Wireless?

The great wireless thread.

What kind of wireless do you use?
How many?
What band?
Where is it located (on stage, control room, etc)?
How do you rig the mic on someone (placement, clips, etc)?
What do you dislike/like about that particular wireless?
What do you prefer?

Currently my high school theater department is doing the comedy Noises Off. All characters are wearing either Sennheiser Evolution or Sony WRT wireless. They're all UHF, of course (I don't reccomend VHF). Nor do I recommend "Fixed Frequency" wireless. All the sony wireless is located on stage left in a permanent full size sound rack. All sennheisers are in a portable rack next the permanent sound rack.

1 Sony MB806A Modular Tuner Base Station (1U Rack) (Accepts 6 Units)
3 Sony WRU806B Modular Receiver Units
4 Sony WRT822B Wireless Body Packs w/Lavier Condensers
2 Sony CUxxxxx Dynamic Vocal Handhelds

Sony wireless has served my school's needs fairly well. The handhelds are great, used by many of today's artists. The wireless is world reknowned, used by broadway. The single space rack designs is nice, it saves a load of space, but it is hard to read the small LCD screens. Esepecially since the wireless frequencys have around 6 values, it can become increasingly difficult when trouble shooting frequency problems. The bodypacks are very lights and small, which is great for hiding when a character has limited conceiling space on their wardrobe (ie: Lingere, Dropped Pants, Minimal Clothing). I really dislike the bodypack's overly accessable power switch. It can be easily shut off by accident or purposely by actors, which is both a good thing. I cannot stand when actors shut off their wireless in between on-stage periods. So taping switches shut is a necessary routine.

The following is sennheiser wireless stored in a portable rack that is not regularly used in my auditorium.

6 (Half Space Rack) Sennheiser UHF Evolution Wireless Receivers
6 Sennheiser Evolution Body Picks w/Laviers

I've had excellent experiences with sennheiser wireless. The bodypacks have very small unlight screens. Which can be pain when dealing with frequency matching/problems. The bodypacks are nicely engineered with a transparent plastic cover over the screen and power/freq buttons. This minimizes tampering and accidental shut offs, which is a major plus. Tampering and shut-offs making trouble shooting and managing wireless a plan hazard. The receivers have easy access controls and a large, well lit LCD. It makes all the difference in the world for trouble shooting.

For theater and virtually all formal productions, I rig a lavier directly behind the actor's eyebrowe (right between the ear and eyebrowe). This has always gave me the best results. It picks up the voice perfectly, nice hot signal, no poping, less gain is needed. However, during a seminar or concert with a conductor, I'll just use a clip and windscreen (pop screen). Because its simple easier to deal with. And no need to use flesh tape (or bandaid) and tape it on someones face. Not to mention that weird remarks you'd get.

Out of all the wireless I've used, shure simply is the industry standard. I highly reccomend the ULX series all the way to the super high-end professional grade stuff. ULX is a affordable UHF, Frequency Selectable, Flexible system. Shure's frequency system is so simple and easy. The frequencies are represented by channels, which is so much easier to match and maintain frequencies. The receivers and body packs have easy to read screens. Their laviers are still very nice, but I prefer sennheiser's. The sennheisers are much smaller and compact, and are less detectable.

Theres my $0.02, where is yours?

[Nephilim]

You should be able to switch the evolutions into "Channel mode" where they don't display the frequency but instead just show CH 1 through CH 8, since each freq range for the Sennheisers offers only 8 intermodulation free channels.

My HS has six evolution 100 lavalier systems that are currently freestanding on top of the equipment 'stack' (we don't have a working rack yet). They work **** nicely; I took them on the road to CETA and the outperformed the host school's audio-technicas that cost way more. Our stadium has an evolution 300 handheld that I have yet to find a range limit on. The evolution gear is just **** nice in general.

Edit: The new evolution G2 line has backlit transmitter displays! Yay!

[soundman]

10 shure LXS
Located in the booth.
Work just fine excpet locaion, I cant tell if the pacs are just muted or not turned on or if they are lossing a channel.
Mics go by mough on check.

I have a question, all the other shows it was the actors responsobility to mute their mics on the body pack, well this year I told them just to turn them on and leave them on and I would mute them from the board several resorted to their old ways and mutes them but never unmuted them so what do you guys do?

[wolf825]

Originally Posted by soundman

10 shure LXS
Located in the booth.
Work just fine excpet locaion, I cant tell if the pacs are just muted or not turned on or if they are lossing a channel.
Mics go by mough on check.

I have a question, all the other shows it was the actors responsobility to mute their mics on the body pack, well this year I told them just to turn them on and leave them on and I would mute them from the board several resorted to their old ways and mutes them but never unmuted them so what do you guys do?

FWIW, 12 Shure U-4 Series w/ body packs, Countryman B3 mics, and Beta 58 / 87 handhelds.

As for the folks who can't keep their fingers off the mute switch--on the Shures I can POWER LOCK the pack to be ON no matter WHAT they do to the switch. Only way to turn it off is to take the battery out or open up the pack and turn the Powerlock mode OFF.

Other then that--gaff tape over the switch can sometimes help....


-wolf

[soundman]

might have to read up on this POWER lock thing.

[Nephilim]

I wish I had B3s.... i'm stuck with ME-4s... they're nice, they're just huge and fragile.

[wolf825]

Originally Posted by Nephilim

I wish I had B3s.... i'm stuck with ME-4s... they're nice, they're just huge and fragile.

The B3's are nice to work with but can be a bit picky on placement since the ones we use are omni's. When two actors get close together there can be a lot of rejection and feedback probs (so phase switches come in handy). They are relatively affordable IMO compared to many lavs for theater--about $250 per...which is cheap by comparison to the E6's and other micro-miniatures....

-wolf

[wolf825]

Originally Posted by soundman

might have to read up on this POWER lock thing.

I'm not sure if the power lock feature is available on the LX series or not..but Shure is good on its features so there may be that feature on yours. On the U series bodypacks (and most other of their mic transmitters), the powerlock is engaged by turning ON the pack, and holding the MODE and SET buttons down together for 5 seconds and the display will say PoL ON. Hold them again for another 5 seconds and it goes PoL OFF. If you press SET and then MODE and hold it you can lock the frequency to the transmitter. I'm not sure what body packs you have..but hopefully you have some of those features...

Else there is always gaff tape...of course the other thing is to turn the bodypack upside down when you wrap the condom on the transmitter so they cannot get to the switch.

-wolf

[soundman]

We dont put condoms on the packs, they are pockets sewn into the clothes that proctecs them enough. The pacs dont have a mode button or LCD display so I might just gaff it.

[bdesmond]

We have 9 Telex receivers in the booth which go into an antenna extender, and then a couple RF cables run down teh catwalk, and the antennas are embedded in the house ceiling somehow (didn't do it).

We have 9 handheld mics, and then 9 lapels, there is a lapel and a handheld for each frequency, so, nine max.