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Theatre Mic'ing


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So, I'm sure this has been talked about already, but I'm too lazy to look through everything.

 

I need to mic the stage, a 40'x20' proscenium 28' deep, for a theatrical production of Dr. Faustus, which will have a full orchestra in the pit. This isn't a musical, but has the orchestra playing a "movie score" type of thing during the show. The house is around 100 years old, and seats around 2600, including a full wraparound balcony. 1400 on the floor and 1200 on the balcony. This will be at nowhere near capacity, but they expect a few hundred each night. If I have my way, the balcony will not be used.

 

The director wants to mic the stage for reinforcement purposes, and although the acoustics of the hall are fairly good for this type of thing, I can agree with him that it could benefit from some reinforcement. So, I need to mic the stage, while keeping as much of the orchestra out of the PA as possible. This company can't afford a rack of wireless, but they will buy a couple mics if they have to, if I tell them they should. And the less visible my mics are, the better.

 

So, my question is, what would be the best mics to use for this sort of thing? I've used PZM's on the floor for monitors, but I would never send a PZM through the FOH because of all the extra noise. Would I be better off using something like shotguns or overhead (choir) mics? Maybe something else? Any recommendations?

 

I have never worked in this particular theater before, so I don't know exactly what to expect. I don't even know if they have fly points for my speakers, so I may end up putting them on the "speaker platforms" that are there (7' above the house floor). Yuck.

 

Thanks for any help you can provide.

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I've had good success with Crown PCC 160's (PZM) and Senheiser MK60's (Med shotgun).

 

The name of the game is positioning. I find the MK60's range is roughly for every 3' out, it picks up 1' to any side. The PCC's are similar but have a wider pattern.

 

Put the MK60's on boom stands in the pit about 6"-1' off the stage deck slightly upwards, and have the PCC's around the plaster line, the farther upstage is better, but then that doesn't work, so I find that using 3, one either side @ the plaster line pointed more/less 45* towards CS, and one as far upstage Centre as possible. Go and use some foam for undernieth the PCC's (bulb foam from bulb packaging works good, sometimes 2 layers is needed).

 

I'm guessing its also a fly house, see if you can hang other mics for tougher spots (ie for picking up actors behind set/furnature/etc) that may be in the way of your other mics. I've used AT cardiod goosenecks straight down off a pipe for a more or less 'omni' pattern on the stage, if needed (I've always done this after the first rehearsal, but havn't leaned to do it off the bat yet) is to bend the head @ a 45* upstage.

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OOH I'm so excited! In my time here noone's asked a theater question until now. This is my area of specialty!

 

Let's see now: in my experience with theatrical productions (which would account for very much of my total experience), I have made many mistakes regarding sound design, and I learned from all of them. One of the first things I learned is that MOST of the time, PZM's and hanging mics aren't enough. They create way more obstalces than they solve. After trying to tackle 2 seasons of theater with AudioTechnica Pro45 hanging mics placed around the proscenium in many different places for many different shows, I finally decided that it just wasn't working. I had feedback hell because I had to push the mics as high as I possibly could to get them to pick up, but not too high because of feedback. For some shows I had to completely turn off my main PA speakers and rely only on our centerfills on delay because the mains were too close to the mics and would be causing too many feedback problems. I've also done way too many shows trying to work with Crown PZM's. I used to like these mics, but after a horrible touring experience that fell mainly on the fault of these mics I had pretty much had it with them.

 

Lesson learned : the most valuable theater microphone there is are lavs. They are ABSOLUTELY worth the money. There is no practical way to work without lavs if you have a large theatrical production. The first couple shows I had lavs to work with, we could only afford enough for about half the cast. The trick in this case is to block the show so that actors can be speaking into other actor's microphones. Lavs are omnidirectional and will often pick up many feet out of the person they're mic'd on and if a person is standing right next to them, its fairly easy to pick up both people with one mic. Of course this isn't the ideal situation to work with, but it can work. But in your case it sounds like the show is already done so you obviously can't change any blocking around.

