orchestra

I recently did a major musical, and when I say recently I mean it closes tomorrow.  Well to save money, we decided to not hire any musicians and rent the computer genterated track from real-time music solutions.  Sinfonia. Oh the bain of my life for the last 4 weeks.

Sinfonia is what i call Sibalus for beginners, only you can't program the music into the computer. Sure you can control tempo's and keys and even repeats and vamps. You can also control individual volumes on instruments as well as muting them. Sinfonia is supose to be a orchestra suppliment, meaning you have 3 or 4 musicians in your pit and the computer plays along with them. We didnt do that.

I'm glad we didn't. While the orchestrations are nice, the issue was volume with the tracks themselves. Example, when you open the program for the first time all instruments are at 100. If you think of it like a soundboard 100 actually is 0, 0 would really be -100 and 200 would be +100, Understand.

So lets start the first song.

Oh thats sounds nice, wait where did the music go?, Oh there it is, HOLY CRAP WHY IS IS SO LOUD.

No joke that was the first 2 minutes of the first number. Now imagine having to sit down and edit every song and every point where the music could be at a more constant level. I'm not talking equal volume the whole show, I mean barely anything showing up on the sound board sensors to everything peaking in the matter of a measure. 

So for 2 weeks I edited and fixed and worked on everything. Then load in occured and we went into the theatre.

Everything I had mixed and edited was trash, but the problem was the show didnt sound right at all. I called Sinfonia and they didnt know what the problem was, in fact they still don't.

While our audience likes the orchestrations and they sound good, my suggestion, ude at your own risk first. It may make your life a lot harder as a sound designer.  I didnt get a decently sounding run thru until the night before opening, and after rehearsals it would be the director and myself in the parking lot working on 2 to 3 hours of notes on just sinfonia.

The sound guy's case

What is in my sound case?

First wig or toupee clips

I use these in alteration with bobby pins to attach a cable to someone.


Next would be Tagaderm tape and medical tape.

Tagaderm or medical tape is super useful to get microphone cables to attach to a person's body.  The great thing about Tagaderm is that is it super hard core and doesn't come off easily. The bad thing about Tagaderm is that it is super hardcore and doesn't come off easily.  It leaves a residue on the cable that is hard to get off. But I have a remedy for that too.

Isoporpyl Alcohol this can sanitize a surface but also can take tape residue off a mic cable.

Floral wire

#30 to be exact.

Its small and can be bent and moved easily.  If I am using a wig line mic on someones face I wrap the floral wire with it about 3 inches from the end then take the wire down to the edge about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch from the head of the microphone. wrap it around the cable once then bend down just before you come to the head.  This allows sweat to drip off the mic without damaging the physical mic. 

For one show I had 8 lapel mics and needed head mics (it was RENT) and so I made head contraptions out of small gauge electrical cable (single style) and attached the mic to the cable using spike tape.  If the cable was blue, orange tape was used. Pink/ green... so on and so on.

There was a sound blog that actually suggested a certain kind of marker in different colors as well as finger nail polish and nail polish remover to repaint the cable to hide in peoples hair and skin tone better. I don't do this but I have thought about trying it.

Hiding a Microphone

Let's hid a microphone on a persons face.

NO THANK YOU

This is why I hate over the ear microphones. They are so obvious.  I have talked and talked with designers about this till I am blue in the face.  An over the ear microphone is more prone to harm then anywhere else. People sweat, actors have to kiss and breath. These mics pick up every bit of it and the audience doesn't want to hear that scratchy sound any more then they want to hear feedback.

Sure you can hid a mic in someones clothes, however if you want to hear the rustling of clothes be my guest.

I suggest that you place the mics as a wig-line or hair line mic. This is actually one of the best places on a persons face to pick up sound.

But what if the actor is wearing a hat, aren't you worried about sound reflecting off the brim? SURE

But the good part about hair line mics is that they can be moved.

The sound quality from a mic placed in the hair is much better then on the face itself. I have actually place standard lapel mics as wig line before and people working in the theatre would go "are they using one of the new ones?" UMMM, no remember that cheap lapel that came in the box, yeeah that's what they have.  I actually changed out 3 over the ear mics out for wig line during the run of a show once and the performers didn't want the over the ear mics back because they said they sounded better.  The wig line mic is a better view for the audience as well, think about how you take an audience member out of the moment when they see the over the ear mic on a actors face, with a wig line they done have to see any of that.

Microphones and the theatre

No matter if we as theatre people want it or not, microphones are here to stay in theatre. As a sound reinforcement the audience needs to be able to properly hear a performer. The acoustics of a theatre today are different from that of 50 and 100 years ago. The older theatre's were designed to project the sound properly to the audience members. In a series of post I will go into the various types of mics, the various places to place them and hide them, and lastly various items and things that every sound person might need to help change a mics color, hide a mic, and even protect the microphone from body sweat.

Over the past 6 years I have done numerous musicals. All of the theatre's claim that one style of microphone is better then another.  I for one think this is untrue. While I have my preference no-one microphone type (not brand) is better then another.

There are a few types of microphone, DPA is one of the top brands that you can purchase or rent.  They offer two types themselves. The miniature mics and the headset mic

The miniature mic is similar to a lapel style, but a smaller head that is easier to conceal. This mic can actually have an adapter to make it a lapel style mic. 

This mic is best for lapel or wig line. Both of which I will go into more detail in a later post. 

Most theatre companies and rental houses in the region only use one type of microphone, that would be AudioTechnica.  These mics packs are pretty good. However, the mics themselves are terrible. I actually replaced 30 AudioTechnica over the ear mics with microphones from Microphone Madness. A replacement mic from AT runs around $250 but the MM mics cost $100. Based on price, the MM mics sound like they are cheap and terrible. however they are more durable and better quality.

The second type of microphone is the over the ear style. This microphone is exactly as it sounds, the fits over the ear of the performer and rest within a few inches of the performers mouth.  The boom of the mic is reasonably flexible and can be adjusted on each performer, within reason. I have see numerous mics broken because performers will bend and adjust the mic over and over again on their face, breaking wires in the boom.

All these microphones are still fragile, users need to always remember that. When you bend a microphone repetitively the insides wires and cables can break. Another thing that can go into breaking a microphone quickly is passing a microphone between users.  Yes, you can pass a mic, however you need to teach every person how to do this. I stood backstage at a show once that had 30 mic passes between 10 mics. I saw people literally take the over ear mic off and pull the pack up thru their dresses by the cable, then throw it on the table and walk away. And this theatre company wonders why they spend 3 grand on replacement mics and repairs a season. 

I was at the mic rental house I use a few weeks back talking to the guy I use. He was telling me how they are no longer going to rent over the ear mics, why you might ask?  they rented 8 a few weeks before for a show for 5 days, when they were returned only 2 were in working order. 

When I bought the MM mics, I asked some twitter people what they thought of the company. I was told only use them on children cause they could break and who cares you are out less money.  When I replaced the first 10 mics for a theatre, let me say how much better the MM mics stood up against the destruction that was this theatre. The only issue I had with them was the wires would come out of the plugs (remember pulling up thru dresses).