# Backstage sound systems



## JasonH (Sep 29, 2004)

Who has got one? What speakers do you use? What amp and what pickup mic? 

I'm going to be installing my system starting this friday. I'm using all 12" square baffle 6" 70v paging speakers. I've got two of them in the hallways SR and SL hallways, one of them in the changing room and another in the backstage room used to cross from SR to SL. I've got a 60 watt 6 channel TOA mixer/amp i'm using to drive the system. I've got an old sony unidirectional mic hanging over the stage to feed the system. I patched the microphone into a channel on my console and i'm feeding aux 6 into the TOA mixer amp. Its going to work pretty well I think


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## ccfan213 (Sep 29, 2004)

i have this great backstage sound system, i call over the walkie talkies, we dont even have our own, we borrow the security ones after they leave, and crew members yell to the actors to get ready. :?


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## JasonH (Sep 29, 2004)

lol, i've used this method before.


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## JasonH (Sep 29, 2004)

i've also used the schools paging system for some helpful annoucements

"WHOVER HAS WIRELESS UNIT 10 PLEASE RETURN IT TO JASON ASAP"

and my personal favorite.....

"ANY BANDS WANTING A SOUNDCHECK COME TO THE AUDITORIUM RIGHT NOW"


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## JahJahwarrior (Sep 29, 2004)

wel, our backstage is like a U. the stage is in the middle of it, hallways go to the back, and you have to run around the whole thing to switch sides. We just have the chuch fellowship stage (small Christian school, we rent fro a church) and we don't really have a backstage sound system. Our last play we set up a baby monitor....that actually worked pretty well.


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## The_Guest (Sep 29, 2004)

Boy do I have a system, the entire "fine arts" wing is wired. That's the hallways, band room, choir room, rehersal space, dressing rooms, custom storage, scene shop, props storage, back stage, stage hallways, spotbooth, etc. They're all using 70v paging speakers, we have two permanent hanging mics right above the stage in the house to feed the system. The mics have their own preamp so they can be fed into the hearing impaired units as well and may be patched into the console (no preamp channels needed). An smaller replica of the system is powering the lobby areas but do not receive any of the paging feeds. I'm kinda thinking about putting in JBL control speakers in the lobby for more natural sound, the paging speakers don't exactly scream bass response.


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## JasonH (Sep 29, 2004)

Nice,
I've seen some paging speakers with surprisingly good bass response. When the board audio tech installed the paging speaker in the booth he decided that 5 watts would be a good speaker tap setting. You can ___FEEL____ the secretary slamming her phone back on the hook. hehe


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## ccfan213 (Sep 30, 2004)

[quote="JasonH"
"ANY BANDS WANTING A SOUNDCHECK COME TO THE AUDITORIUM RIGHT NOW"[/quote] ahhh i dont even wanna get started on my soundchecks yesterday... the bands ignored my calls to come to the auditorium and we ended up doing soundchecks up till the minute the doors opened.


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## dj_illusions (Sep 30, 2004)

we just use the standard pa system that is in the building, during the day it just runs the nromal pa program from foh but during performances we can swtich it over to backstage only and page with it, it also has aux inputs for music or a feed from the desk and has a standard input from a shotgun mic that is in our dress circle.


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## SuperCow (Sep 30, 2004)

We have the entire theater area wired. The dance studio, the makeup rooms, the scenery shop and even the bathrooms! The soun'd actually pretty good, but a bit tinny. We have JBL's in the lobby for good sound output to the audience before they go in.


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## dj_illusions (Sep 30, 2004)

sounds a bit like ours, cept we have bose speakers throughout the building.. the control unit has 3 inputs, one which is the main foyer program, one which is our feed and one for whatever you want and switches 2 turn sections off, the same unit also runs the hearing loop for people with hearing aids...

does anyone actually know how they work, inductance loops i believe?


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## JasonH (Sep 30, 2004)

dj_illusions said:


> sounds a bit like ours, cept we have bose speakers throughout the building..



