Wow, lots of questions, let's see...
Thanks Andy -- this is great information. I have a few followup questions for you:
1) Mic placement -- in musical
theatre, where do they hide the mics? I've seen Disney put them on the top of the forehead pointing downward, which would work if you have wigs or a costume person with the right equipment (glue?) to mount and unmount the equipment on the actors. Beach Blanket supposedly just uses clip-ons, although I wonder how you get consistent sound as the actor turns their head if the mic isn't actually mounted somewhere on their head. At our theater we just tape over the ear, which serves us reasonably well with lack of sound help backstage. Is there a "best" approach?
Well, this is definitely the month to ask this question, as two magazines happen to have features on just this question! First, this month's
Dramatics has an article by yours truly, aimed at users without too much sound experience, which you can read online at:
http://edta.org/pdf_archive/unwired_sound81200774727.pdf
Second,
Stage Directions has a much more detailed version (for reasons of limitations on the audience and length of my article, I don't go into over-the-ear rigs, other than a brief mention of why they're less desirable), by Jason Pritchard, the head of audio for the Cirque du Soleil/Beatles show
Love (not to mention an all around cool and very smart guy). While Jason's article is on the SD website, they left out the pictures, eek! You can find the original article it was based on, complete with photos, however, at Jason's website:
http://www.brightandloud.com/microphone-placement/
2) Actor placement -- Are the actors trained and blocked to accomodate sound issues? I.e. do they keep their distance and/or pay attention to head placement during close-ups,
etc? I just want to know how much clout I should have in "directing" the
play.
In an ideal world, they would be. In reality, sometimes if there's a true problem and it's a director who cares a lot about sound, they'll work with you. Most of the time, though, it's up to us to deal with what curveballs the other production departments
throw us, through tweaking mic placement, mixing skills, or just dealing with the fact that a certain 3 second segment might sound less than optimal (much as we try to avoid that). There are certainly ways departments work together, for example wardrobe can lend a
hand by working with you on the size of a hat brim, or putting some sort of material (like felt) on a large brim to help tame reflections, that sort of thing.
Actually, on that subject, one of the best pieces of advice I was ever given is that the wardrobe department is the sound guy's best friend. Make nice with them as early on as you can, and they'll make your life a thousand times easier in oh so many ways.
3) Sound processing -- In addition to playing the faders, is any sound processing used to help eliminating cross-pickup of mics? Gating?
Thanks in
advance. I'm an engineer by schooling but relatively new to this industry so I'm trying to get up to speed on the technology use here ...
Nope. Nothing. Nada. Part of the key to the natural style that most theatrical designers/engineers aim for is minimal processing. It's a
bit of a cliche in the industry that, when asked why he doesn't have any compressors in his front of
house rack, a good theatrical engineer says, "I've got ten of them, right here," whilst wiggling his fingers.
Occasionally a
light bit of compression will be used to tame a particularly
dynamic and unpredictable actor, but in most cases, it's really a matter of just learning your script and learning your cast. Once you know those two things, you can develop what almost seems like a psychic connection, where your finger is ducking/boosting the actor's mic almost before the louder/softer sound has come out of his mouth. It's what separates an okay engineer from a great one.
Somewhat related questions to what he said. I have seen some Wicked clips from Youtube how they bring down the mic onto the middle of the forehead. I saw a few songs at different places.
1. Do the mikes come with a lot of different colors (except green)? I mean, what kind of color variety do the manufacturers offer, or do they color them themselves.
Arts and crafts time, baby
No custom colors, we use artists'
pigment markers to custom color lighter elements (In Jason's article, he notes that he prefers the Prismacolor brand, except on Countryman, where he uses the Letraset Pantone
line (the Prismacolors aren't colorfast on the Countryman cables); I've always stuck with the Letrasets almost exclusively, although that's primarily because my experience was shaped using them on Countryman elements; I can't say how they compare to the Prismacolors on DPAs or MKE-2s.
Most manufacturers who cater to
theatre offer three colors: tan/beige, cocoa/brown, and black. I do see somebody else noted that Countryman apparently makes 5 shades, although I've only ever used their tan, cocoa, and black.
2. On wicked, it looked like Elphaba's mic was black. Coudn't they special order some green ones? ...I mean, they're Broadway...
It would be stupifyingly expensive to get custom colored ones made. You certainly can color them green, but for whatever reason, at least on the night you saw it, they were using a black one. It could be that they needed a spare fast, and were short on other colors, or it may have just been an overall decision that, since the skin is fairly dark, and she's wearing a long black wig, it made more sense to just use the black one that blends in with the hair, and not worry about it.
3. My dad tells me that a tech told him that the best place for a mic is between the eyes (where the unibrow is on most actors) because of the sinuses vibrating. Is this true? I did not see them like that on wicked. Is it just harder to hide?...
There was a study recently done by a grad student in
acoustics in the UK on all sorts of placements, both ones visually usable and those, like in the eyebrow range, that you'd never use in real life. I can't recall if this placement was included or not, but I'll try to
track down a link to the study report.
