Microphones Hidden on Set

[tb1979]

Hi there everyone - I've been lurking and reading the sound-related information on here for quite a while. Thanks for all the interesting information you've given me so far!

 

Just to introduce myself on this, my first post, I'm primarily a musician but have done various bits of theatre work in my time. I also have some experience in recording classical music live.

 

I'm currently in the very early stages of staging a musical in a school (early stages = not very many details yet!). Once thing I'm trying to get my head round while still at the design stage - when I can influence set design and things like that - is the matter of reinforcing those lines which are delivered by people not wearing radio mics.

 

As well as area miking using boundary mics across the front of the stage and on any large, flat items of set that I can (though always making sure to not have more mics up than I need in order to keep gain-before-feedback as high as possible), I'm beginning to think along the lines of hiding mics on set to capture those vital lines (whether spoken or sung) that inevitably get delivered by a minor character who's not wearing a radio mic, but whose line is REALLY important.

 

Hiding lavalier mics on set is relatively easy due to their very small size. But given our very small budget, I may well find myself wanting to hide full-size small-diaphragm-condenser mics in items of set. My current thinking is to get hold of a few really cheap (and therefore relatively expendable) mics such as Behringer C2s, which allow me to build them into set items such as tables, plants, and anything else that springs to mind. If the backstage crew or cast manage to do something terrible and destroy a mic, then we won't be paying replacement charges to hire companies, or mourning the loss of a decent condenser belonging to someone involved with the production! :) And if the C2s survive the experience, they will be useful in the school for recording or future sound reinforcement activities.

 

My question to you is: do you have experience in hiding mics on set, and what ingenious ideas (or dire warnings) can you pass on to me? Have you successfully hidden a mic in something really unexpected, or has your mic-hiding idea been blown out of the water by some on-stage disaster?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Pete Alcock]

Hi Thomas,

 

Welcome to the Blue Room. I've hidden mics in school production sets a few times, with variable results to be honest. Boundary mics at the front of the stage can help a bit, providing the school orchestra are not wedged in close to the stage. CPC MP33201 have been useful there, and are quite economical. On Les Mis, I gaffered a couple of small cardioid boundary mics to the back of the bridge stanchions (CPC MP33127) which helped a bit with the actors who weren't radio mic'd.

 

It's all a bit marginal though really and it'll be a stressful time riding the faders trying to eke out as much gain as you can and fading down mics that no-one is near. How much lift you will ultimately get, depends on how good your FOH speakers are and where they're placed, plus the acoustics of the hall/theatre. Many schools aren't well blessed in any of these respects. The other thing is, will the music be quite loud? If it is, and the band/orchestra can't be persuaded to play quietly, you could be fighting a losing battle.

 

I'd try a few mics during an early rehearsal and see if you're in with a chance. I agree the Behringer C2s will be a good choice (you may need plenty of LF roll-off), as a low-cost test. If all you get is feedback, after doing all you can with desk/parametric/graphic eq, then look at hiring radio mics. That way, your principals will be good and strong and you can use your hidden mics for helping the chorus.

 

Trust this is a helpful starter for 10.

 

Pete.

[paulears]

The biggest problem is that although you can hide the mics, you end up having to keep changing the blocking to allow lines to be delivered in the places the mics are. It's a technique that has worked very well over the years, but only for the occaisonal line that can't be 'rescued' by conventional means. It is a soundmans worst case show - and you will need somebody really on the ball to cope with this to make it work.

 

If it is in a school, you may not have access to people experienced enough to make this work. There is also the problem of the success. This is the tricky one. The people who get the smaller parts are usually well, er, not quite as competent. So you could find that even if you can hide the mics, work out the blocking, get a great op to manage it, you get a sonically wonderful rendition of 'total awfullness'. I'm not sure what is really for the best - letting the audience really hear how bad they are, or having it mask by whatever else is going on. If the lines or phrases in a song are really critical, then the expense of the extra radio channel is worth it - if the expense isn't worth it - then the director will have to find an alternative.