I'm sorry to hear that.....


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## JasonH (Sep 30, 2004)

ccfan213 said:


> we ended up doing soundchecks up till the minute the doors opened.



Thats what we allways do, regardless of the event. It drives me insane. They also open the doors early


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## dj_illusions (Sep 30, 2004)

i love the bose! great sound, cept i dont think id use them anywhere else than a PA system haha...
bose 802's have really passed their used by date lol


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## JasonH (Oct 1, 2004)

Bring
Other
Sound
Equipment...

anyway, now, I've decided to just get switches on the hallway paging speakers so I can select between school paging and backstage sound.


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## Peter (Oct 2, 2004)

For some reason, our new school (less then a year old) had microphone inputs in the Band and chorus rooms which also get used as dressing rooms (across the hall from the back of the auditorium) but there is no way to get sound back into those rooms without using the school wide intercom. The only input for that intercom is in the office which I do not have keys for, and usualy no one arround at the hours shows run has a key to eather!

We generally have to rely on the wired intercom system (with only two plugs!!! one in the booth and one backstage) and people yelling to get messages arround, although we have used walkie-talkies for some large shows.


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## JasonH (Oct 2, 2004)

Why not just install one? Speakers are cheap, find an old mixer/amp and some phone wire - your set.


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## Peter (Oct 2, 2004)

Did I forget to mention that in my case the *very very smart* people who built our school installed conduit that is toooo small!!! They could bairly fit the wires they needed to fit though! Everyone is also realizing now that we need more mic inputs, and they are all scratching their heads wondering where they are going to put the wires! I dont think there is much chance I will be installing more that requires wires, even if it is only phone line!


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## JasonH (Oct 3, 2004)

masonry drill bit + hammer drill = 

or find the lines for the existing paging speakers and use the unused pair (assuming they are connected with phone cable


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## Nephilim (Oct 3, 2004)

Now, now, the Panrays and their ceiling speakers aren't that bad. But everything else... yeah.

The school I used to be at in norcal has a full clearcom system with wall stations everywhere but no stage monitormic, so we just sent the main mix (modified slightly) to the program input on that.

Down here the school I was at hads a drop mic and a small 70V pa rig around backstage, works well.


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## Peter (Oct 3, 2004)

I think i would get in alot of trouble for the drill bit + hammer drill option :-D ! I do not think they are connected with phone line (there is a rumor arround the school that there is not a single phone line in the building because all our phones are wired up with Cat-5) but i dont really know, it's something to think about in the future!


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## JasonH (Oct 3, 2004)

well, there is a bit of a difference between 22guage 4 2 pair phone wire and 24 guage cat 5 4 pair. If your lucky it might be 4 conductor, if your not lucky it will be 2 conductor. *lol* find a ladder and test your luck


wow my schools paging system is a mess. most of the wires are just twist'n'tape method. lol. not even crimp connectors. I've got it all fixed up now.


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## propmonkey (Oct 3, 2004)

we just use one of our aux to feed our backstage moniters. works good but we recently found out that the amp is kinda broke but it still works for now.


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## JasonH (Oct 3, 2004)

backstage monitors? 
explain.....


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## propmonkey (Oct 3, 2004)

well just some old speakers hung around backstage. we run it through our aux 3. we have 4 perment hanging mics. we have one on sl and sr. one in our workroom and one in the classroom(makeup room). we also have a camera and the tv moniters backstage. very helpful.


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## Peter (Oct 3, 2004)

Now that sounds like a good idea! Cameras back stage! As I am, a one man crew, it would be great to be able to see when people are ready back stage. There is probably close to 0 chance I will ever get $$ for that though. Maybe if i get enough old computers and an old webcam and acess to the school network (and time to do it (now that's the real stretch!)) I could rig somethng up, but that kinda stytem is probably way overkill and would me more work then it would be worth! I can always drool though!


