Every wireless handheld microphone has an adjustable sensitivity. A good place to start is -30dB, but this article will go over how to adjust the sensitivity in case needed.
When changing the sensitivity, please use caution; if the sensitivity is too high, it could cause feedback among other issues!
When first turning the mic on, you will see the screen display the mic frequency and the model number of the microphone. If an ID has been set prior to this, you will see the ID name instead of the frequency.
Enter the menu by pushing the scroll wheel at the base of the antenna. Here, you can navigate through the menu using the same scroll wheel by scrolling it up or down.
Navigate to the "Sensitivity" portion of the menu and press the scroll wheel to open it.
When in the sensitivity portion of the menu, you can scroll the wheel up or down to adjust the sensitivity. When you've selected the sensitivity that works best, press the scroll wheel to confirm. When confirmed, the screen should briefly display "Stored".
Navigate to the "exit" option and press the scroll wheel to exit the menu.
The purpose of changing handheld sensitivity is to get the best possible gain staging. Gain staging, in summary, is ensuring you achieve the best possible signal-to-noise ratio by dialing in the gain (or sensitivity) of every piece of gear in your signal chain. At Life.Church, we generally start the sensitivity at -30dB on a Sennheiser handheld. Depending on the vocalist, it may be wise to adjust the sensitivity to suit them. When adjusting the sensitivity to suit a vocalist, you want to get the strongest signal possible without peaking the receiver; you can check this by watching the AF meter on the receiver.
In LifeKids, we generally set the sensitivity to -24dB on the sensitivity. This rarely needs to change, but if it does, please take note of the current sensitivity. Notify your LifeKids pastor so they are aware in case they need to change it back for another leader.