Zoom not picking up the Organ or Musical Number for Choir

[davemoore99]

For picking up choir / piano / instruments, we use boundary condenser mics.

This one for XLR into existing sound system.
https://amzn.to/3KbYZFl

This one for USB input into a laptop
https://amzn.to/49JUgoL

5 years use since Covid and very good results across multiple buildings.

Are you just manually switching between mics then on your device in zoom?

[Wattsuk]

Yes, that's correct for the USB mics.

[davemoore99]

Thank you. I'm thinking of getting a small USB mixer and a small omni directional mic to place on the organ and or place near the choir when there is one. I get weekly feedback of how bad the audio is, right fully so because all were able to use is the podium mic.

[davemoore99]

Do you have Zoom hooked up directly to the chapel sound system (which relies on the podium microphone), or are you using a microphone that will pick up all of the sound in the room?

Yes it's connected straight into the podium mic output. I'm just not sure how audio is routed from the organ into the system or is it simply it's not, do these things have some type of internal speaker that blasts it? To my ears it's going through the system.

[mevans]

Yes it's connected straight into the podium mic output. I'm just not sure how audio is routed from the organ into the system or is it simply it's not, do these things have some type of internal speaker that blasts it? To my ears it's going through the system.

By saying it's connected into the podium mic output, I'm guessing there are some jacks there for record out and that it's not connected directly to the podium mic itself. Can you post some pictures so we can verify?

If you're not in a stake center, there's a good chance that the organ is not connected directly to your sound system. If you're in a stake center, it might be. Look at the wires coming out of your organ. Do any wires come out of it and connect to an interface the plugs into a mic jack near the organ? If. you're unsure, you can post some pictures of wires coming out of the organ and where they go and maybe we can help figure it out.

If you don't have an output from the organ connected to a mic jack, then I doubt the signal is anywhere in your system. On the other hand, if you do, it's a matter of programming the mix going into the audio output jack that you're connecting to your broadcast. If the sound system in your building is newer, it may be connected directly to the Internet and an audio engineer can configure it remotely. Otherwise, they'll probably have to send a tech to your building to program it with a laptop.

If your organ is connected to the sound system and its not mixed into the audio out, you can likely ask your FM group to have it reprogrammed. If your organ isn't connected to the sound system and the building isn't a stake center, it's probably not going to happen. Your stake president can always request it from the FM group and see if they'll go for it. But it feels like the current trend is the church isn't too responsive to local requests for adjustments based on how a building is used by the local congregations.

If your organ isn't connected, you can use some of the microphones mentioned in this post. If that solution doesn't give you good enough audio for the person speaking at the pulpit, you can get a simple mixer and connect the boundary mic and pulpit mic to it. Send the pulpit mic into the mic jack at the pulpit and send a mix of the boundary mic and pulpit mic to your broadcast feed. But I'd start with a mic suggested in the post first and if that isn't acceptable, then consider the setup I'm describing with a mixer. We occasionally use an external mixer for such purposes, like for stake conference, training meetings, or firesides where we set up wireless mics, choir mics, and possible instrument mics for accompanying instruments. If you feel you need to go the external mixer route and aren't sure what to do, post here and there are people who can help you figure it out.