Choir microphone help

Jon Majors said:
I'm on the lookout for a directional microphone that will pick up choir voices, but with an orchestra in front of the choir. The setup will be the choir on risers behind the orchestra on the stage floor. My choirs have about 40 members and the orchestra has about 50. Can you provide any recommendations or send me in the right direction?

Thanks so much!
Click to expand...
@Jon Majors Is your orchestra in a pit in front of AND BELOW your choir??
Optimistically, your orchestra's NOT in front of your choir AND at stage level.
No matter what mic you use: The loudest sound at the mic WINS.
@MNicolai @TimMc Care to comment, PLEASE.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
Jon Majors said:
I'm on the lookout for a directional microphone that will pick up choir voices, but with an orchestra in front of the choir. The setup will be the choir on risers behind the orchestra on the stage floor. My choirs have about 40 members and the orchestra has about 50. Can you provide any recommendations or send me in the right direction?

Thanks so much!
Click to expand...

Can you hang them or not?

I always liked the EV RE90H for a hanger. Cardioid, nice sounding, pretty easy to focus, used to do as well as can be expected with an orchestra in front. Cheat them closer to the risers than ideal if the choir were alone on stage - I used to do about 2-3' in front of the front row of singers and vertically aligned with mouths of the back row. This was with everyone packed close to a shell and reflections being problematic along with orchestra bleed.
 
Colin said:
Can you hang them or not?

I always liked the EV RE90H for a hanger. Cardioid, nice sounding, pretty easy to focus, used to do as well as can be expected with an orchestra in front. Cheat them closer to the risers than ideal if the choir were alone on stage - I used to do about 2-3' in front of the front row of singers and vertically aligned with mouths of the back row. This was with everyone packed close to a shell and reflections being problematic along with orchestra bleed.
Click to expand...
Thanks! We can hang them but I would prefer not to if we can help it. The choir is 3 feet higher on platforms that the orchestra.
 
+1 for loudest sound wins.

If you hang them you will pick up 180 degrees horizontal, which will pick up the orchestra without any attenuation. I suggest use one mic every 6-8 feet, use tripod stands, raise the mics up to about 7 feet high and about 1 foot in front of the front row of singers, tilt down 30 degrees so you will pick up only the full choir at the front of the cardioid pattern, leaving the orchestra in the attenuated area. I've attached a pic which is pretty grainy but should give you the general idea of how I set up my choir mics.

ChoirMics.png
 
jkowtko said:
+1 for loudest sound wins.

If you hang them you will pick up 180 degrees horizontal, which will pick up the orchestra without any attenuation. I suggest use one mic every 6-8 feet, use tripod stands, raise the mics up to about 7 feet high and about 1 foot in front of the front row of singers, tilt down 30 degrees so you will pick up only the full choir at the front of the cardioid pattern, leaving the orchestra in the attenuated area. I've attached a pic which is pretty grainy but should give you the general idea of how I set up my choir mics.

View attachment 18399
Click to expand...
Which mics would you recommend?
 
jkowtko said:
+1 for loudest sound wins.

If you hang them you will pick up 180 degrees horizontal, which will pick up the orchestra without any attenuation. I suggest use one mic every 6-8 feet, use tripod stands, raise the mics up to about 7 feet high and about 1 foot in front of the front row of singers, tilt down 30 degrees so you will pick up only the full choir at the front of the cardioid pattern, leaving the orchestra in the attenuated area. I've attached a pic which is pretty grainy but should give you the general idea of how I set up my choir mics.

View attachment 18399
Click to expand...
@jkowtko Would you care to mention the brand and model of the three or four mics you'd use and perhaps discus phantom powering options if required??
Possibly give @Jon Majors a hint of the purchase costs involved for the mics and STANDS that are actually worth buying???
A decent set of K&M stands with booms MAY be more money than @Jon Majors had in mind for his mics alone.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
40 voices against 50 instruments? Far more critical is good cooperation between your musicians, and the director. By default, the choir loses the battle. No microphone is purely directional, and even if you found one, it's directional nature would be nullified by reflections. Obviously, short of putting a head worn microphone on every choir member, you are going to have to deal with micing from some distance, and the result will be you are micing the floor and walls as well.

All those things given, the mic stands become almost more important than the microphones. I use the K&M 21231 Telescoping Boom Arms with my traveling choir, which extend almost 7 feet and are still stable. You need to use a stand like the 20811, which gives you the height as well. (Be aware, the stand and boom use non-standard threads to connect together so you don't try to put them on a standard stand.) They will set you back a good deal of money, but will allow you to put the microphones exactly where you need them without having to fly anything.
 
