I did an outdoor ceremony the other day with just one wired mic, a JTS FGM-170. I was prepared to use wireless mics but I found that this wired solution worked much better than I had anticipated. After setting it up and testing it, I put the wireless away. The ceremony was held outdoors. The location had a pretty steady breeze that was occasionally hitting 15 mph.
Aesthetics are always important with ceremonies. A big mic on a standard stand with your typical mic cable just looks poor. This mic is integrated into a 1/4" carbon fiber boom and the cable connector (mini XLR) is at the other end of the boom. I used the short mic stand shown in the picture at it's minimum height and had the boom perfectly vertical. The mic end of the boom has a 3" gooseneck. I left that perfectly straight too. The mic came with a very small foam windscreen (probably no more than 1" in diameter). It was a very clean look. The mini XLR cable was no more than 1/8" wide and it fit nicely into the grooves of the cement patio.
The real magic is the mic itself. It comes with cardioid, super-cardioid and omni-directional capsules. I used an omni for the ceremony. I thoroughly tested it from many directions and I had great pickup and no wind noise (with my 80 Hz HPF was selected on the mic channel). As a backup, I had a choir mic buried in the top of the arbor where the ceremony was to take place. It too had a mini-xlr cable that was hid out of site. I never needed this.
From an operator's standpoint it was so much easier using this than a wireless mic.. I didn't have to worry about mounting a lav, accidental muting, ruffling of stuff against the lav, battery strength, getting the mic back afterwards, etc. It was just set and forget. Highly recommended.
There are a couple of issues some may face with this solution:
1) You need phantom power for the mic (it is a condenser mic).Most DJ mixers lack phantom power but you can always buy an inline supply.
2) This particular boom is pretty long. It wouldn't work as well with short people. I believe Audix sells a similar boom mic that is 6-10 inches shorter.
Aesthetics are always important with ceremonies. A big mic on a standard stand with your typical mic cable just looks poor. This mic is integrated into a 1/4" carbon fiber boom and the cable connector (mini XLR) is at the other end of the boom. I used the short mic stand shown in the picture at it's minimum height and had the boom perfectly vertical. The mic end of the boom has a 3" gooseneck. I left that perfectly straight too. The mic came with a very small foam windscreen (probably no more than 1" in diameter). It was a very clean look. The mini XLR cable was no more than 1/8" wide and it fit nicely into the grooves of the cement patio.
The real magic is the mic itself. It comes with cardioid, super-cardioid and omni-directional capsules. I used an omni for the ceremony. I thoroughly tested it from many directions and I had great pickup and no wind noise (with my 80 Hz HPF was selected on the mic channel). As a backup, I had a choir mic buried in the top of the arbor where the ceremony was to take place. It too had a mini-xlr cable that was hid out of site. I never needed this.
From an operator's standpoint it was so much easier using this than a wireless mic.. I didn't have to worry about mounting a lav, accidental muting, ruffling of stuff against the lav, battery strength, getting the mic back afterwards, etc. It was just set and forget. Highly recommended.
There are a couple of issues some may face with this solution:
1) You need phantom power for the mic (it is a condenser mic).Most DJ mixers lack phantom power but you can always buy an inline supply.
2) This particular boom is pretty long. It wouldn't work as well with short people. I believe Audix sells a similar boom mic that is 6-10 inches shorter.