 

It does seem a little strange to have to design a really complicated system to cope with something that a few extra quid would solve in a second. Even if you make it work - can you guarantee the cast will remember to be in the right places?

 

I suspect you may be on a hiding to nothing here?

[tb1979]

That's a very good set of points, and it sounds like you have had the same less-than-stellar experiences I have! ;)

 

Many of the points you make are bang-on. The reason I had started thinking of set-mounted mics are that I have in the past come up against one major brick wall - the fact that the freely-available mic frequencies make four radio mics the maximum. Swapping packs between actors is a bit of a pain when your backstage people are not that experienced, but it's been done in the past with reasonable results. Even then, though, I can envisage situations where I *might* need something a little extra :)

 

I think the biggest potential complication *or* potential benefit is that this particular show hasn't actually been written yet. Complicated because I don't know quite what I'm dealing with yet, but possibly good because I am on good terms with the writer and can put in a good word here and there to get things changed in the script if I'm lucky :) not often that sort of opportunity arises.

 

I have seen early drafts of scenes and one which jumps out at me is a rather important minor character who may well deliver most of their lines sitting at a desk. I'm thinking of a mic mounted under the desk surface pointing upwards at the speaker, with the person concerned being well trained not to touch it... but I must confess I did have over-enthusiastic thoughts in my mind about members of the chorus who have important lines having mics strategically placed near them to catch important individual lines of the songs... but given that I'm going to be stuck in the orchestra pit grinding my teeth if the sound is less than brilliant, I think I need to come back to earth with a bump :)

[paulears]

I suppose the question is are you really strapped for budget? If you can only have 4 mics on the de-regulated channels this suggest you have some already and that is that. If you hire in, you can have as many as you want and the hirer sorts the licence. What is the musical? Do you really need the mics? Without budget you are pretty stuck.

[Ben Langfeld]

Try looking at the mics from Naiant Studio. Although they are omni's, they might do, and they're definitely cheap. Can't argue with £12.50 for a condenser mic built into an XLR!

[nickb12345]

Maybe another option is to have the scene blocked so un-miked cast members are talking "to" a cast member with a mic and thus being picked up by their mic. Have seen it done before, not the best solution but it does work.

 

Nick

[Jivemaster]

MInor characters do not move as accurately so wherever you put the mics .....

 

 

 

With radio mics there are four de-regulated UHF chanels and four or five de-regulated VHF chanels. Fit the principals with UHF and the minors with VHF. As with all de-reg frequencies you may get breakthrough from other nearby users. The only option to avoid all problems is to hire a licensed set one for each character and get the supplier to arrange licenses for the rehearsal and performance period.

 

If you look on the Maplin.co.uk site they have several cheap mics and some capsules. Their two miniature electret capsules can be hidden easily but need 1.5v phantom and will need careful mounting and soldering

[paulears]

There's one snag here that perhaps is getting us sidetracked. The kids involved in the production are no doubt doing it as an activity that gets them grades of some kind. This means, like any other educational activity, that some will find it easy, so get given harder tasks, while others get the simpler, less demanding roles. Inserting any level of additional complication can be to much for the lower achievers, so despite the obvious 'up' in production quality, you could be actually disadvantaging them. We don't know the group, so hiding mics in props, or blocking to make sure people are together at key moments may simply be too much. For some, learning their 3 lines, remembering entrances and exits, and having the correct prop in the pocket is about as much as they can manage. Adding technical production features that impact on the cast could very easily just go t*ts up as soon as they are introduced in rehearsal. They may have learned their 3 lines and movement over many weeks. Changing it during tech could be a disaster.

 

With a professional, mature cast the ideas here could all work - I just feel uneasy in an educational situation.

[tb1979]

If you hire in, you can have as many as you want and the hirer sorts the licence. What is the musical? Do you really need the mics?

 

Aha! Now, that just shows how I have been sitting at the bottom of the budget pile for far too long ;) I had assumed that getting the 'proper' radio frequencies involved us having to sort out all the licence paperwork and generally have a complete nightmare. I'll look into the costs of hiring in the mics on licensed channels. It's not a matter of having *no* budget, more a matter that I had imagined that the licensed mics would be expensive beyond belief.