Jon Majors said:
Which mics would you recommend?
Click to expand...
RonHebbard said:
@jkowtko Would you care to mention the brand and model of the three or four mics you'd use and perhaps discus phantom powering options if required??
Possibly give @Jon Majors a hint of the purchase costs involved for the mics and STANDS that are actually worth buying???
A decent set of K&M stands with booms MAY be more money than @Jon Majors had in mind for his mics alone.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
Click to expand...

You may like my cost, but not my answer ... ;)

I started doing this ten years ago. Because this was a middle school concert and I was volunteering my time and equipment, I bought the cheapest mics and stands I could find and figured I would start there and replace as things broke or proved to produce inferior sound ... fortunately I never had to upgrade.

I bought the cheap tripod stands from either Guitar Center or Musicians Friend for $10 each (10-pak for $100). My rationale was that as they break they are a dime a dozen to replace ... however in all these years none have broken (granted I use them only a few times a year).

The stands are very lightweight though, won't hold a heavy mic. So my first mic purchase was the Behringer C2 at $50/pair ... these things are incredibly light and sound surprisingly decent for school choir. I also purchased some Samson C02 pencil mics (~$100/pr) which I use in the percussion section of the band (I think they have a slightly crisper pickup and better cardioid rejection) ... but the Behringer C2s I use for overall choir, orchestra, and jazz band area mics. Again no problems in years of light use.

The kicker is my cabling ... because I didn't have enough input channels to cover the individual choir mics (on my DL1608) ... I decided to try a no-no and Y-cable the inputs, connecting a pair of C2s to each input channel, with phantom power on each input channel. Surprisingly, no issues whatsoever ... perfectly clear sound, no balance or frequency response issues that I or my video collaborator (who does the post-production editing for the school videos using my 24-bit WAV recordings) can discern.

So ... my total cost for a four choir mic configuration is $100 for mics, $40 for stands, $20 for two 2F-1M Y cables, and I use only 2 input channels on my board.

Should I be using better mics? I'm sure they would help ... I have other much more expensive mics that I'm sure will sound better, but they are much heavier and will require higher end (and more expensive) stands. So I am staying with the minimalist approach and moving up only if necessary.

-- John
 
jkowtko said:
If you hang them you will pick up 180 degrees horizontal
Click to expand...

A choir mic made for hanging should come with a wire armature attached which allows for focusing the polar pattern to avoid this. They're discrete and easy if you have a fly system. Put a 6 or whatever-you-need channel snake on the batten. The mics will have a very long cable often needing no extension to patch in. Before hanging, measure and mark 1' intervals from the mic element with a contrasting color Sharpie to make accurate vertical placement a breeze. Leave excess cable coiled and tied just tight enough where each mic drops down so you can pull gently from the floor for fine height adjustments of individual mics as needed. If there's a border curtain hung conveniently, you can use those ties. Easy. And if in a less disciplined setting like a school then you avoid accidental or intentional mic stand moves, though they can still get bumped and swing around if there's something tall moving through...
 
I echo John's advice. I have always had far greater luck with boom stands thatn with hanging mics. In recent years I have been using my Heil PR31BW's for just this purpose. A few times a year I have a community choir that performs upstage of a community band on risers. 4 of the Heil mics on tall boom stands has always given me the tools to get enough gain before feedback. The mics are great about rejecting sound from the rear, so placement of the mic itself is critical. Using black stands I have never found that they are terribly noticable from the audience.

~Dave
 
Hanging mics may be better visually than floor standing, but aside from the potentially limited selection of product available for hanging, they are more work to setup and teardown, and almost impossible to make adjustments on the fly. And they can't be used for anything else ... I use two of my four choir mics (one from each channel) to turn around and reposition as backfills for the orchestra and band ... we jump around between several choir, orchestra, band and jazz groups during the two night production, so the mics are constantly repositioned from one group to the next. You may not have these requirements ... over the years I have come up with and refined the plan that works best for me for this semi-annual concert.
 
+1 on mics on stands. As for what mics, well what is your budget? Low end, Shure SM137s are good basic mics that work well in a variety of applications, reject well off axis and sound surprisingly good for the price. Above that SM81s or AKG 390s with CK91 capsules are used in a lot of places I have worked. On the high end Neumann KM 184s are amazing. That being said you can and I have miced choirs with 57s in a pinch, better mics make it easier but the placement is the most important part. Aiming the mic so you are picking up what you need and putting what you don't want off axis. Also talk to the person/people conducting the choir and orchestra, they will hopefully want the final product to be good and should be able to adjust their musicians to help you.
 