 

If you absolutely must use boundary mics and not body mics, then there are a couple tricks you can use. Obviously placement is the most important thing. Don't be afraid to put PZMs in the middle of the stage unless you know for sure someone will be stepping on them. I haven't seen Dr. Faustus, so I don't know the nature of the show. Obviously if its a larger cast you can't have mics all over the floor where people will be dancing, but if there's no large group numbers then you can get away with putting mics pretty much wherever you need them.

 

With PZM's, you can use the assistance of angled wooden boxes that can aim the pickup at a certain area. For example, I once had to pick up a park bench for Charley's Aunt. Behind the bench on the stage floor I taped a PZM to a wooden box with a 45 degree angle on top. PZM mics pick up essentially a bubble, so this got the mic to pick up the intended area perfectly. For shows where you're using broad mics, sound design becomes almost like lighting design in that you have to work on "illuminating" (or in the sound case amplifying) a certain area.

 

With hanging mics you can't do as many tricks. They have a much broader pickup, mine picked up anything between 145 degrees. Again, the most important thing is placement. I found that they worked much better hung a little bit out from the stage instead of directly above it, because then you're picking up exactly where the actor's purposely talking to anyway.

 

Working with boundary mics also taught me how to properly balance gain and level. When it's a quieter scene, you'll want to raise the gain and lower the level. When it's a louder scene with more people, you'll want the gain lower and the level higher.

 

Sorry about my rambling......I'm just so happy I got to talk about something I really love. Anyway, TRY AS HARD AS YOU CAN to get lavs. If you absolutely can't, working with boundary mics changes alot with every acoustical enviornment. Make sure you have time to play around and get the placement and microphone choice perfect before you put on the show.

 

Have fun!! :) :) :)

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Originally posted by Scodiddly

You can add additional boundaries to a PZM with plexiglass... Basically make a corner and have it cut so the PZM fits as closely as possible into the corner. It really cuts off outside the boundary line.

 

 

This works very well. You can pull all kinds of tricks with PZM's.

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So it seems like the way to go is maybe to work with the 3 PZM's I can get access to, make some plexi panels for them, and put them somewhere on the DS edge of the stage. I think I'll also hang a couple of shotguns to pick up what the PZM's can't, and put them out in the house somewhere. The set is fairly open, so hopefully I won't have a problem with too many dead spots. I think the PCC-160's would give me too much trouble with orchestra bleed, although I'll keep them in mind. I might also hang a few condensers in various places around the stage, just in case.

 

Unfortunately, wireless just isn't an option at this point. It's a new company, so the budget is pretty tight. The cast is around 40 people, and even if I tried to switch mics on people, that's still too many thousands of dollars over what they'll give me. Not to mention that the board I'm using for this show doesn't have that many inputs. And since I'm personally providing sound, I don't have access to a lot of stuff that I don't personally own, other than a few PZM's and some Clear-Com's. And I'm not about to use any of the house PA that's in there. It's a little Peavey powered mixer and 2 gigantic, ancient Peavey 3 ways, and 2 equally as ancient monitors. For a 2600 seat theatre. And the few flypoints they have in the house are in OK locations for flying lighting truss, but not great for speakers. That is, assuming the floorplan I got is correct. And they gave me a floorplan in (approximately) 1/8" scale on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper. I've asked for a real floorplan, but they tell me this is all they have. WTF? Oh well, I guess it's better than nothing.

 

This job won't pay much, and it's kind of a favor to a friend. But if it takes off, I'll have a high level job in a low income upstart theatre company. I love theatrical sound, so it could be great. And this show isn't until September, so I have a bit of time to prepare.

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PCC's downstage can be very effective.

 

The most thing to do is train the actors to play to the back row... project man, pretend there is NO sound reinforcement. That's the best tweak you can make to a sound system. It's also cheap and effective.

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