- Hey guys, my name is Matt Johnson.
And today I want to share with you my audio recording
setup that I use for recording toasts at rehearsal dinners,
and at small wedding receptions that don't
have a sound system.
And this audio setup is gonna make sure that you're able
to record high quality audio and possibly
even make more money,
and I head you now saying, "Matt, a wedding rehearsal dinner
is basically a wedding reception with just less people,
why would I need a different audio setup for that?"
But hear me out, there are certain scenarios that
you are going to run into that are very specific to wedding
rehearsal dinners and smaller receptions that don't have
a DJ or band with audio equipment and that is what we're
gonna be covering today.
Let's start with the first scenario,
you are filming a rehearsal dinner at a large restaurant
that has a sound system and a projector, etc,
in this situation you can treat it just like a wedding
reception and you don't actually need anymore gear.
I've covered my entire reception audio setup
in previous videos which I'll make sure to link
to down in the video description.
Now here's a more difficult scenario,
let's say you are filming a smaller rehearsal dinner
that is still gonna have toasts but there is no speaker
or sound system for you to plug in to, how are you going to
record high quality audio of the toasts?
First up we have our cheapest option and that is to take
a lav mic with a recorder such as this Tascam DR-10L
and individually put one on every single toast speaker
rotating them out with as many recorders as you have
to make sure that every person speaking has a recorder
and mic on them.
Second option is to take a little voice recorder
such as this Sony UX560, I've done this many times
before at wedding rehearsals, you hand it to the person
speaking, tell them to treat is like a microphone
and they just kind of awkwardly hold it here like,
"Hey, what's up, glad to be here, okay great."
and it usually works pretty well.
You should already own at least one of this in your wedding
filmmaking audio kit for a wedding day, so you can easily
repurpose it for use in a smaller rehearsal dinner.
Let's say you wanna get fancier though,
this microphone is part of my new audio recording system
that I use at rehearsal dinners.
This is the Electro-Voice RE50N/D-B, which is a very
difficult to remember name for a microphone.
I bought this mic specifically because it is built
to still record well even if the person speaking into it
isn't holding it directly up to their mouth.
What's one of the biggest issues
you'll have with wedding toasts?
Instead of holding the microphone up near their mouth,
they hold it down here by their chest,
and so it's really hard to hear what they are saying.
Or, sometimes they just kinda walk away from the mic
completely and it's like way over here and you're like,
I really hope that's picking up what they're saying,
that does happen.
The good news is that this microphone is built
to combat a lot of those issues and so it can pick up
audio great even if the person is not super close to it.
That is one of the reasons that I prioritize spending
the money on this microphone.
I pair this mic with an audio recorder that may look
familiar to you, this is the Tascam DR-10X audio recorder,
and it looks very similar to the Tascam DR-10L,
except it has an XLR input on top.
With the Tascam DR-10X you are still getting all
of the amazing features of the DR-10L, high quality
audio leveling, a limiter, a backup audio track
that's recorded six decibels lower, fantastic battery life,
the only real difference is that the lav mic jack
on top has been replaced with an XLR input.
You connect the Electro-Voice mic to the Tascam DR-10X
voice recorder and suddenly you have this awesomely
compact method of recording toasts at a wedding reception.
You could also use this setup for handheld news interviews,
if you wanna feel like a fancy news reporter.
I love that.
Of course just like whenever I record toasts at a wedding
reception, I want to make sure that I have a backup
audio recording system in the event that the batteries
on the Tascam DR-10X fail, and in that case what I reach
for is, my trusty microphone sleeve here that kinda looks
like a condom, but it isn't
and this Sony UX560 voice recorder,
then I simply slide the voice recorder down into the mic
sleeve and I have a clean and simple audio backup solution.
Incidentally, I will make sure to link to every piece
of gear that I'm talking about down in the video description
if you want to check it out.
Let's take things a step further,
I hate whenever people walk around while they are giving
toasts, partially because then I have to pan and follow them
and focus and that can be a major pain,
but also because I want to bring on lights
and have them set up to light whoever is speaking
so that way they look as good as possible.
If they're walking around it's basically impossible
to light it, so to keep people stationary,
I invested in, let me grab it here,
this mic stand.
It's cheap, reliable and I love that it folds up
whenever I'm not using it so it does not take up
too much room in my camera bag.
I hear you now saying, "Matt, what if they take
the microphone off the mic stand?".
Some people are determed to walk around,
they're gonna pop that sucker off and start walking
around with it, what do I do then?
Well, I have literally no problem telling you
because this is your mic and your mic stand,
to get some gaff tape and gaff tape the microphone
to the mic stand, get it on there good so that way
they can't like fight it off, people are notoriously
determined to really pull on it, so make sure you
use a lot, no big deal, that way they're guaranteed
to stay on there in the good light
and things are gonna look good.
There is one last thing we need to talk about,
this microphone and recorder setup is awesome,
but it has one flaw, namely whenever you have wedding
guests come up to give a toast, they're going to step up
start speaking and then they're going to immediately
stop and look around, and wonder why
their voice is not being amplified.
Even if you explain it before hand, people are not paying
attention to you, they are not going to know.
So, they're gonna start and they're gonna be like,
"It's not on, hello, it's not working.",
and you're gonna be like, in the back,
"It's for the video, it's for the video.
There's a video on that don't work but just keep,
just talk in to it."
It's guaranteed to happen, happens to me every single
time I use this system.
- All right, can we get everybody's attention
here real quick.
- I hear it doesn't amplify.
- [Matt] So here is another option for you,
if the couple tells you they are having a small
rehearsal dinner with no audio setup,
offer to bring a speaker system with you that they can
then use for their toasts, you could even charge extra
for this speaker system.
The speaker that I recommend is the Bose L1.
At around $1000 there are definitely cheaper options
out there, but none of them that I've seen are this small,
elegant and simple to use.
Plus, the cost of the system, if you charge to bring
it to a rehearsal dinner, should help pay
for the system pretty quickly.
You have an XLR input that you can plug your mic into,
there's a nob to control your mic volume,
and there's an RCA output on the back that you can plug
an audio recorder into to record the toasts.
And here's the beautiful part, the Electro-Voice mic
works flawlessly with this speaker system.
If you want to use a different mic that's fine,
but keep in mind that the Bose L1 does not support
phantom power, so while the Electro-Voice mic
doesn't require phantom power to work, so you can use it
with the system, you will want to check if your alternative
microphone needs phantom power because you will need
an amplifier of some sort to power your mic if it does.
And that is my rehearsal dinner audio setup.
I hope this video helps you especially if you're dealing
with one of these specific audio scenarios that is not
typical for a wedding reception, but pretty common
if you are filming a rehearsal dinner.
If you wanna invest in any of this audio gear,
I've created a kit page that is linked down
in the description that lists every single piece
of audio gear that I use at a rehearsal dinner.
With that, thank you so much for watching,
it would be a huge help to me if you would consider
liking this video and subscribing if you wanna
see more videos like this in the future.
You can also sign up for my new wedding film editing course
that is linked down in the description
or go to http://www.weddingfilmframework.com
Thanks so much for watching, and have a great day.
(upbeat music)