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## JasonH (Oct 3, 2004)

Yes, i'm building my IR light fixture now. All i need is a security camera and I'm set.

You have one speaker or one mic in SR/SL/dressing room etc..


I'm going to have a speaker in the music room (backstage pass behind) dance studio (used as dressing room) 2 speakers per side SR and SL and a speaker per dressing room.


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## JahJahwarrior (Oct 4, 2004)

i'm probably going to run a wire backstage this year, and put a small amp, maybe like, a guitar combo amp or something, that woudl work...we just have one BIG backstage room... I might also put something in the bathroom (one bathroom...the other is usually locked so guys and girls both use the bathroom that has one stall and one urinal, but only one person at atime  usually, our shows have like 20 people max. For costumes and stuff beforehand, we use the main bathrooms, and that is what the audience uses. But during the show if you have to go, hold it or ues the small one!  I might run somethng out there. For some reason, I always end up with two parts and have to make comstume changes, usually then I have to change back too. It would have been nice to have a speaker in there to hear if I am on time or not. 

and a camera....possible!


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## gremlin1287 (Oct 4, 2004)

ccfan213 said:


> we ended up doing soundchecks up till the minute the doors opened.


Whats even worse?...one time the house manager opened up the house without consulting us. We were doing sound checks rather hastily as we were already late when i see audience members coming in...lets just say that the house manager and i had a few words later


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## ccfan213 (Oct 4, 2004)

gremlin1287 said:


> ccfan213 said:
> 
> 
> > we ended up doing soundchecks up till the minute the doors opened.
> ...


wow that sucks, you should give the house manager a walkie talkie or clearcom or something


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## TechiesRule (Oct 4, 2004)

I have a camera that is set up to the whole school, and when anyone turns the tv to the certain channel, it shows what is on stage. I also have tvs on both sides of the stage with moniters below, so everyone backstage an hear their cue.


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## propmonkey (Oct 4, 2004)

that happen to us at new court theatre, stupis ushers.... we have one main camera(i think panasonic) that is controlled by the sm mounted outside of the booth. we have on above stage so we in the booth can see them and one backstage but the one backstage is rather old and crappy. i have a old crappy crappy one i might mount in the pit our i can borrow our civic theatre camera......


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## Peter (Oct 4, 2004)

wow, nice setups everyone!

@ gremlin1287: that stinks!!

I have been lucky with getting people into the auditorium because I am one of the only people with keys, so if they want to open the doors, they need to come through me! ::evil laugh::

Relating to everyone's setups here, how's the visibility from your booths to the stage?

My Auditorium has a back row of seats, and then at hte same level, an isle, and then at the same level the tech booth. The problem is, we are set so far back if you are sitting in a normal chair, the only thing you can see is the very top edge of the curtain! 

Instead of installing a video system, the construction comany decided to buy us "high" chairs (basicly rolly computer chairs that the seat goes up to chest height when you are standing next to it). Thye work and probably give us better visibility then a TV system, but they are kinda hard to get up onto and you can really move arround the booth too well (your feet dont touch the ground and you pratcally need a ladder to get up and down). What's everyone's situation with this, and how have you been able to overcome it with monitor systems and/or other nifty tricks?

(sorry if this is making the thread go off topic too much.... if someone has a problem with it, i can make a new thread for it)


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## JasonH (Oct 4, 2004)

My booth is the best part of my auditorium. I can see just about the entire stage from the audio position (SR side of the booth) and the entire stage can bee seen from the lighting position. The booth is on the second floor of the school. The stage is level with the first floor of the school and drops 3 feet where the first row of seating is, at the 10th row of seating it is even with the first floor of the school again. The remaining rows start on the first floor and end on the second. Its really steep theatre seating but it works well. The booth/tech gallery are directly above the 10th row of seats. The auditorium measures about 98 feet from centre stage to back wall. Make sense?

Is your booth sealed or not? Mine is thankfully NOT sealed. I can see and hear everything perfectly, and the audience cant see or hear me.


