# Musical theatre audio.



## Datte83 (Feb 26, 2014)

I want to know more about mixing musicals. What type of mics and wireless systems are used? Feel free to write about your own experiencess of mixing FOH in theaters.

Thanx


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## museav (Feb 27, 2014)

That's an extremely broad topic, are there any specific issues in which you are interested?


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## rochem (Feb 27, 2014)

Read Shannon Slaton's excellent book, _Mixing A Musical: Broadway Theatrical Sound Techniques_. It isn't so much an in-depth study of mixing technique as it is a great all-around look at how Broadway sound systems are built and used. It's only of my absolutely favorite theatrical texts, and I can't recommend it enough.

Mixing a Musical: Broadway Theatrical Sound Techniques: Shannon Slaton: 9780240817590: Amazon.com: Books


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## Datte83 (Feb 27, 2014)

Thanx for the tip of the book: Mixing a Musical: Broadway Theatrical Sound Techniques by
Shannon Slaton 

I'm interested in PA-setups and mic placements.


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## Datte83 (Feb 27, 2014)

I like PA-setups and interessted in mic placments.


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## StradivariusBone (Feb 27, 2014)

That's still a bit vague. Musicals I've worked with usually deal with amplifying performers on stage or in the pit and there are many schools of thought as to the best means to do that, as well as realities that are specifically dependent on the venue and its construction as well as the amount and type of gear in your possession. Is the music live or is it a track or a mixture? Is the orchestra in the hall or in a remote building? Floor/boundary microphones or bodypacks or both? 

Are you looking for specific advice for a show you're working or just a general overview of the concepts of sound reinforcement for musical theatre? The search feature up at the top right will help you a great deal on the latter.


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## Eboy87 (Mar 4, 2014)

+1 for Mr. Slaton's book. It's a go-to for me on my shelf. 

Like everyone says, it depends. What specifically are you looking for in response? I've done shows were the only microphone was my talkback at the console, eerything else was done through QLab. Then again, I've had 30+ channels of wireless to mix. Some shows had canned (cd playback) tracks, others have a full pit orchestra (well, maybe not full). As for mics, you'll see everything from the venerable SM58 up to DPA capsules that are really tiny (and a somewhat PITA if they sweat out).

For example, at the Illinois All-State Theater Festival we had 36 channels of wireless; a mixture of Shure UHF-R and ULX-D (and a lonely Senni EW500 for a special announcement) with a mixture of Audio Technica, Countryman, and Microphone Madness capsules (stay away from those. Disposable is the word that comes to mind). Since everyone like gear pics, here's the wireless rack, and my responsibility.




If there's something specific you're looking for, let us know. Everyone on here's happy to talk shop.


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## Jay Ashworth (Mar 4, 2014)

I detect the faint whiff of "class assignment" in the air...


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## 0HZ (Mar 5, 2014)

Jay Ashworth said:


> I detect the faint whiff of "class assignment" in the air...


If not that, profile says he is 30, just someone who does not have a concept of what all is involved and is ignorant at best.


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## simoneves (Mar 5, 2014)

Eboy87 said:


> ...and Microphone Madness capsules (stay away from those. Disposable is the word that comes to mind).



I'm interested to know what makes you say this.

have a bunch (10+) of Microphone Madness PSM-Ls, some of which are nearly five years old and still going strong after community theatre abuse. They're not the last word in sound quality, but I've had more mid-show misbehaviour from my MKE2s and B6s. The only deaths among them so far have been from make-up contamination (make that silver paint... Tin Man in Wizard of Oz) or when I broke one while trying to Hellerman it to some craft wire to point it down from a halo rig.

I've tried a few other "$100" lavaliers, and these are the ones I keep going back to. Maybe I've just been lucky...


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## Eboy87 (Mar 5, 2014)

Simoneves, looking at my paperwork from that particular show, we used 6 capsules by performance time. The original design called for 12 on the minor characters, but those got replaced by spare Audio Technica capsules we had kept in reserve. One thing we noticed was their output to the pack was weaker. We also had capsules that would go bad and not pass audio anymore. Rest of the rigs were either Countryman H6, E6, and A-T BP892. We only used tape to attach the Mic Madness units to the actors, so we never quite figured out why they went bad. Dunno. Since I do a lot of high school theatre, they're ok when they work. I'm not too concerned about one dying, since their relatively cheap, but being in the middle of Illinois, or on a high profile gig, I'm not a fan.

And I hear 'ya on the silver paint. Last time I did Wizzard of Oz, we never could get the silver paint off the capsule. I'm also doing the Wizzard of Oz again at the end of the month... Joy.

I've been told Pyle makes a lavaliere that's around $60. Never used them, but for the price, they might be worth looking at in... less than ideal respect situations.


