Deciding on the best hire microphone for your corporate event
13 April 2010
At corporate events such as conferences, AGMs, awards ceremonies and seminars it is vital that the main speaker’s sentiments are relayed to the audience in as clear a way as possible. This can be affected by a number of factors such as the quality of the front of house PA system or the acoustics of the room. Neither of these will matter if the microphone the speaker is using is of poor quality or not suitable for the job in hand.
The microphone is the start point of the PA system process, picking up the speaker’s voice, converting it to electrical energy before it is transferred down a cable via a mixing desk and amplifier before being converted back to sound energy by the front of house speaker system. A poor quality or inappropriate microphone may not pick up the source vocal sufficiently and as such the signal sent to the mixing desk will need to be greatly increased before being sent to the amps and speakers. This increases the chance of poor sound quality including the potential for disruptive and unwanted feedback.
There are many types of microphones available, each engineered to pick up a certain sound source in a particular environment. In the case of corporate events it will be primarily spoken word that needs to be emphasised and there are a number of microphone types that you may come across.
These include static cable vocal microphones, desktop or lectern mounted condenser microphones, handheld radio microphones and lapel or tie clip radio microphones. Each of these has its benefits for certain scenarios and it is worth discussing your event type with your audio visual hire professional to ensure the best microphone for the job is provided.
Handheld cable microphones such as the Shure SM58 are very reliable and assuming they are in good condition will reproduce vocals at a very high standard. They are at their best when held close to the speaker’s mouth so may not be suitable for lectern or tabletop mounting unless the speaker projects his or her voice very well. For such a situation it is generally better to hire a specialist table top or lectern condenser microphone such as the AKG C747. Condenser microphones are generally very sensitive and will pick up sound from distance but they need to be carefully controlled to ensure feedback is not an issue. This is also true of radio lapel microphones such as the Sennheiser EW series of radio systems. The benefits of such units are they allow speaker’s to move freely around the stage area without the constraint of cables and without having to worry about speaking towards a static microphone. The Sennheiser EW system is also available with a handheld radio system which again allows the speaker to move around the venue but must be held to the mouth if it is to work at its best.
The microphones listed above are regularly available from many professional AV hire companies and are of such a standard to ensure excellent vocal reproduction assuming the PA system is also of a high standard. As mentioned above it is best to discuss your event in detail with audio visual hire companies who will use their experience and expertise to recommend the best equipment for the job. Professional AV rental companies can also assist in running other technical aspects of your event such as hire plasma displays, projector hire, installing integrated stage sets and engineering requirements.
Overall a professional AV company can not only make the production of your event better but also means that your time and effort can be directed to other areas of your event.
Gathering quotes can be a time consuming and tedious process, making countless phonecalls or sending e-mails to hundreds of audio visual hire companies. As a remedy to this process websites such as http://www.audiorent.co.uk/ AV hire quote service have been devised. Audiorent.co.uk allows AV hire companies to complete one on-line quote form which is then sent to AV companies who cater for your location and can provide suitable equipment and service. The AV companies will then contact you with quotes or to request further information regarding your event.
http://www.audiorent.co.uk/ is the UK's leading quote finding service for PA hire, AV hire, lighting hire, plasma screen hire, DJ equipment hire and staging hire. We have a comprehensive list of some of the largest and most experienced PA hire, AV hire, lighting hire, plasma screen hire, DJ equipment hire and staging hire companies from across the UK.
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