Sometimes it Helps to Think Outside the Box

It seems like everyone is moving to a Countryman E6 or other over the ear microphone for spoken word.  And why shouldn't you? They get greater gain before feedback and sound better than a microphone mounted clipped to a tie or coat.  The microphone stays in the proximity to the mouth instead of being to far away one minute and too close the next. Well what happens when you get resistance to the over the ear microphone craze. I had this problem with our teaching pastor Ryan Kelly. We had three issues: First he did not want to wear a "Brittney Spears" microphone. Second he did not like talking to people after services with the microphone on, and if he took it off it never went quite back where it belonged. Third they just did not stay on his head that well.  We tried single ear, double ear, DPA, Countryman, Audio Technica, Samson, but nothing stayed on his head. I really needed find something that would give me the constant microphone position I was looking for. Then one day it hit me! His glasses! I was using the Countryman EMW Omni Classic Lavalier, which I love because it sounds the most natural of the lavaliers I have tried in the past. It happens to be a flat microphone, and is just the width of Ryan's frames. I use two thin pieces of gaff tape to fasten the microphone to the glasses. The microphone is placed as close to the hinge as possible and taped just before the head of the microphone. The second piece of tape is placed just before the earpiece. I hope someday to have a second pair of glasses so we can just leave the microphone attached to the glasses. It only takes about 3 minutes to get the glasses wired up, so not a huge inconvenience. This method has solved all of the concerns we were having with the over ear microphones. His glasses fit his head, the microphone is always in the same spot if his glasses are on, he does not have to take it off to talk to people after service it is almost invisible even at normal conversation distance, and of course most important he does not feel like Brittany Spears. Below is a picture of the EMW microphone.