Radio Microphones in the round

[SoLiEn]

Hey Guys, just looking for any advice/tips and tricks from the wealth of experience on the blue room.

 

Basically, I am tasked with doing a a musical in a cabaret style setup, that requires radio mics. the music will have to be a decent volume (all backing track but its a club atmosphere) and I am having to use radio mics (not my choice, theirs, and I cannot convince them otherwise)

 

now, im planning on using a graphic on each individual speaker to drop the problem frequencies on the radio mics specific to that cabinet and its posistion, and only on the radio mics, the backing track will come out unhampered.

 

Does anyone have any other tips and tricks that may be useful in this situation?

 

Thanks for reading

 

Dan

[peza2010]

Loud backing track doesn't automatically = feedback

It is dependent on many things including mic placement on stage (how far forward there going to be in terms of where the pa is. How many monitors are on stage if any. What the room and stage are lie acoustically. You cannot link feedback directly with volume.

 

And also why do you think radio mice are going to cause you more

Hassle than wired mics? Because you are giving the person holding it A free reign on where they can move?

[paulears]

Perhaps more importantly, where are the speakers? In the round generally suggests the speakers are flown. So what do you have? 4 - each doing a quarter?

 

Mics wise, hairline, boom, hand-held?

 

Presumably mixed mono?

 

Some people treat in the round as a complicated setup, and try to create surround sound, which is pretty tricky. Others just mix the mono they can hear from the mix position, and have the same through the other 3 speakers. It starts to get messy when you also have to have additional speakers pointing in for the performers to hear the tracks, as this gets re-cycled through their mics too.

 

The only time I've ever been stuck with in the round is when the people in charge don't want/cannot afford proper loudspeakers and want them ground mounted facing out, or worse of all, wall mounted facing in - which is horrible!

[SoLiEn]

There is no stage, the performers are amidst the audience, its a horrible room to do it in, as I do not have enough hanging points to get them up off the ground, therefore the speakers are going to be headheight, facing in, just the situation paul described. I know im in for a headache and a battle, the mics are the headset mics, similar to the cpc ones, I have 4, each doing a 1/4.

 

E2A

 

Sorry, shouldnt of said in the round, as its not traditionally in the round, its audience and performers mixed together. logistical nightmare really from a planning point of view.

 

to combat as much as possible I was planning on using gates on the mics, to be more selective with what they pick up, might give me more of a fighting chance!

[paulears]

Well I'd personally dump the gates idea - far too unpredictable as they suddenly cut in and out. Frankly, if you are doing it kind of promenade fashion, and the performers are standing next to the very people who need to hear them - loud, over the music - it's just not going to happen. It will be feedback city! In a normal system, you keep the speakers facing away from the performers, and the leakage and reflections are what sets feedback point - in yours, the speakers deliberately aim AT the performers (or at least, the people near them). There's no simple way to make this work. Mics are going to have to be as close to the mouth as possible, but frankly, I doubt you're going to much volume before the system becomes unstable. At best you need a really good op (or maybe even 2) who can each mix by the usual hearing route, but also by location, so dynamically riding faders as the performers move around. Doing this is really tiring - I've done it a couple of times now and every show I had at least one quick howl when my attention was on the wrong person, and another moved before I spotted it. If somebody offered me a show like this now, being older, I'd probably say no. It wouldn't be fun, however well I did, people would think it was poor, and the chances of pleasant comment seem slim. This, at my age, I can do without.

 

Whoever planned this without thought for sound, needs shooting!

[SoLiEn]

thanks for your opinion on the gates paul, appreciate it, I guess ill just have to give it my best show and see what happens. thanks for reading, ill let you know how I get on! :-(

[DrummerJonny]

I was faced with a similar situation (actually, almost exactly the same) just before the summer.

 

It was a nightmare to be honest, but here are a few of my thoughts from the week:

 

1. Get yourself a good Mix Position! the nature of my show meant I was pretty much stuck in a corner mixing on a listen wedge. This was really, really nasty and not a good idea at all and in hindsight I should have argued more and got myself a better position.

 

2. Despite what Paul said, I found a bit of gating did help. We had several principals who I didn't gate at all, but some of the more chorus-type parts with only a few lines I gated, but bypassed the gates during critical scenes meaning when the mic absolutely needed to work it would. To be honest though, I didnt hear it cut a single syllable all week.

 

3. Mute Mute Mute. Make a Mute Plot. If they aren't speaking in the next 10 seconds they should be muted.

 

4. Get into the space, preferably with the director, tech manager ect, and SHOW them why its going to cause headaches. Spend as much time as you can getting to know the room and system too. You should know exactly where your feedback hotspots (so to speak) are.

 

All this said, It was still tough going, and of all the shows I have worked I was least happy with the end result of this one. Not saying it was a wreck, just that I never felt totally comfortable for the entire run, and was constantly tweaking and experimenting to improve right up to the final show.

 

EDIT: just to add, I agree with Paul on getting the mics as close as possible to their mouths. And also a 2nd Op. My nightmare times were triggering sound cues while half the cast were singing. Luckily I had it all automated to as few cues as I could get away with on SCS, which saved my life that show :)

 

and FYI, The show was Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens, and the venue was a Long, thin Bar, audience and customers mingling, with rock-show levels wanted by the director.

[SoLiEn]

Exactly the same show im doing mate! Saucy Jack! same idea as you. I work at the venue so I know the spaces quite well which helps. im also dragging the main houses M7 to help me out and give me as much control as possible!

 

Thanks.

 

Dan

[DrummerJonny]

Ah, Nice one. I could try and dig out my show paperwork, and if I find anything you may find useful I could send it your way.

[SoLiEn]

that would be fantastic if you could mr, no worries if not, but id appreciate it!

 

Dan

[pisquee]

If I were you doing this, I'd be getting in some decent uni directional headsets, and not cheap omnis from CPC

[paulears]

Apart from drums and the odd noisy guitar or leaky BV/moin wedge combo - I must admit I hate gates. It could be I'm just not patient enough, but I did a show a few years ago with radios and a noise stage, and had 12 in a rack and they were opening and closing faster than I could keep track of, and even when I thought I'd got them set correctly, somebody would move and they would chop and chop - maybe I gave up too soon if others have made them work for them. Good stuff, keep it coming!

[Gareth Owen]

As usual I'm with Paul on pretty much everything.

 

Discussion is had regarding muting mic that aren't being used. I'd take this a step further - you should be mixing line by line - Basically following the script and pushing the mics up and down on the basis of who is talking.

[LD SYSTEMS]

you could also try a centre flown cluster and employ the use of some DBX AFS224's in the signal chain which work very well without the hassle of gates. Have tried this scenario several times and works very well.

[dboomer]

If you will be having wireless mics move anywhere and everywhere and feedback is a concern I'd recommend using a feedback eliminator on each mic individually. Look at the 8 channel Sabine Navigator as a reasonably priced way to do this.