Advice on micing a band

[sclg]

I need some advice on a proposal I’ve been landed with at our small (150), volunteer-run theatre where I look after sound.
Apologies if it’s a bit long but I need to explain the background.

We normally put on one musical a year. There’s a live band (anything from 4 to 12) and we’ll radio mic all the principles. Band normally go in our small pit in front of the stage or occasionally get ‘built into’ the set. With the band in the pit, balance is always tricky as it’s a small theatre and they are too close to the audience – but, after doing this for 20 years,  we manage!

Next year, we are doing ‘Sound of Music’ and want to extend the stage a bit – hence no pit. I’ve now been told they want to put the 12-strong band in the area under the stage and mic them all up.
The concept is plausible but – although I’ve never done this before - I see a number of problems. The area under the stage is in theory about 9m square but once you take into account various walls, the stage lift, etc it’s a LOT smaller than that. It’s also only about 7ft high and the ‘ceiling’ is the (wooden) stage floor. Every wall surface is brick or stone.
“Just mic all the instruments and balance them all” they say! But what about the resonance? With no sound deadening, surely it’s just going to be a cacophony. Even with close miccing, it’s going to be hard to keep the sounds apart - and for the players, it’s going to be so noisy I don’t see how they will balance their own sound?? (IEMs are out of the question both on cost grounds and because none of the players have ever used such things.) Acoustic screens are a possibility but push costs up and reduce an already small space.

I admit I’m way outside my comfort zone here so maybe I’m worrying about nothing but I’d welcome any thoughts from the collected experts here.
(Band is apparently 2 keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, 3 brass, 4 woodwind and a percussionist with an enormous array of toys!)

Thanks

 

[chelgrian]

40 minutes ago, sclg said:

I need some advice on a proposal I’ve been landed with at our small (150), volunteer-run theatre where I look after sound.
Apologies if it’s a bit long but I need to explain the background.

We normally put on one musical a year. There’s a live band (anything from 4 to 12) and we’ll radio mic all the principles. Band normally go in our small pit in front of the stage or occasionally get ‘built into’ the set. With the band in the pit, balance is always tricky as it’s a small theatre and they are too close to the audience – but, after doing this for 20 years,  we manage!

Next year, we are doing ‘Sound of Music’ and want to extend the stage a bit – hence no pit. I’ve now been told they want to put the 12-strong band in the area under the stage and mic them all up.
The concept is plausible but – although I’ve never done this before - I see a number of problems. The area under the stage is in theory about 9m square but once you take into account various walls, the stage lift, etc it’s a LOT smaller than that. It’s also only about 7ft high and the ‘ceiling’ is the (wooden) stage floor. Every wall surface is brick or stone.
“Just mic all the instruments and balance them all” they say! But what about the resonance? With no sound deadening, surely it’s just going to be a cacophony. Even with close miccing, it’s going to be hard to keep the sounds apart - and for the players, it’s going to be so noisy I don’t see how they will balance their own sound?? (IEMs are out of the question both on cost grounds and because none of the players have ever used such things.) Acoustic screens are a possibility but push costs up and reduce an already small space.

I admit I’m way outside my comfort zone here so maybe I’m worrying about nothing but I’d welcome any thoughts from the collected experts here.
(Band is apparently 2 keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, 3 brass, 4 woodwind and a percussionist with an enormous array of toys!)

Thanks

 

Yes you are right. You will get lots of reverberations and everything will bleed in to everything else. Some advice:

- The band need to hear the cast and putting monitor speakers there will make the problems worse. You need the band on IEMs regardless of if they are comfortable with it which also helps with the fact it’ll be dangerously loud for the players in such a confined space. Depending on how many aux outs your desk has you can make a decent go of it with cheap behringer headphone amps.

- Install as much cloth carpet, or whatever you can find to cover the hard surfaces.

- DI all the electric instruments, and put the monitoring through IEMs.

- Try and get the percussionist on to an electric kit.

- As close mic as possible on the acoustic instruments.

- Don’t forget you’ll need conductor to cast and stage to conductor video relay.

[Dave m]

Is there anywhere else you could stick the band and use video link to see the conductor?

[sunray]

Yes deaden whatever you can with soft stuff.

I had this same set up 1973 in a town hall and the band (about a dozen from Local Royal Marines band)was put in the Mayors parlour, albeit with carpets and big velvet curtains. The sound facilties were poor, all I did was put 3 cheap electret near quieter instruments and the rest had to look after it'self, conductor and violin had headphones from lead vocal/MC's mic

A starting point?