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## propmonkey (Oct 4, 2004)

i have good visibility from our booth hearing on the otehr hand not so good. we out our sliding windows back in this year at least everythign inside is safe. 

back on topic for one night our moniters went out so we set up our protable system in the back and sent audio out through an empty matrix and through our snake to back there, it worked pretty good.


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## JasonH (Oct 5, 2004)

You would need a big extension ladder to get into my booth window... lol..


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## Peter (Oct 5, 2004)

lol ya, jason, my setup sounds a good deal like yours (the whole two story thing) except mine is set back. (I dont have the measurements, but I will probably have to get them soon for projector work, long story about that, but this forum isnt the place for it)

My booth is sealed, with sliding windows, so that 1/4th of the window on eather side slides to the middle to make the middle 2 layers thick when the windows are open. the thing is a brick echo box, and the sound is horrible in it. I often get up and walk to the door to hear what is going on outside. We have one monitor speaker in the booth, but it is some generic in roof PA system speaker that isnt worth 2cents. Right now I dont even have it wired to anything because it is more or less pointless (it is mounted right above the door, as far away from the sound equipment as you can be and still be in the booth!)


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## who_touched_the_patch (Oct 6, 2004)

JahJahwarrior said:


> and a camera....possible!



in the bathroom?......


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## ccfan213 (Oct 6, 2004)

i think he meant a monitor in the bathroom, not a camera


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## Peter (Oct 6, 2004)

lol, lets hope so!


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## mr_sound (Oct 7, 2004)

ccfan213 said:


> [quote="JasonH"
> "ANY BANDS WANTING A SOUNDCHECK COME TO THE AUDITORIUM RIGHT NOW"


 ahhh i dont even wanna get started on my soundchecks yesterday... the bands ignored my calls to come to the auditorium and we ended up doing soundchecks up till the minute the doors opened.[/quote]

just do what i do...if they're late they've waived their right for a soundcheck. hell, i only check the opener anyways..just to get the levels set right. and if they don't load in on time, then screw em....no soundcheck...i'll do it on the fly. 

of course i don't know what kind of bands you're working with. i'm talking about locals. the bigger bands...you kinda have to give them a soundcheck...and it usually is quite helpfull to you. but the local bands i get...half of them don't even know how to play well...so a soundcheck is just a waste of my time. of course, it always gives me a chance to tell those darn guitarists to TURN DOWN!


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## JahJahwarrior (Oct 7, 2004)

one camera pointing at the STAGE, one tv sreen backstage, one monitor speaker backstaeg, another monitor speaker in the bathroom  

not a camera in the bathroom, you silly goose!

(I've kinda always wanted to say that on a forum....) 

I should have been clearer....


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## jordan (Nov 17, 2004)

We have a total of 4 amps on our system. 1 for the house, one for the onstage monitors, one for the stage manager's monitor, and one for the backstage monitor.

We use Aux Sends on our Mackie board to feed them the live sound from onstage and use the talkback channel on our board to direct a mic only to the Aux Sends. This way, the house is completely ignored from it (unless we push the button to go to the Main Mix). This works pretty well...The actors just have to listen so they don't miss their cues....They're good at missing cues. We're good at yelling at them.


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## Scooter (Jan 24, 2005)

JasonH said:


> Who has got one? What speakers do you use? What amp and what pickup mic?
> 
> I'm going to be installing my system starting this friday. I'm using all 12" square baffle 6" 70v paging speakers. I've got two of them in the hallways SR and SL hallways, one of them in the changing room and another in the backstage room used to cross from SR to SL. I've got a 60 watt 6 channel TOA mixer/amp i'm using to drive the system. I've got an old sony unidirectional mic hanging over the stage to feed the system. I patched the microphone into a channel on my console and i'm feeding aux 6 into the TOA mixer amp. Its going to work pretty well I think



thats exactly waht i do exept,

i use a mx202 instead of that sony mic

i made a little patch bay of 4 xlr jacks, 1 1/4" jack to feed the toa mixer as well as my aux 4 line

i had an old shure cb like mic that i pluged into that patchbay so i can talk directly backstage.

