Too many mics?

[taylord]

Hi all,

 

I'm currently planning mic placement for an upcoming production of Little Shop of Horrors. So far we have 12 Sennheiser wireless c/w headsets. I am looking to place 3 x Crown PCC-160 downstage and then hang 3 x Sennheiser MKH416 short gun mic upstage. Does this sound reasonable or am I using too many mics?

 

We have a very capable system running with a DBX Driverack 260 & Yamaha MG24/14fx, monitoring we have 2 x JBLSRX712 on stage and a Yamaha DXR12 in the pit (which is off stage at the front).

 

Any advice or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

Cheers, Dan.

[paulears]

The trouble with the shotguns is they are like torches, and aim is critical - but if the person moves away just a bit or walks left or right, the impact vanishes abruptly. The boundaries blend much better - plus multiple shotguns also become rather odd when they combine and start comb filtering making gain before feedback more of an issue.

 

If there was a piece of important spot dialogue upstage, then maybe - but your biggest problem is simply that the volume from those miked up is going to be loud enough to get over the music, but the boundaries and shotguns won't be. Shoving up the entire lot on a group or VCA may well be very disappointing in a musical number, making very little difference.

 

What I don't quite get is why you are thinking of doing it, as 12, from memory is more than the cast count, isn't it?

[Shez]

You can never have too many mics. You will however need a skilled operator as regardless of the number of mics you have rigged, you can't just turn them all on & forget about it. They will need need to mix line by line. It's not a big cast so I imagine all your principals will be on radios; presumably the rest are for coverage of the chorus? Whereabouts are the band going to be in relation to the stage?

 

Edit: spelling.

[taylord]

Thanks Paul,

 

We have an 'extended' cast as it's a school production, including the ensemble. The idea was that the boundaries and shotguns would pic up those who don't have wireless.

 

The trouble with the shotguns is they are like torches, and aim is critical - but if the person moves away just a bit or walks left or right, the impact vanishes abruptly. The boundaries blend much better - plus multiple shotguns also become rather odd when they combine and start comb filtering making gain before feedback more of an issue.

 

If there was a piece of important spot dialogue upstage, then maybe - but your biggest problem is simply that the volume from those miked up is going to be loud enough to get over the music, but the boundaries and shotguns won't be. Shoving up the entire lot on a group or VCA may well be very disappointing in a musical number, making very little difference.

 

What I don't quite get is why you are thinking of doing it, as 12, from memory is more than the cast count, isn't it?

 

 

 

 

Hi Shez,

 

Thanks for the reply. You are correct in thinking that the principals will be on radios and the rest is for coverage of the ensemble. The band go downstage but off the front as we have a raised stage in our school hall - so their head level, when seated, matches the stage. I will be operating the mics, as I do every year and am confident in my skills http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif. I just wanted to make sure the whole stage can be covered if needs be?

You can never have too many mics. You will however need a skilled operator as regardless of the number of mics you have rigged, you can't just turn them all on & forget about it. They will need need to mix line by line. It's not a big cast so I imagine all your principals will be on radios; presumably the rest are for coverage of the chorus? Whereabouts are the band going to be in relation to the stage?

 

Edit: spelling.

[cedd]

Radios on principals and PZM's on the ensemble should be perfectly adequate. I'd scrap those shotguns if I were you.

 

Little Shop doesn't have that many ensemble numbers anyway. Once you get past Skid Row, which has lots of one-liners in it, it's pretty much plain sailing. If you're really wanting to beef up your chorus singing then stick some mics in the wings and get anybody not on stage to sing in to them. If you've got mic'd cast who only have small parts and who aren't needed for the whole show then if they switch to being ensemble afterwards/before you can use their mic to beef up the ensemble sound. It'll likely pick up the people stood directly around that person too. I can think of a dentist and some reporters who are only in one act straight away.

[taylord]

Thanks Cedd,

 

Seems like a general theme that the shotguns aren't needed. Will also save me a few pennies on hire too!

Radios on principals and PZM's on the ensemble should be perfectly adequate. I'd scrap those shotguns if I were you.

 

Little Shop doesn't have that many ensemble numbers anyway. Once you get past Skid Row, which has lots of one-liners in it, it's pretty much plain sailing. If you're really wanting to beef up your chorus singing then stick some mics in the wings and get anybody not on stage to sing in to them. If you've got mic'd cast who only have small parts and who aren't needed for the whole show then if they switch to being ensemble afterwards/before you can use their mic to beef up the ensemble sound. It'll likely pick up the people stood directly around that person too. I can think of a dentist and some reporters who are only in one act straight away.

[David Ripley]

and the other sound rule of thumb is Volume = Quality

 

;)

 

David

[Oldradiohand]

You can never have too many mics.

Edit: spelling.

 

and the other sound rule of thumb is Volume = Quality

 

;)

 

David

 

...and you can always get it louder with a graphic.....