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## LightingGuy89 (Mar 5, 2014)

Eboy87 said:


> ...Last time I did Wizzard of Oz, we never could get the silver paint off the capsule. I'm also doing the Wizzard of Oz again at the end of the month... Joy.



Tape up the capsule of the microphone itself very precisely, paint the whole microphone silver now and once dry remove the tape from the element tip and hopefully you won't have to put a bunch of makeup on the performer to cover the mic. This is what we did for the Grinch in the theme parks and for Shrek the Musical when I designed the show last Summer in Florida (which we used Microphone Madness there as they were pretty local and were able to get us the microdot connectors for the old Sennheiser SK-50 packs)

-B


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## simoneves (Mar 6, 2014)

LightingGuy89 said:


> Tape up the capsule of the microphone itself very precisely, paint the whole microphone silver now and once dry remove the tape from the element tip and hopefully you won't have to put a bunch of makeup on the performer to cover the mic.



I'd done something similar, but unfortunately Tin Man's wife decided to touch up his make-up mid-show, and got some on the tip of the mic. When he came back on stage it sounded like he was still in the restroom. Needless to say, I had "words".


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## Datte83 (Mar 13, 2014)

Glad to see so many users taking part in my topic "Musical theater audio". 

I'm a rookie mixing musicals, but I have had major roles in semi-professional cast of musicals as Godspell, Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat, Sound of Music and RENT. Im passionated about musicals and audio.


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## Datte83 (Mar 13, 2014)

What do you guys say about using the Presonus Studio Live 24.4.2 digitalmixer for a musical? I own one and so far It do the trick.


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## museav (Mar 14, 2014)

Datte83 said:


> What do you guys say about using the Presonus Studio Live 24.4.2 digitalmixer for a musical? I own one and so far It do the trick.


Between non-recallable preamps, having to manually locate faders for scene recall, not tracking remote changes, pots whose settings can jump when you touch them and so on the StudioLive is generally not a good choice for musical theatre. Something with more comprehensive scene recall, safing, scene management, etc. would usually be a better choice for that application.


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## Jay Ashworth (Mar 14, 2014)

That was remarkably diplomatic, Brad.


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## StradivariusBone (Mar 14, 2014)

How is it for recording? Isn't that what they designed it for, with Studio One? I've seen only one in action as a church's FOH console and wasn't blown away as far as digital goes for live sound reinforcement.


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## Eboy87 (Mar 14, 2014)

Put it this way: it's great for plugging a few mics into and dumping the tracks to a laptop. Having mixed several bands (MON and FOH) on one, I'd rather visit the dentist.


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## StradivariusBone (Mar 14, 2014)

Point taken! That's kinda my reaction to seeing it run. I was assisting them with a video feed to a satellite room and only had to work with it enough to configure an aux for the feed. It seemed a bit laborious even compared to a solid analog, but they weren't using it to record anything though. I do like other PreSonus products I've used as well as StudioOne.


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## Datte83 (Mar 18, 2014)

Anyone that has experiens of wireless lav mics 2.4 GHz (WiFi) for musicals/singing ? Good becaus it's licens free all over the world.

Behringer got a modell called ULTRALINK ULM200LAV. I also know that Line 6 has awell but they have big problems with dropouts.


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## Eboy87 (Mar 18, 2014)

I would rather use VocoPro than Behringer's wireless mics. I have no experience with the Line 6 stuff, but I knew people using their digital stuff for measurement mics. Personally, I would shy away from WiFi bands, though I have no solid evidence to back it up. I just feel like there's too much crap spewing RF in those bands. If you're looking for something with decent frequency density, I think ULX-D is the best bet right now, though exponentially more expensive than the Behringer crap.

Especially in theatre, wireless mics are the one thing you shouldn't cheap out on. The last thing you want is to have a mic dropout when Diva McLeadingactress is onstage for her penultimate solo. The range on the cheap stuff isn't that great, they don't sound particular good, and they break easily. A minor pet peeve is the cheap ones use 9V instead of AA batteries. Shure has relatively cheap systems with the SLX series (they lack in features, ie gain settings, RF meter, but they're pretty durable), and the Sennheiser stuff isn't bad either (my preference is the 500 Series and above Sennheiser, but most venues around here are using Shure ULX or UHF-R).


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## museav (Mar 19, 2014)

Some people seem to love their 2.4GHz wireless mics, others seem to have experienced all sorts of problems with them. I know that I have worked with several universities and coporations that will not consider or allow such systems without their IT staff being aware of them and able to remotely manage or control them, if they allow them at all.


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## Datte83 (Mar 27, 2014)

Ok thanks thought so myself


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