my aud was already wire for the speakers, i just had to hook them up and send them signal


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## len (Jan 24, 2005)

JasonH said:


> "ANY BANDS WANTING A SOUNDCHECK COME TO THE AUDITORIUM RIGHT NOW"



I remember those days. IMO, multi-band events are the worst. The way I solved the problem was to have a contract with each band. It specified that each band would arrive between X and Y times. They would load in their own stuff at Door Z and be assembled off Stage Left at time P. They understood that if they were late (late meaning missing any players or equipment at their appointed times) they were cut from the program. Plus, the times listed on the contract were always 15 - 30 minutes before I needed them there. Worked like a charm.

As for backstage sound, most places we work don't have them, so we have to run clearcoms. Usually, we do one for stage manager/dimmer beach and one for green room, if there is one. We used to run one to the monitor mix, but then we figured out that you could just run a mic line from FOH to monitors and signal monitors via laser pointer, which takes a lot less time than running another clearcom backstage.


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## scarlco (Jan 24, 2005)

> JasonH wrote:
> 
> 
> "ANY BANDS WANTING A SOUNDCHECK COME TO THE AUDITORIUM RIGHT NOW"



I work in a dinner theatre. Our doors open to the public 2 hours before the performance begins. Even though they are all told in advance, you'd be suprised how many acts come in at hour call and expect a sound check. Sorry - you can still go on, but we'll be adjusting your sound on the fly. :roll: 

For backstage monitoring, we have a system we refer to as ILS (independant listening system). There's an old unidirectional mic hanging over the stage that feeds an independant 70 volt pa system, which runs ceiling speakers backstage and 70v monitors in the booths. It's great to have the system independant for work calls and load-in / out's, when you can hear someone calling you on stage from back in the hallways... regardless of the current state of dissaray the sound board is in at the time.

We also have a video monitor system, both standard FOH and infrared... as well as a conductor cam (our orchestra isn't in the house - they're backstage. We have video monitors attatched to the bottom of our catwalk so the actors can see orchestral cues.

As far as deck cues and automation, we have a cue light system (just a bunch of switches in the SM booth which turn on lights backstage) and a clear-com system. I'm actually re-thinking the whole cue light setup, as the current one is incredibly unsafe... an electrical accident waiting to happen.


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## Scooter (Jan 27, 2005)

With my advice the drama/theater department, we have put a kabosh on crappy bands (student bands. if someone reserves the aud. and asks for pa then i give it to them) using our pa. the last talent show we had, 2 58's, 3 boom stands, and a 30' XLR cord "Walked Away". so i get to point and laugh at them try and set up thier crappy pa's. they usually end up being way under powered and the singer usually hooks into and extra guitar amp instead. it's so funny


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## who_touched_the_patch (Feb 1, 2005)

Honk honk......


Goose.


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## JasonH (May 3, 2005)

My problem is the crappy bands have rich parents to buy them nice PA systems....


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## soundboy98 (May 26, 2005)

Just stumbled onto this site today. Way to go. A great idea we had was to use this great program called Skype. We just ran through our submix a cable directly into a line in input on our computer. Skype made a phone call to our other computers in dressing rooms and backstage. We just got by with small amplified computer speakers to reproduce the sound and tell everyone to get ready for the next number5.


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## Peter (May 26, 2005)

Hmm cool idea!! I have heard of skype, but never actually used it. It is an interent-phone type program right? I belive you can buy a subscription to make phone calls to regular phones, or you can just call other skype users for free, am I right? I would be interested in looking if that audio stream actually goes all the way out over the interent and then back into your building (potential for delay) or if it is more computuer-to-computer and if it could be run on a network instead of over the interent (for buildings without interent or with very slow internet). 