[Bobbsy]

I've done Little Shop a couple of times for a youth group and your plan isn't dis-similar to mine, with the exception that there were a bunch of mic swaps on the radios and the shotguns (from memory there were two) weren't "general mics" but, rather, aimed at specific spots for particular lines. The other thing we had is a "classic" looking stand mic that moved with Crystal, Chiffon and Ronette. In fact it was a modern mic in an imitation old case but it looked and sounded pretty good.

 

You haven't mentioned the band though--that was almost as complex to mic/DI as the vocals.

[smalljoshua]

IIRC, I managed to do every solo line and all speech in little shop on 13x radio mics with a few well timed swaps. We certainly didn't worry about pickups with every line amplified.

 

Josh

[Just Some Bloke]

and the other sound rule of thumb is Volume = Quality

 

;)

 

David

 

I'd disagree with you there David. I've seen way too many shows where the main aim of the sound department is to make it sound loud rather than nice. Give me nice every day!

 

One thing for the OP to bear in mind is that people often think they will have control of the principals separately on their radios and the ensemble on the float mics. Unfortunately what actually happens is that you get the principals on their radios and everyone on the floats. If, as often happens in schools, the principals are louder singers than the ensemble, then adding float mics of any type only makes it worse as the principals are now loud on the floats and the radios, completely drowning out the ensemble.

 

I often find with school shows that I use the floats to pick up the singers and then add in just a touch of radios on the principals just to bring them forwards rather than aiming to get them too much louder. The main aim ends up as keeping the band from playing as if it was a rock gig!

[TomHoward]

We did LSOH recently in a 250 seat venue with 11 RF, 1 offstage mic and no boundary micing. There aren't that many chorus numbers we thought and the ones that there are tend to have a lot of principle cast in them anyway.

We had 6x Ronnettes rather than 3, but all the parts in Meek Will Inhert were played by the same cast member - Bernstein etc - as per the original, so if you had different cast members here you may need more RF.

 

We had RF headworn for:

Audrey

Seymour

Mushnik

Orin (passed to Bernstein in the interval, then back to Orin for the finale)

Ron 1

Ron 2

Ron 3

Ron 4

Ron 5

Ron 6

 

Handheld RF for the reporter / radio presenter who comes on with Seymour after Grow for Me.

(Apart from the principles I think this is the only lines over band)

 

Offstage wired mic for plant voice / noises.

(And a 9-piece live band but that's a separate issue).

 

If it helps below should be a link to the notes I wrote during the run, which are essentially which cast are in each song, cue lines and cues for when they have dialogue over underscoring after songs. I was running with this instead of a script (assuming you are doing the same MTI version)

 

https://pdf.yt/d/UOUcAKPfTFAuc7ho

[Bobbsy]

and the other sound rule of thumb is Volume = Quality

 

;)

 

David

 

I'd disagree with you there David. I've seen way too many shows where the main aim of the sound department is to make it sound loud rather than nice. Give me nice every day!

 

 

 

I think...well, at least, hope...that David was being facetious and commenting on how, all too often, it's thought that you have to be loud to be "exciting" or "good".

 

For anything except an all out rock show, I prefer to keep the reinforcement subtle. For me, the best compliments have been the times punters have come up to me and said "too bad the PA broke down but I'm glad the cast were loud enough we could still hear everything" on shows where everything has been through a (working) PA system.

 

I must say that, for Little Shop, I tended to rely on the PCCs on the front of the stage for very light dialogue amplification and used the radio mics only for musical numbers or the odd line delivered way upstage. On the last version we did, the band was actually on stage which kept most of the action nicely downstage though.

[ojc123]

I tend to echo the comments above.

 

A careful mic plot and some dedicated mic swappers to make sure the talent swap when they're supposed to should mean you can get away with 12 mics. We've never amplified dialogue though, just the singing.

 

For more "rock and roll" shows like this one we've taken to putting the band upstage and pushing the action downstage and onto a thrust stage. It means the vocals come across better.

 

We've used the group of dedicated singers backstage with handhelds to fill out the chorus numbers before too. It improves the quality of the dancing and the singing. Most of our school chorus performers can't do both at once. We've had cctv on the MD so they can follow direction.

[TomHoward]

Likewise as above, we don't have a pit so the band were behind the cyc (unusual arrangement but it's the best we can do) and the amplification was only really for numbers, definitely no dialogue if there were unmic'd cast members on stage, although occasionally I would push the dialogue slightly if it was between numbers and only principles between the numbers - just to keep the overall levels more average.

Our band mons were on a post-fade vocal feed as well (as I couldn't be turning the mics on and off in the mons for cues when the principle leaves the stage) - they did have a show relay feed into the mons that the MD has local control of - but feeds from the radio mics lets them get the cues much easier. The PDF I attached above has some notes about when they were left on or killed.

 

Just to add - I'd be more inclined to add boundary micing in our venue if it worked, but we have such a wide stage that the FOH is pretty much on the downstage line - and no pros - so you don't get much gain at all as you're essentially reinforcing into the same space - so they feed back pretty early.