just a couple of questions

[bigmajik]

my brother hooked me up with a late birthday gift. on friday he ordered me a
Sennheiser EW112P G3 LAV SYS . now this is my first lav and im doing a wedding friday so my 1st question is,

1. where on the body do i place the lav to get the cleanest sounding audio?

2. is this a good wireless lav system that im getting?

i have a 7 inch lcd i want to mount on my dvx to use as well. it came with a panasonic battery adapter so my question is,

3. do anyone have any ideal how i can mount this to my tripod so i can power the monitor by battery and not use power cords?

 

[Anomie]

Hi Bigmajik,

I have used the Sennheiser EW112P G3 once. I rented it for an occasion. Worked well, but you should practice with the sensitivity settings before the weddingday. I didn't do that enough, and that gave me a hell of a job to manually balance the incoming sound on the DVX (I couldn't jump on the talking guy and adjust because it was a live event). I read on this forum that de G3 is something like 'you should at least get that set if you want to use lavs'. Which seems to mean that it's not the very best, but that it can be seen as a (low) baseline quality. I'd realy like to own a set like that. (I'll ask my brother. Haha.)

My problem was -I know now- that the lav was just sending the sound to the camera, but that the man had to talk to a large crowd without being amplified. He was an experienced talker so he put a lot of volume/air in it talking, reaching everybody in the back... Much louder than what I tested at home.

Jasper

 

[Alex H.]

There is an entire forum on DVXUser dedicated to audio, and a quick search of the Audio forum will turn up tons of discussion about the Sennheiser G3 systems, and their G2 predecessors. You'll also find information on mic placement.

I read on this forum that de G3 is something like 'you should at least get that set if you want to use lavs'. Which seems to mean that it's not the very best, but that it can be seen as a (low) baseline quality.

To clarify: the G3 is a solid performer. What you'll see mentioned over and over again is that anything under about $550 for a wireless system is a waste of money. The G3 is about the least you can spend for a wireless system that you can trust. No, it is certainly not the best of the best... that's $1200+ per channel for systems from Lectrosonics and Zaxcom. But the G3 systems are great, especially for the money. I have two of the G2 systems and I love them.

Generally speaking, you'll want to put the lav front and center on the subject, just under the top of the sternum. As already mentioned, spend plenty of time this week playing around with the mic and getting to know its setup functions. You don't want to walk into the wedding cold, having to learn the system on the spot. Sensitivity settings in the transmitter and output level settings in the receiver are both important parts of proper gain staging for getting clean sound to your camera.

 

[bigmajik]

i read in several posts that i should use my shotgun mic along with the lav.
do you really think thats necessary?

 

[Alex H.]

i read in several posts that i should use my shotgun mic along with the lav.
do you really think thats necessary?

If you're shooting a wedding with one camera and one lav, you aren't going to get very far. You need to have some alternate sources of audio recording. If the church or other location has a PA system and you can get a board feed, that's great. A shotgun can be planted close to the action, or can be set as a room mic for ambient sound.

You need to make sure you know what you're getting into and have all the audio coverage you'll need for a good final product.

 

[bigmajik]

well the ceremony will be held outside and the PA system consists of a microphone & a guitar amplifier. everyone including the singers will be using that setup. a boombox will be used to play the cds. so how should i tackle this to get the best sounding audio.