I record sound at wedding ceremonies through my Trantec wireless mic system into my camera.

After one successful recording at a private venue, I have noticed with the mic's second outing - this time in a church - that a faint 'ringing' can be heard on the soundtrack. The ringing kind of swoops in and out in about 1 second, and seems to occur [or be most noticeable] right after a spoken sentence, for example the reverend pausing before the next line of his service. I must say I did not notice this happening through my headphones on the day, but it is present on the soundtrack nontheless when I listen through Liquid.

It sounds to me like feedback, but that is just a guess since I am no expert in the field of sound - it could also be interference perhaps? The church did have its own speaker system set up to amplify the various readings - unknown if these were 'radio' or fixed.

On the day, I would say I was approximately 6 metres away from the radio mic and transmitter on the groom, with my receiver [plugged into the wall - it is mains operated] right next to me and plugged into my camera. Just a guess, but is there a chance the receiver's fairly close proximity [under 1 metre] to the camera could have caused the ringing?

It isn't too much of a concern for me at the moment because the soundtrack is otherwise very clear and I doubt very much anyone will notice this occasional faint ringing except me, but it is there nontheless and I am thinking about future wedding work where it may become a problem - certainly if it was any louder. At a recent church meeting prior to my next event, the official remarked that she hoped my radio mic 'would not interfere with their own radio mics'...

My Trantec system is UHF. From my experiments, I believe I have found it preferable to have the receiver's gain up and camera recording level down - this configuration reduces the background hiss that creeps in with it the other way around [I don't have the equipment here to check that, but I'm fairly sure I have it the right way around].

Any thoughts and advice from those who regularly use radio mics - especially in churches - much appreciated.

 

By coincidence today I was working on a shoot where a similar issue happened.

It turned out that one of the supporting artists' hearing aid was interfering with the boom microphone.

Just a thought....

I have an Azden System & the specs state they should be  at least 6 feet or about 2 metes apart.Also they recommend changing freqencies  when getting interference which seem impossible with  a live shoot. It may be troublesome but going to the church when they are having a different event & testing your sound equiptment may help. I just shot an event where I picked the sound up from the back of the wireless receiver to my camara. the sound was sent from there up to an Amp & then out to the speakers the person at the podium said would the person in the third row  turn off their phones or other devices because they were hearing music & talking. It turned out that the unbalanced line going up to the Amp. was acting like an antenna & picking up a signal from a radio playing in an office. Luckily my sound was perfect because I picked it up before it was distorted . Strange things can & will happen. Good Luck.