behringer c-2

[Alec97]

Hello,

 

Can the behringer c-2 mics be used to pick up vocals for a small concert?

 

I am thinking mounting 2 or 4 on the front of the stage the singers will be standing approx 3-5 meters away.

will they even pick up this far?

 

Any suggestions

Thanks.

[GaryNattrass]

They will pick up but if you are hoping to feed PA you will struggle and even or recording you will be better off with some shotguns.

The thing is that you can not change the laws of physics so a mic some distance away will always sound the same, what a shotgun will do though is allow you to get more gain but reject any background noise.

I have done stage productions with three of my fave small shotgun the AT875r but have also had some radio mics for featured artists!

[Wilflet]

Why are the mics 5 meters away? can they not be closer?

[Alec97]

well thats how far away the singers will be standing from the front of the stage

its more like 3 meters.

[paulears]

You may be surprised how little you can push the fader before it feeds back. You may also discover that doing the test with one, and then again with two, then three gives you no extra volume - perhaps even less. Shotguns sometimes work poorer than expected because most have rear lobes that if these are on a path to a loudspeaker can again reduce the available volume. If the singers can really sing, volume wise - you may get away with it, but probably more because they're louder. If the singers have quiet voices, then any microphones are more likely to hear the music they are singing to, rather than the singers. If you need to hear quiet singers, move them or the mics - it's the only solution.

[Oldradiohand]

There have been so many threads about this. Professional singers with powerful voices use microphones very close for live performance, and there are reasons for doing it. Even with relatively low levels of sound reinforcement you'll need to get the mics within a couple of feet. Can you get the singers to cluster around two or three mics on stands and spot mic the soloists? And teach your singers to sing loudly!

[Shez]

Will there be anything else on stage making any sound? Our ears are amazingly good at selecting what we want to hear and ignoring other sounds; microphones can't do that. Any other instruments, coughing, shuffling feet etc. will all be picked up just as effectively as the voices.

You may be able to give a tiny bit of lift to an unaccompanied choir but for anything else, there's little point. Either get the mics closer to the singers or the singers closer to the mics. How many singers are there?

[revbobuk]

Since no-one has said this yet - the C2 (or the C4 - pretty much identical, different colour) is good value for money, and will do as good a job as any cardioid condenser mic. We do what you are proposing fairly regularly, and if singing is the only thing happening on stage, then it works. But the other comments above are correct - it can only offer a very limited amount of gain.

[Oldradiohand]

Since no-one has said this yet - the C2 (or the C4 - pretty much identical, different colour) is good value for money, and will do as good a job as any cardioid condenser mic. We do what you are proposing fairly regularly, and if singing is the only thing happening on stage, then it works. But the other comments above are correct - it can only offer a very limited amount of gain.

 

I bought some C2s a few years ago 'cos I couldn't believe they could be any good for the money. We put one up against a Schoeps CMC somethingorother ('cos they look alike) and they sounded astonishingly similar on speech - the Schoeps had a bit more crispness and depth but not that much. The polar pattern and frequency response were suspiciously similar, too. Definitely worth having a couple in your bag of bits.

[Wilflet]

The C2s are great for the money- but even if the question had been about AT4041's/AKG C451/whatever peoples far more expensive cardiod small diaphragm condenser of choice is the problems/concerns will remain the same;

 

 

- to avoid feedback the desired signal (singing) needs to be louder at the mic than the PA, if the singers are several meters away the PA may well be nearer.

- if singers are quiet theres often pretty much nothing you can do, working with those incharge of the choir to get them to sing up and sound how they want to sound so you just subtley enforce is the only way to go.

- if distance micing is unavoidable think about mic placement (if you can scoot them any more on stage do it- if you know someones going to insist on moving them back start really on stage and move them a foot back to where you wanted in the first place ;) ) and pa placement and dispersion (a distributed system works better for things like this- rather than having a big loud speaker right by your mic you can reduce the volume there and move more of the energy further down the room)

[Bobbsy]

I'd agree with all the cautions listed above but, if you're forced into it, I'll add a few of extra suggestions.

 

First, get the mics as high up as aesthetics will allow. A foot or two up (rather than right at the actors' feet) can make a difference; three or four feet even better. When I'm forced into working this way, I'm lucky to have some of the old extension tubes for my C451s--these make the mics far less obvious than with a full size mic stand.

 

Second, be prepared to mix like mad and have as few mics as possible open at any one time. Every extra mic faded up takes you that much closer to feedback.

 

Third, assuming your mics are evenly spaced across the stage, depending on the position of your PA speakers I've found it can work better to put the two outer mics farther towards the edge than seems right then angle them back to the place on the stage where you want pickup. Although counter intuitive, this can put the PA speakers nearer the null point of the cardioid pattern and reduce pickup. As I say, it depends on the exact position of the speakers but it's worth experimenting.