Oh ya, hey, Welcome to Controlbooth.com! Please dont be a stranger! You obviously have neat ideas and I am looking forward to hearing more! and I hope we can help you out too!

Welcome to Controlbooth.com
--The Official Welcome Wagon (part 2)


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## soundboy98 (May 27, 2005)

Yea we used Skype over the Internet. Of course it is connected to a T-1 so the Internet speeds were fast. There was a delay at first of mybe a second, but after running long enough the delay went away. We just set up multiple account for the other computers and made a group call so everyone could get the feed!


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## Peter (May 27, 2005)

Very cool!


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## voiceoftheknights (Jun 21, 2005)

> "ANY BANDS WANTING A SOUNDCHECK COME TO THE AUDITORIUM RIGHT NOW"



Yes. Last years battle of the bands (@ my school) was hell. The last band's frontman/bassist, right after soundcheck, started complaining to me about the "crappy mics" I was using (they were not, I was using Shure Beta 87's for vocals, Sennheiser E609's and Shure SM86's for guitar, AKG D112 and Shure SM86 for bass, and mostly Audio Technica drum mics. He started insisting that I use his Behringer mics for vocals. I told him that these were top of the line mics that we paid good money for to rent, and that he sounded better on the 87, anyway. I just tried it with the behringer, but after one note switched it back to the 87's (His mics were the crappy ones, not ours!). Then he brought out this el cheapo Kustom PA system and said he was using them for monitors. I told him we already had 10 Electrovoice stage monitors set up onstage and backstage, and his 100w system (which i was doing my best not to burst into laughter about) would have no use, and we could crank up our monitors more. He apparently liked to complain, because he gave our LD and lighting engineers an earful for no apparent reason, too. The show went well, but the soundcheck was certainly one to remember!

Our backstage system is basically the EV monitors running on an aux send. I also have an SM58 as a talkback mic. FOH was 4 EAW speakers and two Bose subwoofers (I dont know why they get such a bad rap around here. I do sound at a local baseball stadium with Panaray LT's, and with the right EQing, they sound amazing.) Our board was an Allen and Heath GL3300 and a Mackie 1604VLZPro.


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## SAtkins (Sep 25, 2005)

When you do concert audio like i do, or even just a battle of the bands at you school be prepared for sound chackes to last at least till doors or later(pushing doors back) its a fact of life.


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## SAtkins (Sep 25, 2005)

oh yeah on annother note the only people who complain about equipment are the up and comming local acts lol i had a local that insisted we bring in a yam ga32 instead of the spirit5m we had and a midas siena rather than the PM4k oh well they paid for it as for crappy equip i had a guy ask for a mackie 32x4 over my personal a&h gl3800 40 chan


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## Thranduil (Sep 26, 2005)

well ive had bad expierences, with singers screaming into a mic telling me its not working, when the reason its not working is because they were standing infront of a drum set and thus couldnt hear them selves, eveyone else could thou...to much. For a while we ignored giving actors mic lessons, but im tired of it so from now on they all are gonna have to sit down and learn how to use a mic. For monitors ill just run an aux send to the stage in our patch from the booth(we have a 25 channel snake running through the atic that come out on stage) and hook up a pair of jbls or a pair of unpowered peaves, but usually we dont need monitor systems, because our myer MTS-4s along with center cluster work really nicely, and can be heard in the lobbie, and if i want for all surrounding buildings. so i dont often use backstage speakers, but if i do ill wire up an aux send.


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## blademaster (Oct 5, 2005)

PA system. what are you talking about you want something done on stage or anywhere near it, you send a tech up there, even better when you have a total of three techs only one of which is usually working, me.


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## tech2000 (Jul 1, 2008)

We used to just send a tech back to get performers, but then we just hooked up an unused wireless unit from our sound system to the dressing room computer speakers. This worked except you had to use batteries in the transmitter. Now we have a camera set up so we have a video monitor and use the microphone on the camera.


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