 

 

Bear with me here, as someone who has never had enough money to play around with to be able to look before, but poking around on Stage Electrics suggests to me that hiring in ONE decent radio mic system is going to be something like £200 per week... so if we go beyond four mics we are already over £1000 on radio mics alone.

 

You know, I *might* just have a problem justifying that one :) ;)

 

Have I missed a cheaper option? If not, then we are definitely stuck with the 'standard' four. We don't have them already, they would be hired in, but at a price which would not involve me being flamed from here to the middle of next week if I suggested it :)

 

Will also look into the possibilities of having the UHF and VHF systems running together (thanks for that suggestion!) - and Naiant studios is a fantastic idea to try - I'd seen their site before when looking at possible instrument mics for something else. Well reminded!

 

It's just a matter of weighing up all possible options before going for a solution. Sometimes I feel that having so little budget is good because it makes you think more. Sometimes, I just wish I could stick a miniature radio station on everything that moves on stage and spend my bank holiday weekend with my feet up :)

 

Cross-posted with Paulears!

 

In reply to the educational point, it's not an activity getting anyone grades - it's purely voluntary for all concerned, and we'll be drawing the 'talent' (no sniggering at the back) from the best kids in a school of 1200 people, so hopefully everyone involved will be half-decent. I can say honestly that there is a good pool of pretty good kids in the school, so although we're not dealing with a professional cast by any means, they're not complete duffers either ;) Good point though!

[Shez]

If you hire in, you'll be able to get between eight and twelve channels worth of radio mics on channel 69, on the hire companies licence. Cost is included in the hire fee. If you want more channels, you'll be looking at extra licences which I believe will cost additional on top of the mic hire. (if memory serves, there's only one frequency in the UHF deregulated band that will play nicely with the ch.69 ones so don't assume that you can get away with all the ch.69 ones plus another four free ones.)

Depending on which hire company you go with, and depending on which mics you get, you'll be looking at somewhere between 60 - 100 pounds per way; 200 would seem a little excessive for a school production.

Where abouts are you based?

Once you've found some potential suppliers, it might be worth posting what systems you've been offered - performance varies a lot between different makes and models. The Sennheiser Evolution G2 series strikes a good balance between quality and cost effectiveness so that might be a good starting point for you to look at.

[tb1979]

Good points there, Shez, thanks!

 

Location is South Wales valleys area, location tbc at the moment, which introduces even more variables!

 

There is a possibility of being in a 'proper' arts centre, which may (haven't checked out their setup yet) mean that radio mics are available already. In which case, all of this is academic (though still extremely useful info for me!) Alternatively, it could be in the School Hall From Hell, with the worst acoustics you've ever heard. Even the *possibility* of having to put the show on in there is what is making me start considering ALL microphone options at a very early stage - it's horrible!

[Ben Langfeld]

If by school hall you mean a small black box type studio theatre, don't bother with mics for dialogue at all, just make sure the cast know how to project properly. Below about 400 seats you shouldn't need to reinforce dialogue.

[tb1979]

I mean a hall which, although ridiculously small, has horrible acoustics - it's basically a box with shiny floor, walls and ceiling! It's a feedback trap and it's difficult to be heard in there because the reverberations are so confusing. I'm pushing to do it somewhere more suitable, and I think I may be winning... :)

 

Agreed that it would be lovely to not have mics at all. But I might have to reinforce some quiet singing voices in particular... !

[Beaky]

Going back to the original ingenious hidden Mic's question?.....just thought I would let you know that a while back I made a special cradle that utilises a CCTV speed dome innards that hold a single shotgun Mic, I have hung this on Truss and sat it on the floor and control it by a small stand alone rs 485 controller. The reason that I built it in the first place was for audio when wildlife filming. The bits came from China and cost less than 100 but its a great tool for many occasions. So much so in fact that my mates production company have temporary stole the thing and run off to some island off Africa to do some hair-brained documentary.