Lapel mics

[Solstace]

Remind me - what's a lapel mic again? ;)

 

Outside of theatre and one person's rider which occasionally comes my way, I've managed to eradicate them from my day-to-day use, and I've never looked back. For conference and general use, headsets (especially omni) get me much more consistent sound, with fewer random bouts of feedback, and much more gain-before-feedback. Even cheaper sets end up sounding more natural due to their placement. I've always hated the "chesty" sound of lav-mics placed on the, erm... chest, and in live situations I find people move too much for clothing etc to stay in place to avoid head-turns, clothing rustling etc adversely affecting the sound. And then in theatre mode, light reinforcement of lav-mics taped into hair-line etc works well enough, but then headsets work better for rock gigs or anywhere else that gain-before-feedback becomes a problem.

 

As for WHICH lapel mic for when there's been no other choice:

 

I've always gone for omnis due to size and lack of fussiness on placement - cardioids have never given me enough directionality to be worth the extra size penalty, and that extra directionality has been far more likely to bite me in the bum in feedback than to actually be useful in real-world gain, especially on the kind of voices and people I'd try and use it on. So, with that in mind; for budget shows using Sennheiser kit I end up using ME2's, with a preference for MKE2 Golds, assuming a lapel clip can be found (don't recall clips coming in the box!).

 

Hope that helps! :)