Public Meeting Sound Setup

[daustin792]

I work for a school district and am currently responsible for setting up a camera and managing the sound for school board meeting recordings. They often take place in gymnasiums or cafeterias (maybe even a gym-eteria) The equipment we have was picked well before I started and I'm curious if there may be a better setup possible using what we already have plus a few little things.

For a long time (before me) they used the camera mic to pick up the sound from the speakers. We had complaints because coolers or fans running in the background were often drowning out the sound. When I started I decided that connecting the camera to the amp output would do the trick. Which generally it does. I don't really need a solution, but hearing from pros would be awesome. Here are my challenges with my current setup:

1. Capturing sound from computers running videos or presentations (often not near camera or audio systems)
2. Easy audio level control for the mics (People speak in such different volumes it's hard to set one volume on the amp and have it work for multiple people.)
3. Hearing anyone who decides to speak without grabbing a mic first (often the public or presenters)
4. Getting a good recording the first time so that there is no post production editing. I want to be able to live stream eventually and send a copy to a local TV station without edits.
5. Because the wireless mics are paired to the speakers their audio doesn't come through on the Camera connected to the Amp.
6. Maybe I don't get how the camera works, but it seems like I have Left and Right channel (1&2.) When there are two XLR inputs it will put #1 on Left and #2 on right. If I plug a 3.5mm line into the camera it takes up #2. It seems like the amount of audio going into the camera is quite limited.... I really just want the camera to combine the inputs to make it the same on the left as on the right.

Current Equipment
2 Speaker Titan Neo package These ones with wireless lapel mic and wireless handheld mic
x1 Crown 28m Amp
x1 Input plate with 6 XLR, 1 Aux, 1 RCA inputs. XLR and RCA output
x1 Atlas Power AP-S15 power conditioner / distributor
x4 Audio Technica MB 1k Mics
x1 RadioShack Unidirectional Mic
x1 Canon XA30 Camera

People involved
- 9 Board Members w/ 4 Audio Technica Mics (3 share mic 1, 3 share mics 2 & 3, 3 share mic 4)
(Mics 2 and 3 have two louder speakers and one low talker sharing them)
- 1 Presenter w/ RadioShack mic

Current Setup
5 Mics > Amp
Amp > Speaker #1 (RCA) > Wireless to Speaker #2
Amp > Out to Camera (XLR)

 

[gsp.gr81]

You have a decent setup for what you need.
The only thing really missing from the whole setup and is exactly what you want is a sound/mixing console. You need one with at least 6 inputs (but i would go for 8 to leave room for expansion)
You can control the volume output for every device individually.
You can also test volume levels of mics/(other audio devices) while people are speaking live on other mics without having the the audio from the multiple outputs crossing each other.

As for the setup,
All output devices should be plugged to the sound console (microphones/other audio devices).
Then, from the console, a wire should go to the amp and from there to the speaker #1 as existing setup
.
As for the camera mic, you can plug it to the amp or the console.
You can also buy a wireless audio receiver ( i would buy a good one to make sure you don't have interference) so you can use your camera to walk around and still receive audio from the console/amp without being constrained by wires.

 

[daustin792]

So how would that work?

Would all of the wired mics have long cables to go to the Mixing Console? Then from the console out to one of the amp inputs? Then from the amp to the Speakers? That seem right?

The trick is that I would need a console that has at least 5 XLR inputs preferably more. I would also need two outputs. One for the camera and one for the amp.