A Sound Hello
- Thread starterHunter Thomas
- Start date
backstagebadger
Member
Notate your script with who and what needs to come in and out when. When using wireless mics on the actors, use one of these (see below) to store the mics between shows.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Joshualangman
Active Member
Welcome to ControlBooth. When you say working the board, do you mean mixing mics (for a musical), running cues, or both? Any specific questions?
hey! I'm new here too! I'v Run sound boards from the worst pice of junk ever thats attached to a wall rack for my middle school to the 800k sound system at the new multi-million dollar theater attached to my high school!
1.) I recommend righting down all of the cues in a script and following along with the show (but don't loose focus on the board! if your facility is using coms you will most likely have a stage director or someone else on book with cues.)
2.) If you are running levels for a musical or a show with lots of mics labbel your channels in a way you will know what they are (for example if you are familiar with the names of the actors more than the names of the characters write down the actors name for there mice channel. But if you are more familiar with the characters names write the name of the character.) Depending on what kind of sound board you have it might have small screens for labeling each channel if they don't then use a pice of tape that won't leave adhesive on the board.
3.) If it is a digital board, most of the time it will have the option to preset levels and save them onto your board. So during rehearsals try to set all of the mic and monitor levels to the level that you set it to that you usually have it at and save it. This will make things Far easier for you and reduce the chance of things going wrong during the show. Only do this if you know what you are doing! If you don't know what you are doing and there is an official who dose (a tech director, Director, stage manager...) talk to them about it! If they know what they are doing and that your sound board can do it, have them show you how or do it themselves. Don't just try to figure it out on your own or you could cause things to brake or possibly end up costing your facility money to have something fixed! If you don't have anyone who knows what they are doing talk to the person in charge of your performance and ask them if they have a manual that you can read to find out if the board has that feature and how to do it.
4.) If you are only running something like tracks for sound effects and music familiarize yourself with the software you are using and any cues that may be more difficult or complex go over it a few times and make sure it gets written down on the script you are working off of. also be sure to be extra aware of what is going on in the show and what the actors are saying.
5.)Good luck & Have fun!
I'm assuming your school has something relatively small like a Mackie CFX console. Just watch your gain. Set your gain in rehearsal, leave yourself enough room before feeding back so that you can give your actors a healthy boost. More gain, less EQ is your friend. Use the EQ to remove trouble frequencies.
If you have more complex equipment such as an X32, don't overwhelm yourself with the features. If you don't understand compression or gating, don't use them! Remember, perfection is overrated. Just get it working before rehearsal, tweak it as best you can, and don't make big changes during the show unless you're confident your change is necessary.
Lots of people will say this all depends on your microphones, handheld wired or wireless, lavalier, overhead condenser, etc. There are various techniques for each but you should figure out what type you're using and learn about them. Perhaps just look at the model number of the microphones and google them for more information.
It's perfectly okay for the theatre to be quiet when people enter, you don't need to play music. The first sounds they hear will be the beginning of the play. Soft, smooth jazz is probably your best bet despite these warnings.
Try to keep your overall volume at a proper level. You don't need to drive your speakers as loud as you possibly can for a quiet drama. Remember, you are only providing reinforcement. Your sound is not the center of attention, the actors are. The volume of the sound and placement of the speakers should not break the audience's immersion into the show.
Label your inputs. Use your actors names if you know the actors personally. If you have to share microphones between actors, use an XLR splitter to give you another channel (just be sure to Mute/UnMute when the mic is handed off!) Try as hard as you can to give each person their own channel strip on your mixer.
If you have to play music or sound cues at any point, try to have them loaded, press play and immediately pause instead of loading on demand. This causes most devices to buffer sound and resuming from pause is always quicker than the initial load/selection.
If you're going to be running monitors as well as FOH reinforcement, you SHOULD NOT adjust your channel strip gain during the show. This value, along with the Aux sends associated with monitors should be preset during rehearsal and effectively locked during the show.
Don't worry about manually 'bumping' performers' volume when they speak. Layer your vocals properly in rehearsal or before a scene and let the actors use the dynamics of their voices to control the volume.
Be done and off the stage before rehearsal, demand at least an hour of sound check. Initial sound check before the rehearsal, slight adjustments during rehearsal. Tape the faders and pots on the board at the end of the night before show call.
If you have more complex equipment such as an X32, don't overwhelm yourself with the features. If you don't understand compression or gating, don't use them! Remember, perfection is overrated. Just get it working before rehearsal, tweak it as best you can, and don't make big changes during the show unless you're confident your change is necessary.
Lots of people will say this all depends on your microphones, handheld wired or wireless, lavalier, overhead condenser, etc. There are various techniques for each but you should figure out what type you're using and learn about them. Perhaps just look at the model number of the microphones and google them for more information.
It's perfectly okay for the theatre to be quiet when people enter, you don't need to play music. The first sounds they hear will be the beginning of the play. Soft, smooth jazz is probably your best bet despite these warnings.
Try to keep your overall volume at a proper level. You don't need to drive your speakers as loud as you possibly can for a quiet drama. Remember, you are only providing reinforcement. Your sound is not the center of attention, the actors are. The volume of the sound and placement of the speakers should not break the audience's immersion into the show.
Label your inputs. Use your actors names if you know the actors personally. If you have to share microphones between actors, use an XLR splitter to give you another channel (just be sure to Mute/UnMute when the mic is handed off!) Try as hard as you can to give each person their own channel strip on your mixer.
If you have to play music or sound cues at any point, try to have them loaded, press play and immediately pause instead of loading on demand. This causes most devices to buffer sound and resuming from pause is always quicker than the initial load/selection.
If you're going to be running monitors as well as FOH reinforcement, you SHOULD NOT adjust your channel strip gain during the show. This value, along with the Aux sends associated with monitors should be preset during rehearsal and effectively locked during the show.
Don't worry about manually 'bumping' performers' volume when they speak. Layer your vocals properly in rehearsal or before a scene and let the actors use the dynamics of their voices to control the volume.
Be done and off the stage before rehearsal, demand at least an hour of sound check. Initial sound check before the rehearsal, slight adjustments during rehearsal. Tape the faders and pots on the board at the end of the night before show call.
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