Question about micing Tap shoes for dance recitals

[soundguy99]

Hey guys,
I jiust did a dance recital, with a number of Tap numbers,
Allot of the tap numbers have dancers moving all over the stage, so although I thought about setting up a couple of shotgun mics I didn`t know about how large of an area they would cover.
Also I am running monitors with music during the dancing, and the dancers are dancing on a marley dance floor which does bring down the overall tap sounds, which is why I was thinking of micing them.
Just wondering what anyone else uses around here, and was seeing if anyone else had any experience micing tap shoes.
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated,
Thanks,
soundguy99

 

[josh88]

Even on marley I've never needed to mic tap numbers, but I have a relatively shallow house. This is kind of a perfect time to use something like Crown's PCC 160 or whatever flavor of floor mic you like.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PCC160

 

[Vega]

I have seen on several videos of old-time/bluegrass clogging where the sound engineer mic'ed the floor with pencil condensers, and of course I can't find the video I was thinking of, but what I recall is that he had put the mics in table stands and pointed them in a generally upward direction.

Edit: I found one of the videos I was looking for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pctzc3v5Cx0

 

[techieman33]

Even on marley I've never needed to mic tap numbers, but I have a relatively shallow house. This is kind of a perfect time to use something like Crown's PCC 160 or whatever flavor of floor mic you like.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PCC160

I have a big house and we rarely use them. They often get put out and patched and run at very low or non existent levels because the dance companies director thinks they need to be there.

 

[soundguy99]

Ya, thats typically what we do, usually just crank the the monitors and house music way down and allow the tap to come out naturally. Generally if you have a large senior group that can really dig it and make their sound as big as possible it works quite well, and you can get a nice ballance between the music and tap, however some of the younger groups or, when youre doing a solo tap number, sometimes you have to turn the music down so much that theres very little musical content if any at all to go with the tap. So it turns it into a tap only number as opposed a tap number in time with the beat of the music. The tap is there to be a feature on top of the music, not the only source of sound youre hearing.
And that why I was considering on having the mics out there, in those types of situations, where it would give you a bit more control in maintaining that balance between the music and tap sounds.

 

[themuzicman]

I generally throw a half dozen mics like PCC-160 or Beta 91 A (which is awesome because it has a true XLR and not a TA3/TA3 to Preamp!) across the downstage edge of the stage. If I have a huge set and I can dictate placements, I will get a bunch of contact mics built into the deck.

The way a lot of Broadway shows mic up taps are to install a mic transmitter with a "tap y" which allows you to plug 2 mics into a single transmitter, and then you wire a mic down each leg onto their heel.

 

[Dionysus]

Ive had varied success with micing dance. Ive used everything from PCC-160s to SM-57s (which worked surprisingly well), to a collection of "pencil" condensers.

Really I think it has to do with what you want it to sound like, and what it sounds like without being miced. Some stages (the stage itself) and surfaces (ie the marley) and shoes (Tap and Irish or whatever) will make a variety of sounds.

Sometimes I use the mics not really to make it "louder", but to help it sound the way I want it to (say reinforcing the "tap" not the "thud" or "boom", or vice versa).

Sometimes with a large area it can be very hard to mic the area well depending on the venue, etc. One stage in particular we've used PCC-160s and Beta 91 As, which worked okay but did not have the sound we wanted... We then supplimented with some shotguns (don't recall which) and we got exactly the sound we were looking for.

 

[AlexDonkle]

Likely the most expensive way to do it, but Q5X makes a wireless mic designed specifically for tap dance
http://www.q5x.com/products/wireless-transmitters/tapshoemic/

 

[AudJ]

I inherited 6 Crown PCC's, originally used to line the front of the stage for covering everything in the musicals. I don't use them that way, but have found them to be very versatile for other things, which is something to cobsider. Probably only need 1 or 2 for tap, and would cover fairly evenly.

 

[derekleffew]

The way a lot of Broadway shows mic up taps are to install a mic transmitter with a "tap y" which allows you to plug 2 mics into a single transmitter, and then you wire a mic down each leg onto their heel.

Bring on the Noise/Bring onda Funk did it that way on Broadway, but when Savion Glover performs in concert, he brings his own mic'd platform: http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/qotd-micing-a-tap-floor.22830 .

 

[Jay Ashworth]

I only have a pair of -160's, and I've only had one tap show. I didn't actually need to use that for that; my cast was all adults. But I've been using them for straight-play fill in addition to my hanging condensers, and I'm pretty happy with the extra coverage.