Roof Microphones

[Morganhuw]

Right then - The company that I work for wants to take a installation that we did in a recent Welsh Festival on tour to various societies within Wales. And we want to be hanging the microphones from the celling to try and create the performance as real as possible. The director said that she didn't want a wireless microphone on her face because it would "interfere". Any way we want a rig that we can put up in 30 to 40 minutes.

 

Anybody have any idea?

[Brian]

So many questions back to you...

 

1) What sort of venues are you playing?

2) What is your budget?

3) Are you already touring any sort of ground support system?

4) How many mics?

5) What size is your acting area?

6) Where do you need coverage within that area?

7) How many staff do you have available to rig this?

[Morganhuw]

So many questions back to you...

 

1) What sort of venues are you playing?

2) What is your budget?

3) Are you already touring any sort of ground support system?

4) How many mics?

5) What size is your acting area?

6) Where do you need coverage within that area?

7) How many staff do you have available to rig this?

 

1) What sort of venues are you playing? - Mainly in village halls or community centres

2) What is your budget? - As cheap as possible (MAX £1000)

3) Are you already touring any sort of ground support system? We are not going to be putting any microphones on the ground

4) How many mics? 4?

 

 

5) What size is your acting area? About 3Meterx3Meter

 

 

6) Where do you need coverage within that area?Its just one actor in a chair thats screaming and shouting

 

7) How many staff do you have available to rig this? We have 2 technicians

[Oldradiohand]

Slung mics are often too far away to be useful with PA. And why do you want four if there's just one static performer? Your best bet is a radio mic with the capsule concealed in the hairline or clothing, or possibly one of those really unobtrusive floor mount boom mics - but I'm not sure if there are budget models available. Someone here will know.

[p.k.roberts]

I'm a bit confused. You say you have/need 4 mics but the performance comprises "just one actor in a chair thats screaming and shouting" (I assume it's the actor screaming and shouting rather than the chair). So would it be practical to use a concealed personal mic in the actors costume?

 

Too slow again!

[Alec]

I'd go a step further "just one actor in a chair thats screaming and shouting" and "village halls" implies to me no need to mic.

 

What are you trying to achieve here? Do you need massive amplification in such small spaces, or is it that you want to apply effects to the voice?

 

But, if you must, as the others have said, radio mic in hairline or clothing sounds a far better solution, as well as reducing any rigging time/effect significantly.

[Morganhuw]

Sorry - Mistype in the technical requirements (Or I misread) 1 mic will be used

[MarkPAman]

I've got an actor in a chair, in a village hall, in a couple of weeks. Even if there was somewhere to hang it from, which in this case there isn't, I'd still need to have the mic 3 to 4 meres away from her if it's not to be visually intrusive. But I can get a PZM on the floor less than 2m away very easily.

 

(Probably not as good as a radio mic could be, but that's out of the question apparently!)

 

So, set up time reduced, the mic's much closer & I've avoided working at height. A win all round.

[ddproduction]

Agreed - a single, small boundary mic on the floor, a metre or two away should be ample.

[GaryNattrass]

Hmmm a PZM might be a great way to get lots of foot and stage noise.

 

I personally would be putting an AT 875R small shotgun on a very small stand backed off to the PA and pointing at the chair!

[MarkPAman]

Hmmm a PZM might be a great way to get lots of foot and stage noise.

 

I'm still often surprised by how little stage noise PZMs on a thin bit of foam do pick up, and in my case, she's going to be sitting still in her chair anyway.

 

"Shotguns" could work in this case too, but in general they tend to be less useful than PZMs are if people are moving around as the number you need to get even coverage goes up pretty quickly. Hanging mics are pointing at the stage, so probably pick it up better (by which I mean worse) than a PZM does.

[cedd]

I too am quite surprised by the performance of PZM's. I always find though that there's a sudden increase in foot noise close up, yet only a couple of inches back there's none. I place mine on pieces of old mouse mat cut to shape and glued to the bottom.

 

If your character is seated in this chair throughout then it's a gift of a job to mic. You can spend a good while either positioning a PZM or shotgun on the floor in front, or you can start looking at hiding close mics within the chair itself. If it's a big arm chair with "wings" that wrap around the side then you could maybe mount a small mic in the side of it, looking across at your actor's head. If they move about or leave the chair then I've got to say, a well fitted and hidden radio mic may well be the best way forward.

 

I think when Brian was asking about ground support, he was meaning are you bringing some kind of overhead structure of your own - if you can't guarantee the same rigging every time and are relying on the fixings being present at every venue to hang your mics from, then life gets a little tricky!

Are you touring with your own speakers and mixer? Are they being used for sound effects or anything else?

[paulears]

PZMs on the floor are the standard theatrical way to do things, and shotguns faded away quite a few years ago because of the issues when you use multiple (nasty phase cancellation filtering).

 

What is really confusing me is that in a village hall, on a stage space 3m x3m, then if the person cannot be heard they're pretty rubbish at projecting. In such a small space, any microphones are going to be a problem, because of the limited distances involved. Source to mic, mic to speaker, and speaker to source are all going to be very similar, so any idea on getting it loud just won't work. Is your budget for an entire mic/mixer/amp/speaker system?

 

The other thing is that these things do not operate themselves - do you have somebody who understands sound to work it?

 

Your request is the sound version of "I want the stage to be nice and bright so the audience can see me, but I don't want to have anything shining in my eyes". It's a bit unrealistic.

 

3) Are you already touring any sort of ground support system? We are not going to be putting any microphones on the ground

This meant - have you any kind of structure you tour to hang things from, that is supported by the ground - like a square of truss on legs, that kind of thing. In most cases, hung microphones really don't work that well anyway.

 

I suggest you find out what exactly the Director wants.

 

Most plays don't amplify the actors anyway - so if she needs mics, I'd ask her to explain what for? There's little point discovering that at the point at which your magic system starts to feedback means that it's hardly any louder than without the mics - because this is really common. If she want LOUD, then she has to have headsets, if she wants a little more than natural sound, it's clip on mics. If it's just a tiny bit more, it's boundary mics. Any all these mean one of your technical people will need to baby sit even the simplest version, and concentrate intently on the louder ones.

 

Far better to just get actors who are loud, and sack the ones with weedy voices. If this is the real problem, remember any area microphones hear everyone - so the ratio between the loud and quiet actors remains exactly the same.

[Morganhuw]

This image shows what im trying to do and have came up with so far.

 

The scaff pole will be higher by using the stands. The pink colour represents where I've thought of running the XLR cable so far and the blue dot represents the shotgun microphone that I am now thinking of using.. The chair represents the chairhttp://oi39.tinypic.com/2ajbdy8.jpg

[MarkPAman]

Are the stands & scaff just for the mic, or are they serving some other purpose?