Wireless mics and small PA for speaker meetings

[Skipweasel]

A good point, and well made.

[John Williamson]

For a "professional" disco setup, the person doing the talking usually has some experience of how to make their voice sound good over their equipment. Involving things like a constant lip to microphone distance, and listening to what they're saying over the system, and modulating their voice accordingly.

Broadcasting output is normally controlled by an engineer at some point in the chain.

Open mic nights, or where you get random guest speakers need some form of dynamics control at the source. Or a system that can cope with a wide dynamic range, preferably both.

[tony sayer]

Yes usually a man called Mr Bob Orban;!...

[John Williamson]

Isn't he the guy that sits in the transmitter room, after the guy in the control room has done his worst?

He also has a software version now, I believe. Still sounds like an Optimod, though.

[tony sayer]

Yes..

And Err .. Yes!...

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Nicely put.

There will also almost always be a compressor sitting across any vocal mic.

Indeed. Depending on how well the mic is used and the type of mic etc a speech only system with no compression requires a pretty wide dynamic range if it isn't going to distort.

I'm quite surprised everyone doesn't know this. Have they never played with a mic plugged into their domestic setup?

[John Williamson]

Most haven't.

Most people only ever got to the stage of playing with recording their voice on a cheap cassette recorder and "It doesn't sound like me". Nowadays, they don't even do that, since cassette recorders went out of fashion.

I have been using microphones, mostly in public address situations, for thirty years or so, so that makes me relaxed in that situation.

It amazes me how many people in my industry (I'm a coach driver) are scared of the microphone. I did a marine radio telephony course a while ago, and even a pair of dead microphones I took in to help with practice scared people. Goodness alone knows what would have happened if I'd taken a pair of live transceivers in.

[Tabby]

Its a trivial matter to react when you hear distortion, you learn that very quickly.

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You might. 99% of those actually using PA systems don't.

[John Stumbles]

there are others:

[geoff]