Bizaare feedback

jakebozz

Member
I'm working sound for a community theater production of "Little Shop," and about 8 minutes before curtain, I begin to hear faint feedback. I look down at the sound console and verify that everything is down/muted/etc. Where the heck!?!? I start walking around the theater trying to locate the source of the feedback... It turns out that a little old lady, about 82+ is wearing a hearing aid which is set too loud and is feeding back to itself, but she can't seem to hear that frequency and hasn't a clue that it is happening!

Dilemma: How to you approach a little old lady and ask her to turn down her hearing aid!?!?

I chickened out & didn't. I figured that her battery would crap out & do it for me in a few minutes. Meanwhile, at the top of the show, a few people sitting around her are turning around to me, and I'm shrugging my shoulders and gesturing with my hands that it isn't me and there's nothing I can do about it!!!

After about 5 minutes, the independent feedback stopped & all was well again.

You gotta love live theater! lol
 
This is quite common and can be a delicate situation to address. I would be inclined to see if someone from house managment or an usher would approach the patron and politely point out the issue. Perhaps offering a listening assisted device at the same time? If the patron has their hearing aids turned up that high to begin with, they might be in need of one. Every situation will vary, since every person reacts so differently.

~Dave
 
With one hand you wrap it around her shoulder with the hearing aid ear and distract her from the other side whilst adjusting her hearing aid.

Distractions Methods:

1: pointing vigorously while talking in a loud voice
2: rubbing her hand and smiling at her while you say sweet things to her
3: Mouth words to her in hopes that she thinks her hearing aid is broken and you take a look at it and then turn it down and talk with real words
4: Tell her a hearing aid joke that makes her laugh and turn it down.
5: If you get caught just pretend to be old yourself and say in your old persons voice, Martha where are we.
 
I like it when the sound op forgets to turn someone's mic off and they invariably end up eating a bag of potato chips backstage.
 
Try working in a church with a pipe organ. Occasionally a pipe will "cypher." This is when a little air is leaking through a valve and a pipe at a certain frequency begins to quietly squeal it's note. Usually, this is in a higher register as lower notes need a lot more air before they oscillate. It can really play with your mind when you're doing sound. With thousands of pipes and thus thousands of valves, it is unfortunately common.
 
This is a good segue what do you do in your auditoriums for assistive listening systems. I was thinking long-range bluetooth (150ft), but only a couple of people can use it at a time, and they have to be paired each time.
 
Try working in a church with a pipe organ.

This took me back to my roots. I got introduced to audio back when I was a youngin' and the old guy who had run sound for our church had enough and saw an opportunity to retire through my eager ignorance. I wish I could remember what kind of board it was, but it had no faders and about 8 volume pots and only about half of them worked. We thought we were living in the future when they finally upgraded to the ubiquitous 16 channel Mackie.

Anyway, this was an older church population and the hearing aid feedback was frequent enough that it had become an inside joke among the parishioners. Invariably one would start ringing, and everyone would exchange knowing looks until the culprit was identified and appropriately chided, tongue firmly in cheek of course.

The church I moonlight at now actually just installed a pipe organ in one of their spaces so I'll have to tuck that tidbit in the back of my head for later, @JD.

This is a good segue what do you do in your auditoriums for assistive listening systems. I was thinking long-range bluetooth (150ft), but only a couple of people can use it at a time, and they have to be paired each time.

The latency would kill you, not to mention the nightmare of pairing all those devices. My phone loses sync with my car bluetooth when I stop to get gas, I can't imagine a whole venue of technology-leery people trying to pair before a curtain. In both spaces I work in there's RF transmitters with small receiver packs. There is another type of system that works better with most hearing aids, but I don't know much about it. I'm sure someone will chime in.
 
This is a good segue what do you do in your auditoriums for assistive listening systems. I was thinking long-range bluetooth (150ft), but only a couple of people can use it at a time, and they have to be paired each time.
No need to reinvent the wheel. Plenty of pre-made systems. We use the "Williams Sound" one and have for 30 years. System has a rack mounted transmitter and you can buy all sorts of versions of the receivers. No limit on how many can be used.
https://www.williamssound.com/products
Click on the FM category.
 
This is a good segue what do you do in your auditoriums for assistive listening systems. I was thinking long-range bluetooth (150ft), but only a couple of people can use it at a time, and they have to be paired each time.

Assistive listening systems are notoriously under-utilized. There's a variety of experiential, psychological, and practical factors why that is, but any installed system has got to be easy to use, reliable, and convenient. If it fails on any of these points, patrons will ignore it. Really need to use an FM, IR, or induction loop system to deliver that result, and it has to be set up properly and given an appropriate mix -- usually vocals on top of a ducked house mic or program mix with a little delay and compression on it.

A Bluetooth solution would also fail to meet the ADA requirements for number of receivers required, and would fail to meet the requirement that accessibility accommodations must be as transparent an experience as possible and not single out people out from the general public. You cannot deliver on that if you have to take a patron aside from 5 minutes to tap them into the Bluetooth earpiece and go hands-on with their phone to set it up.
 

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