Jin Zhu

That's a good point. That was partly why I thought about little recorders and lavs. We'd label each recorder with the name of the speaker and each recording would be separate without needing anyone to monitor, which is its own blessing and curse. I've never had a problem with using the Tascam DR10L though, since it has a safety track, but the problem there is I can't find any place that rents them. Dunno that the client is up for buying 5k worth of recorders upfront and then returning them. That leaves the Zoom H1n, but that has no safety track. Yikes. Table mics were considered, but I think it might disrupt the tone of the event, which is a group of people gathering to talk about personal experiences. IMO half of people never quite use handheld or table mics correctly though. These won't be trained professional talent, but just regular people who had a common experience.

I think at that point, we'd just rent a 24 channel mixer with timecode and record to a stereo track with one recorder. I don't think the speakers are going to be talking over each other much, so there would just be one person at the board. But it good to hear that interference won't be an issue. Thanks!

I have an upcoming gig that involves a conversation between about 20 people around a huge rectangular table in a very reflective, bright concrete space. I usually do interviews and small panels, so I'm used to using 3-4 mics, but am a bit worried with issues that I can't anticipate if I try to use wireless lavs for 20 people. I've been also considering using a tiny Zoom or Tascam recorder for each speaker, and sync all the tracks in post and bounce down to a stereo mix. Are there interference issues with using that many wireless mics? I know you can set them to different channels, but some of the manufacturers only have a limited number of preset channels and I wonder if it's going to be a struggle to find enough usable channels. The location is somewhat isolated but very near a major metro area, and there will be a small audience of about 50 people - do I have to then worry about cell interference? Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks!