floor mics

itie

Active Member
hello cb,

my school is looking to buy floor mics. we need good ones because there are going on the edge of the apron and orchestra will be playing in front of the apron. so they need to be good for picking up the actor and not the orchestra. do you guys know of any brand that would would be good. i don't know much about sound.

thank you
giovanni
 
hello cb,

my school is looking to buy floor mics. we need good ones because there are going on the edge of the apron and orchestra will be playing in front of the apron. so they need to be good for picking up the actor and not the orchestra. do you guys know of any brand that would would be good. i don't know much about sound.

thank you
giovanni

Not knowing much about floor mics i won't recommend anything but you will have a hard time picking up actors with an orchestra right next to the mics.
 
Crown PCC-160's are kind of the industry standard for floor mics, however Studio is correct, there isn't much you can do when it comes to not picking up the orchestra with floor mics other than make sure they are pointed the right direction..
 
Our school uses the crown PCC-160

http://www.crownaudio.com/pdf/mics/101062.pdf

We have 5 for a 50 foot proscenium stage

Since our orchestra was small small for the most recent performance (keyboard player, 2 violins, piccolo, additional keyboard)

we didn't have many issues (the keyboards were plugged into the sound board via snake directly.

But two shows ago, we had a larger orchestra with brass and a drum set and a trombone player who played parallel to the stage so that he could see our conductor. We therefore had to be very careful how much we pushed the center mic.
 
I would like the others suggest Crown's. We use four and the are very good, pick up our actors more than the hanging areas we use.

However again like others said you are going to have trouble not picking up the orchestra. The Crown PCC 160s are omnidirectional, so that only adds to the proble. But even so with a directional mic you will pick them up. We use four on a 40-50 foot apron with full orchstra during shows.


Edit,

Oh, didnt see that you mentioned you use PCC 160s already.


Wow, everyone uses them don't they? :p

I keep random mics I pick up in there bags during the year. Very nice ^^
 
However again like others said you are going to have trouble not picking up the orchestra. The Crown PCC 160s are omnidirectional, so that only adds to the proble. But even so with a directional mic you will pick them up. We use four on a 40-50 foot apron with full orchstra during shows.
No, they're cardioid. PCC = Phase Coherent Cardioid. I've found that they actually have decent rejection for rear sounds, and the problem is that we just tend to expect more out of them than we should. Considering the volume levels between the pit and the stage, as well as the distance between the two sources, I think that they do an excellent job.
 
No, they're cardioid. PCC = Phase Coherent Cardioid. I've found that they actually have decent rejection for rear sounds, and the problem is that we just tend to expect more out of them than we should. Considering the volume levels between the pit and the stage, as well as the distance between the two sources, I think that they do an excellent job.

Really? Huh. I always assumed they were omnidirectional as the grill is open on both sides.
Alright then.
Yeah, they do a great job and actually we rely on them for mics before we get into wireless for our main shows.
 
... Wow, everyone uses them don't they? :p
Except for those who use the competitor.;)

...
The Crown PCC's are great mics, but a cheaper and still good quality alternative are the Bartlett stage floor microphones. They are about $100 cheaper than the Crown mics, but they are designed by the same guys who invented the Crown PCC 160. He worked for Crown for 26 years, and for Shure before that. I would suggest the TM-125C. ...

One last bit of info I always offer when using area micing is that you should not expect the same sound quality as you would get with handheld mics, or even body mics. This is just not possible with this type of micing, even under the most ideal conditions. I only mention this since inexpirenced sound ops, and more often directors, tend to expect the same sound levels and quality, it just is not phyiscally possible.

Bartlett Microphones in Elkhart, Indiana - home page

~Dave

That's good advice. I designed the Crown PCC-160, and yes, it should lie flat on the stage floor.

No matter what type of mics you use, you need to ride their faders, turning down mics that are not in use at any given time. This reduces the number of open mics, which increases clarity and gain-before-feedback. Ideally only one or two floor mics would be turned up at a time.

Bruce Bartlett
Bartlett Microphones in Elkhart, Indiana - home page
 
the problem is that we just tend to expect more out of them than we should.
Quoted For Truth...
IMO, PCC mics are for sound reinforcement, not amplification. If your chorus is loud, they'll do a good job of making it sound bigger. If the chorus is not loud enough in the first place, the PCC's will be a disappointment.
 
Interestingly, on a show I was just doing, we had a similar problem of picking up the orchestra, so we swapped out shure whatervers with 2 Rhode NT5A Condensors on 6mm thick pieces of felt, really good noise rejection, not only from the pit, but from the front rows of the audience, and we covered some dead spots on the stage really well. However, at $2500 each, it isn't practical. We only used them becuase we decided that we didn't need sterio drum o/heads, and that Shure Beta 56's sound nicer for Xylo and Glock than the rhodes.
 
Directional microphones (cardiod, hypercardiod, etc) produce their directivity by venting to the rear and using phase cancellation. In fact, any cardiod can be turned into an omni by blocking the rear venting. That's why cupping a handheld microphone produces feedback. By blocking the rear of the microphone, the microphone's ability to reduce off axis sound is diminished.

I work with very directional microphones (long shotguns) when doing location sound for film and these microphones have more venting along the sides then actual diaphram surface area facing the direction I want to capture.

Never block the rear of a directional microphone in an attempt to increase directivity, blocking does just the opposite.

Really? Huh. I always assumed they were omnidirectional as the grill is open on both sides.
Alright then.
Yeah, they do a great job and actually we rely on them for mics before we get into wireless for our main shows.
 
Directional microphones (cardiod, hypercardiod, etc) produce their directivity by venting to the rear and using phase cancellation. In fact, any cardiod can be turned into an omni by blocking the rear venting. That's why cupping a handheld microphone produces feedback. By blocking the rear of the microphone, the microphone's ability to reduce off axis sound is diminished.

I work with very directional microphones (long shotguns) when doing location sound for film and these microphones have more venting along the sides then actual diaphram surface area facing the direction I want to capture.

Never block the rear of a directional microphone in an attempt to increase directivity, blocking does just the opposite.

And now I feel dumb : )

We never tried blocking the rear, but I will make sure they arent for some reason now.


Whoever mentioned the connectors.

Yeah, those arent the best..When tapped the stage, I can't get it off with my big hands :p And they break alot when highschool students sit on the edge of apron and well, feel the need to sit on, the microphone...But that isn't the wires fault :/
 
$2500? What currency? NT5s are about $400 USD per pair. Other than one model, all the Rodes are $700 USD or less.

I dunno, not Australian dollars... The retail for the pair is about 770, bu tI've seen them sub 500...
 
$400 well spent, too. Though I have to say, I've never heard of them being used as floor mics.
That's because using a normal mic on the floor would sound AWFUL. Floor mics use the sound wave reflections off the floor to their advantage because they're so low; they avoid phase cancellations between the reflection and the direct source (in audible range). It's only a few mm off the floor that is the max distance you can have without getting serious phase cancellation.

I dunno, not Australian dollars... The retail for the pair is about 770, bu tI've seen them sub 500...
I'd guess he meant $250 each, but then the rest of the sentence doesn't make much sense, because in the grand scheme of things, that's a pretty average mic price...
 
so they need to be good for picking up the actor and not the orchestra.
A very basic concept here but mics can't differentiate the sound source, they are 'source blind' and will pick up whatever sound is present. The only real control over what a mic picks up is via the mic pattern, which can vary with frequency, and the mic's frequency response. All a mic can look at is what sound pressure level is present at it's location, it can't assess what is happening elsewhere. It may seem like an obvious point but I often find people for whom it is a breakthrough to realize that mics differentiate based only on the direction the sound is coming from and the frequency of the sound.
 

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