That said, that far down, you'll never use it, because you want it to be hidden. In locations where it can be easily hidden, centered on the forehead near the hairline (which, of course, is only a general placement guideline, since hairlines vary, see Jason's article for a
bit more on this) is the best compromise of sound quality and invisibility.
4. Is this why Broadway uses straight forward
face lights as oposed to
McCandless' version of 45* angles. Is it to hide their microphones better?(no shadow, so they just match the color?) I could only see them when the camera angle changed to a view
point higher, or more to the side than the audience sees. (I could see the shadow)
Nope, you'd have to ask the lighting designers why they prefer any particular positions, but it has nothing to do with helping us out! That said, Broadway doesn't as a rule use straight on lights, or 45 degrees, or 30 degrees, or any other position. They use lights wherever the designer chooses for the look he/she wants to create (assuming, of course, that they have the physical means to put a light there).
5. Do they glue the mic down, or tape it? (could not see tape)
Tape, although at the forehead it often isn't necessary to tape it at all. With an elastic loop, it's almost always held closely enough in place on its own, and when using bobby pins or wig clips, it's often clipped close enough to the front of the head to not need to be taped. But when it is, some variant of
clear medical tape is used; I think I've posted extensively on types of tape and how to use them here before, so try a search for that.
6. I have heard other places that they store their mics in an airtight box with water absorbant packets. We currently hang the mic upside down with the
connector end between 2 screws in the wall. The cords had been coiled with the packs before, and this was supposed to help straighten them out. It hasn't worked very well so far. Do they coil them up in the boxes, or do they get really long and straight boxes? (if they really do that) Is our method of storing lavs upside down on a wall a good
system?
There's no hard and fast rule, each person has his own way of doing it. What's common, though, is to LOOSELY wrap the
element around the pack, and then store both either in a caddy lined with foam (with cutouts in the foam to hold the transmitter) or hung up
in one of those shoe organizer deals (bunch of shoe-sized pockets on a long sheet, designed to be hung over the back of your closet door).
The only mic I own that I store with a dessicant is my matched pair of Earthworks QTC-30s, because the diaphragms are sensitive to changes in moisture, and I use them as measurement mics, so the accuracy is important to me. That's why I took to carrying them with me on the plane, rather than shipping them in my
workbox on the truck or in my checked luggage in the (non-climate controlled) baggage compartment of the plane.
7. When miked over the ear, I heard they should be about 2 cm past the ear. Is this true? We have always put ours more forward. We have MKE2's but they are black, so could they
pick up well and still be well hidden?
That sounds about right, but it will vary for each actor. One of the downsides to over-the-ear mics is that they are very, very placement-sensitive. Even just a few millimeters of difference can make a huge change in the quality of the sound. Generally, you only want to mount mics over-the-ear if you absolutely can't use a forehead placement.
7.5 How good is the
SM58 Shure microphone? I think I have seen it on TV being used for bands, and I think I saw some also being used for violins on an
orchestra.
It's a pretty common vocal mic, perhaps the most common. It's okay for some things, there are better options for others. Key strongpoints are that they're very consistent, they can take a beating, and every sound shop in the world has plenty of them available, because they're so commonly used.
While you may have seen them being used on violins in an
orchestra, I'd be surprised.
Condenser mics of varying sorts are much more common for string instruments.
8. What are other good mics for other miking situations.
That's like asking what's a good car. There are hundreds of mics out there, and most of them are very good in certain situations. If you have a specific situation, it's easier to answer that question, but even then, it's a matter of opinion; you can ask what mic to use on an acoustic guitar live to a dozen engineers, and you'll likely get at least two dozen answers, all of them equally valid.
9. We also have an
SM58, which the singers like to keep very close to their mouths. I have seen lips actually touching the grill on TV, but it still had good sound.(and the
manual says optimal performance is from 6'' to touching the lips) Our mic still has a lot of P's, B's, breathing,
etc. What is used to professionally fix this? Can this be achieved with 1 graphic EQ, and a
compressor?
A
windscreen can help, to an extent. Compressors can, as well, but only so much. Biggest advice is to get your singer to back off the mic. Some singers do like to "eat" the mic, because that
proximity effect bass boost is part of "their sound", but in general, it's poor mic technique.
10. Whenever I see miked drums (like on SNL, or other bands) it looks like the mics about the toms are similar to
instrument mics, and they are pointing horizontally instead of down. Does this create better sound, or are they omni, or is the
cardioid pattern off axis? Or is it something else? (have I just never seen it right?)
It really depends on the mic, and the situation, and the engineer using it. Some engineers prefer a mic at right angles to the head, others want it at a slight angle, the idea being that the mic is placed closer to the outside of the drum (ie, out of striking distance of the drumstick), but is aimed to
pick up the attack of the stick hitting the head in addition to the "body". Odds are this is what you're seeing, but due to camera angles, you're misinterpreting it as being horizontal.
Hope this helps,
Andy