Well guys, hangers vs stands depends on the planned applications. All fine points above about stands being reconfigurable between acts and more versatile for other than choir use (unless you also do theatre production requiring reinforcement, in which case the hangers have another advantage). But if you can afford the gear and are working in one space not many, and primarily one setup not many, it isn't correct that stands are quicker and easier. Install once, tie them up when not needed. It takes me, by myself, less than 5 minutes for the in or the out with a single purchase set, or maybe 5 or 7 minutes with double purchase. Initial setup is maybe 20 min. It is true that it's more challenging or at least different than mics on booms to finesse them into good GBF but that's just another skill to acquire and then it's no big deal.

On stands, yes +1 for KSM137, or KM184 if you're rich. Both small and light and versatile.
 
Jon Majors said:
Which mics would you recommend?
Click to expand...

I recommend, in terms strong enough that @dvsDave would revoke my log in if I say them, that the MUSIC DIRECTOR control his/her/their Fsking band/orchestra/kazoo ensemble and balance it the old fashioned way first, before you turn on a single microphone.

Edit ps, a bit of a rant: if audio & acoustics were a religion, "let the microphone take care of that" would be heresy worthy of being turned into a newt (M Python "..I got better") at best and Joan of Arc ("religion really burned me out, man!") at worst. We mic orchestras to have control of the relative instrumental balances and to give those close-mic'd sounds some perception of spatial placement with reverbs and other processing. What we never have a problem with is the amount of vocals in the orch mics, so why is there so much orch/band/kazoo ensemble in *every* vocal mic? In order to keep up with the acoustic output from the pit we have have to mic up EVERY person with a singing or speaking part and further amplify the orchestra/band/kazoo ensemble with each open mic. I herewith declare the following to have been added to the Audio Axiology of Theater:

1) Loudest sound at the mic, wins.
2) More mics means more winning, loudest sound.
3) If you can't hear Freddie Green, you're playing too loud. (bonus if you know who said it)
4) Acoustic solutions to acoustic problems are preferable to any "treatment" that comes from a 19" rack mount box with a power cord and blinking lights.
 
Last edited:
DaveySimps said:
I echo John's advice. I have always had far greater luck with boom stands thatn with hanging mics. In recent years I have been using my Heil PR31BW's for just this purpose. A few times a year I have a community choir that performs upstage of a community band on risers. 4 of the Heil mics on tall boom stands has always given me the tools to get enough gain before feedback. The mics are great about rejecting sound from the rear, so placement of the mic itself is critical. Using black stands I have never found that they are terribly noticable from the audience.

~Dave
Click to expand...
The Bobby Workman versions are great mics - they still sound like the PR30 with half the size.

Back story - Bobby Workman is the FOH mixerperson for Charlie Daniels Band (for 30 years or so). He's also a buddy with Bob Heil. Workman loved the way the PR30 sounded on Charlie's guitar rigs but the mic was large enough, physically, that Daniels would back into it while moving about the stage (and it was too large to use on drums, another application Workman wanted to try). Workman shortened the PR30, showed it to Heil, who declared it worthy of production.

Edited to fix proper nouns.
 
Last edited:
jkowtko said:
You may like my cost, but not my answer ... ;)

I started doing this ten years ago. Because this was a middle school concert and I was volunteering my time and equipment, I bought the cheapest mics and stands I could find and figured I would start there and replace as things broke or proved to produce inferior sound ... fortunately I never had to upgrade.

I bought the cheap tripod stands from either Guitar Center or Musicians Friend for $10 each (10-pak for $100). My rationale was that as they break they are a dime a dozen to replace ... however in all these years none have broken (granted I use them only a few times a year).

The stands are very lightweight though, won't hold a heavy mic. So my first mic purchase was the Behringer C2 at $50/pair ... these things are incredibly light and sound surprisingly decent for school choir. I also purchased some Samson C02 pencil mics (~$100/pr) which I use in the percussion section of the band (I think they have a slightly crisper pickup and better cardioid rejection) ... but the Behringer C2s I use for overall choir, orchestra, and jazz band area mics. Again no problems in years of light use.

The kicker is my cabling ... because I didn't have enough input channels to cover the individual choir mics (on my DL1608) ... I decided to try a no-no and Y-cable the inputs, connecting a pair of C2s to each input channel, with phantom power on each input channel. Surprisingly, no issues whatsoever ... perfectly clear sound, no balance or frequency response issues that I or my video collaborator (who does the post-production editing for the school videos using my 24-bit WAV recordings) can discern.

So ... my total cost for a four choir mic configuration is $100 for mics, $40 for stands, $20 for two 2F-1M Y cables, and I use only 2 input channels on my board.

Should I be using better mics? I'm sure they would help ... I have other much more expensive mics that I'm sure will sound better, but they are much heavier and will require higher end (and more expensive) stands. So I am staying with the minimalist approach and moving up only if necessary.

-- John
Click to expand...
Don't do the double phantom load on a channel...
 
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