Wireless Mic System

[TriesHard]

Hi
Sorry if this is the wrong cat.!

By default really I am quite involved in the sound side at my local church (seems quite a few posts are from church people!). They've been going for a while and have some kit however as time passes need to upgrade and I can get a much better setup if we tried!

At the moment we have wired mics (XLR) which run to the sound desk. Ok but a bit messy in my book! We also have two gemini wireless mics which are quite old.

If I describe the system I would like and if anyone has opinions please voice them! If anyone from DV247 is reading this and can put together a bundle please let me know!

The system I would like is:

A wireless reciever for as mics as possible within the budget, but at least 7.

3 "nice" handheld vocal (singing) mics
1 very nice handheld for the lead singer (better than the other three!), if the quality of the sound was good enough and not too expensive this could be a headset mic with bodypack.
1 handheld vocal (speaking) mic (cheap is fine!!)
1 bodypack with a beige headworm mic (e.g. Audio Technica AT892CLM3-TH Headworn Microphone at DV247.COM)

As for budget... well, we're a church so budget is tight and I'm guessing this ain't going to be cheap!! However, I would rather get a good set and then add to it rather than get it all at a low quality!

So guessing at a budget I might be able to get the leaders to agree to:
Wireless receiver, good singing handheld, biege headworm set - around £600-700? (these are the most important so get these first)
Other singing mics at around £150 a pop?
Speaking handheld - just a cheap one!

Just post your thoughts!

One thing and this shows my lack of experience and the problems with shopping online where you can fiddle! Do they do recievers with 7, 8, 10+ recieving channels on them? I'm guessing the outputs are individual XLRs into separate channels in the sound desk so that would be quite a big box for all those sockets!

Sorry this is really long! God bless anyone who replies!

[Stagesound]

Hello TriesHard.
My first advice is don't do it!
After more years of using radio mics than I want to remember, the one thing I know you can rely on is that even the best will let you down! If you're really interested in improving your church PA system, there are much better things you could spend your money on than buying radio mics when you don't need to.

Virtually every sound engineer I know will give the same advice - only use a radio mic when you need to. There are a number of reasons for this.

First is reliability. Even extremly expensive systems from the best manufacturers (and we're talking in terms of thousands of pounds per channel here - not hundreds) are prone to interference problems. Any steelwork in a building, interference from other electrical sources, and of course water-logged human bodies blocking signals, all contribute to reducing reliability.
Second is cost. Compare the price of any radio mic system with the equivalent wired microphone - look at how much is going into the electronics - and the better the system, the worse this gets. The cost of removing the wires is very high!
Third is quality. There is no radio microphone system which will deliver the same quality as the equivalent microphone plugged directly into your mixing desk. I'll not bore you with the electronics, but that's a fact.

So if it's only about a little bit of convenience, keep your money for something that really will improve your system. And I'm sure if you post the details of what you've got in your system, you'll get plenty of suggestions here on how to improve it!

But, if you really want to go down that route, do it right! Don't be tempted by cheap £150 radio mic systems. Think about the electronics again - at £150 for a system, how much is going into the mic capsule! And as far as reliability goes - good luck - you'll need it! After years of working with good quality mid-priced systems, I foolishly decided to try a cheaper model (around £180) from a very reputable manufacturer, thinking there's no way they'd sell complete rubbish. Woops! Sound was fine, and when tested (in a church!) coverage seemed to be great. That was until the people came in, at which point even holding the receiver up in the air to get over head height, it was unusable. The range was around 20m ! Look at systems around £400 which give a good compromise between range, reliability, quality and features.

If you want multichannel, what you need are multiple receivers in a rack. (You can get multichannel receivers in one box, but these tend to be either very cheap (read "garbage") or very expensive. At the low/mid price range, this is usually two half-rack width receivers side by side, with a mounting kit to make them fit into a 1U rack space. To avoid having multiple aerials, you also need an active aerial splitter, so that one pair of aerials will do for all receivers. (And you do need a pair, even with a single receiver - that's called a "diversity" system and basically improves reception dramatically over single aerial systems). To have all the receivers in one box, you need something like this:-
http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser...product=025321
...and a mortgage to pay for it

You don't say specifically why your wiring is a problem - is it just the mess of wiring around the stage area, or are the connections back to the desk messy too? Can you describe your problem a bit more?

[TriesHard]

Hi

Thanks for your comments!

Really quick reply
Why wireless?
1) Looks better without the birds nest (a big reason!) and I'll be honest, I assumed the more professional it is the more wireless and the less wires!!
2) At the moment the Worship Leader (i.e. lead singer) is also the main keyboard player, but eventually once we have another keyboard player they may migrate and be a "stand alone" singer at the front and would be nice if they didn't have to drag a wire around with them!

I'm a scientist and I like things organised!

Have to leave my pc now but will answer the other questions later about the general setup. We do need a new wireles system to replace the Gemini box (cheapish version but works ok) as the pastors really would like the beige headworm mic and is not compatiable with our bodypack. Perhaps a possible upgrade/comprimise would be a wireless system with the headworm (is going to happen, just don't want them to turn up one week having gone out and bought one illadvised!) and also a really good vocal mic for the lead and the rest can stick with wires!

Anyway gotta dash!