[GR1]

A lot of this chat is very nice but remember that the producer has a duty of care to the musicians to not put them in an environment which will mess with their hearing - so not too loud in the playing environment. If there is a remote room which gives a bit of space please consider this as an alternative so you don't mess with the hearing of the musicians. Reminding the producers of their duty of care to not only show the audience a good time but to also not damage the faculties of the perfomers is not a bad thing.

On the plus side as a sound op having a remote band gives control if properly miced and the mix will be very clean with a properly set up PA. And the show can sound great!

[kerry davies]

There is one BR member who might be able to help and I would PM Gridgirl though with a dozen people at least bunged under a stage my first response would be "NO!!!" 

If IEM's are out on cost grounds then you can't afford to be doing it at all on NAW/H&S grounds. 

Edited November 17 by kerry davies

[sclg]

16 hours ago, Dave m said:

Is there anywhere else you could stick the band and use video link to see the conductor?

Unfortunately, nowhere else.

[sclg]

13 hours ago, GR1 said:

if properly miced and the mix will be very clean with a properly set up PA.

All we've got is a couple of 12" pros arch speakers and 4 small 'fill' speakers below the lip of the stage.

[sclg]

2 hours ago, kerry davies said:

There is one BR member who might be able to help and I would PM Gridgirl though with a dozen people at least bunged under a stage my first response would be "NO!!!" 

If IEM's are out on cost grounds then you can't afford to be doing it at all on NAW/H&S grounds. 

Thanks. 

I think the problem at the moment is that those proposing it are right that it could be done but don't really understand any of the complexity, H&S and possible (significant) costs involved. All the advice here is very helpful. Thanks.

[chelgrian]

On 11/16/2024 at 11:13 PM, GR1 said:

A lot of this chat is very nice but remember that the producer has a duty of care to the musicians to not put them in an environment which will mess with their hearing - so not too loud in the playing environment. If there is a remote room which gives a bit of space please consider this as an alternative so you don't mess with the hearing of the musicians. Reminding the producers of their duty of care to not only show the audience a good time but to also not damage the faculties of the perfomers is not a bad thing.

On the plus side as a sound op having a remote band gives control if properly miced and the mix will be very clean with a properly set up PA. And the show can sound great!

Indeed if the musicians are doing this professionally then the Health and Safety at Work act is relevant it gets terribly grey as to what the duty of care is if the musicians are not doing it professionally and could technically get up and walk away during a show.

Edited November 18 by chelgrian

[ImagineerTom]

It's fairly well established that H&S requirements apply to clubs / societies / organisations.

[kerry davies]

1 hour ago, chelgrian said:

Indeed if the musicians are doing this professionally then the Health and Safety at Work act is relevant it gets terribly grey as to what the duty of care is if the musicians are not doing it professionally and could technically get up and walk away during a show.

Not really that grey. H&S standards apply to volunteers especially if tickets are sold or there is a single paid "employee" involved  and a prosecution for an injury to a volunteer would be brought under section 3 of the legislation. The "management" at this venue have form for being just a tad overambitious.

[Stuart91]

On 11/16/2024 at 6:51 PM, chelgrian said:

- Install as much cloth carpet, or whatever you can find to cover the hard surfaces.

On 11/16/2024 at 8:52 PM, sunray said:

Yes deaden whatever you can with soft stuff.

[Stuart91]

Good advice from both here, but one thing to look out for is the material you choose. Make sure it's flame retardant or you could have a significant fire hazard. 

 

[cedd]

I've just worked with a pit located remotely - on a riser across the back of the stage, but very much behind the timber set - they may as well have been in a different room. Similar brick walled area with a wooden floor. High ceiling in my case. 12 musicians. 

Aside from all of the  very relevant observations above about noise exposure etc. i'd also say that the source material has a big effect on how this thing is going to sound. I was doing Sister Act so wanted a nice tight drum sound - given lots of the tracks are disco in nature. It was nigh on impossible due to bleed in to the woodwind mics. Equally the pit layout (not my decision) didn't help as the brass were sat behind the reeds, who were sat next to the kit. The audience wouldn't have noticed, and we got lots of nice comments about how it sounded (lots of people thought it was backing tracks, somebody even complained - worth thinking about how you prove the pit are live). I was frustrated though. 

As your show is Sound of Music this is probably less of an issue. A more orchestral score will probably lend itself to the space better. Something very much to keep in mind though. If it does go ahead then encourage your MD to think carefully about how they lay the pit out.