Mat Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Hi. I work in a school and we have been considering creating a sound relay from the Sixth Form Drama Studio into the Control Room for those operating to be able to hear what is going on. The building was designed as best it could be however the control room has extremely limited view into the Drama Studio and hearing what's going on in there can sometimes be an issue. Therefore I am considering setting up a relay for future use. The Performing Arts and Media Department has a "Yoga CT-07a" boundary microphone that has been sitting in their cupboard for years (I only joined this September) and never use it. As I have very little experience with sound I was wondering if this type of microphone would be able to pickup what was being said in the Drama Studio and then relayed back into a small speaker system setup in the Control Room. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shez Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Are you intending that this relay will simply allow dialogue to be heard in order to know when to run lighting cues (for example) or is there an intention that sound will also be operated by listening to this relay? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mat Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 Simply to be able to operate lighting cues. The way the building was designed, when sitting down you can see nothing in the Drama Studio, when stood up you can see about a third. There is CCTV to be able to see the rest of the Drama Studio but the amount that you can hear from the Control Room is very slim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 You must have had a similar architect to us. Sitting behind the desk you get a lovely view of the rig and the cyc, and no view of the stage.I've now built a very high desk and obtained 2 tall stools to get round this, and as you are doing have installed a sound relay. A boundary mic should be fine in a small studio. It's wise to give the lx op easy access to the volume control, theyll need it to boost the quiet passages with the tricky cues and to turn off the feed on a bad day... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mat Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 The Drama Studio is reasonably large. In your opinion, where would be the best place to put the microphone. As we have thick black curtains running round the drama studio it can't but put on the wall. Would the microphone be able to pick up sound from 20ft up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J Pearce Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Presumably the wall where the window or the camera are would be left clear of curtains if the booth was in use? Our studio is 16m square -ish, and I get a very usable feed (for relay not amplification) with a mic just the other side of the window. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timd Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 If the budget will stretch, a Behringer Shark is a good addition to the system. Phantom provider, mic pre and compressor all in one small box. Tim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Agreed, a compressor of some sort would be a valuable addition, makes the signal much more manageable and lets you hear the quiet and loud bits at the same volume without getting your eardrums blasted :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ojc123 Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 In our school we set up a domestic camcorder (which was mechanically wrecked) to act as CCTV and sound monitor. The AV out is connected to various old TVs and the sound goes to wherever we need it. This was done as a 'make do' and it's been there since 1996. The sound isn't fantastic in absolute terms but the heavy compression means it is pretty well fit and forget. It'll pick up quiet speech quite well and loud music without distorting and is perfectly good for cueing and show relay purposes. There's probably lots of these lying about now and you can have a go for no cost. The camcorder picks up normal stage speech from 15m away reasonably well although the closer the better obviously. Not a conventional solution but cheap (free if you're lucky) and effective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 That yoga mic is actually rather nice sounding - got some here. Stick it on the wall that faces the 'action'. It will be better than most other mics you have hanging around. Try it and see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mat Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 Thanks for the positive responses. I will have a look into the products suggested and have a little bit of a play around. The good thing about this is that is doesn't have to be brilliant; just has to work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aaron-Hill07 Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 I hate to point out something obvious.. but if you want to be able to hear the cast talking to cue lighting.. could you not just take a feed out of the sound desk into your speaker then just send a post-fade mix out into the speaker so you can hear everything that's being said live on stage. Surely that's a better option than putting extra boundry mic's out which may not pick up everything as well.. or am I missing a point here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 .. or am I missing a point here?The point may be that not all shows use microphones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 And if it's a school can you guarantee the person on the sound desk isn't behind the very same sealed window! Or even if they can hear the show, only has the fader for the CD up because they can hear everything else. This year in panto, I had a nice office, but miles away from the stage, but the show relay mic was in a really good place and I actually had a pretty good version of the show through it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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