[EdRyan]

Radio mics can work well, but only if you pay through the nose for the best ones. Even those are easily defeated

To back up Trev's point, I've seen first hand how much hassle they are. I've had to switch them out of a show for normal mics. Absolutely anything and everything upsets them. It's a problem with the NEC actually. I've been told by a reputable engineer that on more then on a few gigs he's done there, the radio mics are prone to disturbance...because the taxi rank is pretty close to the stage ! and these are the better radio systems as well !

For some reason, even new churches seem to be acoustically terrible. I've yet ot go to a churh where I can clearly understand the speaker through the PA. I thought that's what god invented the delay line for

[TriesHard]

A quick update, having spoken to the lead she would prefer a headset mic (as when playing keyboard hard to keep mouth infront of fixed mic), so although they clealry have some problems, seems like going to have to have a couple of wireless ones! Any suggestions for a headset singing mic?

[Stagesound]

TriesHard - I think you're right - some kind of compromise is going to be needed to satisfy everyone. There are some things to bear in mind -
you are the sound engineer - you don't tell the pastor how to preach, or the keyboard player how to play or sing (I presume! ) so it's not asking too much that they let you decide how to get the best sound out of your system. If you research various options, (as you clearly are doing) you need to put your plans to them, and hopefully they will respect your advice.

If your pastor tends to wander a bit, and I know some do, then yes, a radio mic is the best solution for him. Depending on where your speakers are in relation to where he speaks from, you may find that a normal lapel mic will work every bit as well as a headworn type. You've talked about what the pastor wants, but not really explained why. Are there feedback problems with your present solution? Is it a speech quality (rather than volume) issue? Before you dive in here and buy new equipment, you might want to elaborate a bit on what it is you want to achieve, so that forum members can give you as much advice as possible.

If you are certain it's okay to go ahead with the headworn system for the pastor, I'd suggest something like this - Audio Technica AT892CLM3-TH Headworn Microphone at DV247.COM at £199 it's not cheap, but since this is argueably the most important mic in the system, you shouldn't cut corners here. When it's given years of service, no-one will remember the price, but if you buy a cheapo mic and it doesn't perform, they'll never forgive you! (Ok - it's a church - they probably will! ) You'll then need the radio system to go with it - personally I'd go for this - Sennheiser radio mic system - it's a complete system, which means if you've got a visiting speaker who doesn't like the headworn mic, you can always switch to the ME2 lapel. I've used a lot of these, always with excellent results, and I'd think from your earlier posts, that your budget is not going to stretch to anything more upmarket.

Do point out to the pastor (I'm assuming he's not used one of these before) that it may be uncomfortable, if the cable snags it may get pulled off, and it may not improve the sound quality! People need to be informed of the potential problems with a system before they commit a lot of money to it. To be honest, in your position I would try and encourage him to try the new radio mic system with the supplied lapel mic first, to see if that delivers the results you want. Only if you've still got problems, then order the headworn mic. Any reasonable person should be willing to go with that strategy - unless they're only after the "cool" factor of the headworn mic. (Tell him he'll look like Britney - that should put him off!)

Now for the keyboard player / worship leader. (Maybe she wants to look like Britney, so I'd not try that arguement in her case!) You've suggested that she may not always be playing keyboards - will the next person also sing? Is she happy with the idea of having to spend £600 for what may be a short term fix? There are many bands where the keyboard player sings - how many have you seen using headworn mics? Not many. I'd go down the quality line with her - no radio mic system can deliver the quality of a good conventional mic - for half of the price of the radio system, you could buy her a brilliant vocal microphone (cue "list of great suggestions from other forum members!") I would hope that if you explain that you have the churches budget and the quality of her voice in mind when you suggest not getting a radio mic, she will pay some heed. If not, then as you say, get something good before some fool - sorry - some well meaning person - goes out and buys some rubbish! Again, explain that you really do need to spend money to get this right, and that doing the job "on the cheap" is throwing money away.

Finally for now, your "birds nest". I don't know what your setup is (any chance of posting some pics?), so it's difficult to advise you on the best solution. In many churches, where there is a stagebox, I solve this problem by not coiling the slack cable at the stagebox - instead I coil it neatly below the mic stand base. This has the added advantage that if someone decides to take the mic off the stand and go for a little wander, the slack cable is exactly where you want it to be - not wound in among 20 other cables! If you're really fussy, buy some velcro cable tidy bands to keep the slack cable in a nice neat loop.

Finally, and I can't emphasise this enough, if you can do it with a wired mic, don't waste your money and compromise quality by buying a wireless system!

Oh yes, (did I say finally?) Ed's point about churches - yes there is a conspiracy amongst architects to ensure that the sound in churches is completely crap. I think they have some kind of deal with the audio consultants who they bring in afterwards to fix it, and then charge the church a fortune for the acoustic treatment!

I remember meeting an architect once when a church was half built, and warning him that he was going to have acoustic problems. His response was "yes, i thought we might, but what can you do about it?" (shrugs shoulders). "Quite a lot" I replied, to which he said "yes, but it's all money, isn't it?". Well actually - no! A well designed building shouldn't need loads of treatment, especially if the architect talks to an acoustic expert at an early stage, and chooses appropriate materials, and "designs out" some of the usual problems. It would also help if they were a bit less precious about the aesthetics, and didn't try to "hide" the PA system - or even better, talk to a PA expert at the design stage, rather than when the building is about to go on site! Oh, and yes, the building was virtually unusable when it was completed, and the architect expected the church to pick up the bill for the retro-fitted acoustic treatment. [End of rant!]