an HF null, the bass end would be everywhere.

paulears, post: 445617, member: 47782 wrote: PA speakers aren't point source any more - the sound comes from many places so while you might find an HF null, the bass end would be everywhere.

Could it be ok with an HPF since we'd want to record voices only ?

Frankly, I doubt it - this is already complicated. Can you imagine how difficult to would be for the unskilled people mic running to make sure the back is towards the speakers - and even if they could do it - which speaker, assuming you have left and right ones. The only real thing that can happen is getting them in close to the speakers lips so the wanted to unwanted sound ratio is good. People pay PA companies when they want these things doing right - hotel people rarely know anything about this kind of thing.