Wedding Audio

[Jo S]

Hi,

I’m looking for some advice on audio equipment.

I started filming weddings a year ago and feel that I’m well on the way to mastering the visual but the audio keeps letting me down!

I’ve tried various options to capture audio for the ceremony and speeches but still haven’t found one that is good enough for purpose.

I’ve used a Dictaphone and lapel mic for the groom- Dictaphone only recorded in 8 minute bursts, therefore a small section of audio was missing every 8 minutes- not ideal!

Rode wireless mic- great device, unless the audio is being delivered via a sound system, when the audio becomes very echoey.

Tascam- the recorded audio was very quiet

Shotgun mic- good, but picks up a lot of background noise as it is normally positioned behind the bride and groom

Any help/ suggestions/ advice would be very gratefully received. I don’t want to pay out anymore on audio devices that aren’t up to standard.

Many thanks

Jo

[hgtama]

I’ve been shooting wedding videos for 6 years and the equipment you need for great ceremony audio is really quite simple and inexpensive.

Just combine this recorder:
https://www.amazon.com/SONY-PX333-Digital-Voice-Recorder/dp/B00BOXNSRY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1467068283&sr=8-2&keywords=sony+icd-px333

With this lapel mic: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KMILKGS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I’ve always used this combo and can go an entire wedding season (~30 weddings) without changing out the batteries or memory card in the recorder. It could probable go for a couple days straight of recording to be honest. You can hear the result in any of my videos at http://www.oxfordmediafilms.com

Best of luck!

[Kevin Mc]

Personally, I’ve used a wireless lapel mic on the groom, with the receiver mounted on and connected to one of my cameras. If the ceremony includes an arch over the bride and groom, I will *also* hide a shotgun mic in the arch, wired either to my Zoom H4n, or transmitting wirelessly to a camera. The transmitter I use on XLR mics is broadcast quality, and I always have it run a search for the cleanest channel to transmit on before each use.

[JackWolcott]

My experience in doing weddings has been similar to Kevin’s. I put a wireless on the groom, one on the officiant if he/she will allow it and sometimes a PZM on the speaker’s lectern or a distant musician’s music stand. If there is a house audio board and I’m sure I can get good clean sound from it I run the wireless mics through a mixer to the camera on one channel, the input from the house board on the other. That allows for mixing in ambient sound as desirable.

[hgtama]

You really don’t want to be using wireless mics because you have the possibility of radio interference (happened to me) and the possibility of interfering with the officiants microphone if they’re also using a wireless mic. It’s much safer (and easier) to use what I said and then you just use a program like PluralEyes to sync it up in post.

As far as low lights conditions, just get a low light lens (f 2.8 or better) and use a video light if necessary. I’ve been using Canon t3i’s my entire career.

[Warwick Soar]

Also using the Canon t3i (600d), so I should get similar results with my 50mm 1.8 and 24mm 2.8. I assume you don’t shoot at more than ISO800 or do you manage to get satisfactory results at ISO1600?

[hgtama]

My cut off is almost always 1600. In rare situations I’ve gone up to 3200 but I always consider a video light first. You may get some noise at 1600 but not noticeable to the average eye.

[lizp]

Omg. I’m having issues with the audio for weddings as well. I will look into lapel mics (and other audio options mentioned here) for bride and groom but so far have just used Rode shotgun mounted on my Canon5d mkii set on HPF and -10Db. Which is fine in an indoor ceremony, but outdoors when it is windy it has picked up lots of wind noise (it was a windy day) and seems far from ideal.I’m using Adobe Premiere Pro for editing. Is there anything I can do to the audio once recorded to minimize wind noise etc? Any help/ideas appreciated.
i’m just learning but this is something I really need to improve on….

[CharlesBennett]

To cut the wind noise get yourself a Deadcat for the mic. Rode do their own. My profile pic shows a Deadcat on my Zoom H2N.

[Warwick Soar]

Thank you for the info on the audio and sharing your reel. Could you maybe share with us what camera/s you used for the low-light shots. I just don’t seem to be able to get the same results and what post processing was done to get such clean video in the dark environments.

[lizp]

Thanks for this. I will check into using the recorders/mics you suggested. I’m just not sure how they connect to the video footage. I’ll research it, but do the lavallier mics record into the voice recorder and you sync it to the footage later in Premiere Pro? I certainly need to improve on what I’ve used before – Rode shotgun set on -10Db mounted on my Canon 5D with camera set about 2-3m back from the bride/groom. I’ve just done a wedding and the wind noise was bad (it was a windy day)…Thanks again

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