What Lectern mic should I be looking for?

[Eric Toline]

Most likely it’s your gain setting or speaker placement. Make sure the speakers are in front of the lectern and not behind them. A good graphic EQ unit or feedback eliminator will help you notch out the offending frequencys.

\”I push the RECORD button and hope for the best\”

[James Dow]

I’m very careful on the speaker placement, so I’m pretty confident its not that. I have a Behringer Feedback Destroyer Pro, but I’m not sure how good that model is. Any thoughts on that?
In regards to the gain setting, could you be a little more specific? I push the level as much as I can, without getting into clipping.

Thanks,
JPD

JPD

[Ty Ford]

Hello James and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Eric has given you very sound (pun intended) advice. As you may know, feedback happens when sound coming out of the PA makes its way back into the microphones.

Fewer speakers and/or fewer mics are the answer. You say “mics.” How many mics are you using at one time?
Are you wrapping anything around the back-side ports of the mics? Closing the back ports instantly makes a directional mic into an omni and increases the possibility of feedback.

Perhaps you could show us an overhead view of the mics and speakers.

Regards,

Ty Ford
Cow Audio Forum Leader

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[Richard Crowley]

If you are operating in an acoustically-unfriendly space like a gym then you are starting out at a disadvantage with a difficult situation.

And if your presenters won’t stand stock-still directly in front of the microphone, then you have the same problem that most of us have. Modern speakers often move around and there is really nothing we can do about it.

You need to get better “signal-to-noise” (SNR) from the microphone. If you are getting too much ambient (amplified) signal back into the microphone, then you will have feedback problems. If this is the main speaker, I would be VERY insistent on putting a wireless mic on the presenter. Preferably a “headset” microphone. Or a clip-on lav mic which wold not be as good as a headset mic.

Of course a wireless mic properly attached to the presenter wouldn’t be appropriate for brief speakers (like the person making announcements or introducing the main speaker). For that, you need a mic on the podium. But for the main presenter, clearly that isn’t working for you. If the speaker moves around there is no amount of money you can spend on a microphone that will fix that problem. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt.

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Recording audio without metering and monitoring is exactly like framing and focusing without looking at the viewfinder.