Audacity Forum

What are the best settings to get the best voice recordings in a hall/room?

The best settings for voice recording are to use the "Britney Mic" like this...

http://enquirer.com/editions/2001/11/11 ... 1_zoom.jpg

...or a tie tack microphone. This is the one we use for our training sessions.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2102927

You clip that to the speaker's shirt just below their chin and stuff everything else in their pocket.

Either one of those into a small field mixer and then on to your computer -- or USB sound adapter if you're on a Windows machine.

Way down the list is a podium microphone or a feed from the house mixer, but those have problems with heads bobbing back and forth and the volume changing. They could also have problems with system hum depending on your sound adapter and how you're plugged in. Also, some sound people would rather break both your arms than let you plug in.

There is no third. If you got a recording from the back of the hall with noise, echos, and reverb, you have no show. You might be able to deal with the noise, but there is no echo and reverb filter.

Koz

kozikowski wrote:Way down the list is a podium microphone or a feed from the house mixer, but those have problems with heads bobbing back and forth and the volume changing. They could also have problems with system hum depending on your sound adapter and how you're plugged in. Also, some sound people would rather break both your arms than let you plug in.

If you can't get a microphone on the person speaking then one of these may be an alternative http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/ ... 89_content
Tell security about it before you get it out and point it at the speaker.

I thought about that later. The Sennheisers are good, too.

<<<My MKH 70 has been through 6 or 7 hurricanes and is still beautiful.>>>

I believe it was the MKH-60 where you could change the nose for short or long throw capture. That's my friend in Florida who has to deal with salt water corrosion and water damage. He refers to his thick fuzzy wind sock as his "Wookie."

You still can't capture in a heavily live room, however. You're going to get stuck with the second bounce coming from behind the performer.

Oh, and to specifically answer the question, there are no special settings during live capture other than to make darn sure your levels never hit maximum. Clipping distortion is permanent and fatal.

Koz