Convince the TD

[Studio]

Thanks for all the ideas.

Our FX is a 3rd person separate from the board. Sound OPs don't get headsets, mainly because we don't have enough, and it never has been a problem. Our booth is so open we have to be quiet in the booth (whisper).

As for the script problem we have the same problem from the booth, as we are 3ft from the audience, and usually we get packets but we could

As far as appearance, the only thing would be our board and maybe a headset which isn't that bad looks wise. Mic receivers would be in the booth with a separate snake or on the table stacked nicely.

Anything I am missing??

 

[bishopthomas]

Our booth is so open we have to be quiet in the booth (whisper).

As for the script problem we have the same problem from the booth, as we are 3ft from the audience, and usually we get packets but we could

If sound gets out of the booth so easily then it should enter just as easily as well. I think you should learn how to mix in less than ideal situations as that will help you immensely in "real world" situations.

 

[FMEng]

The trick to mixing in a booth is that the monitor speakers have to accurately represent what the audience hears in the house in all aspects. That isn't easy to do. Matching frequency response and loudness can be done with some effort.

What you cannot reproduce in the booth with monitors is the ambient sound in the auditorium. The audience makes noise and the room contributes reverberation (how the sound decays with time). Un-miced sounds reach the audience from the stage. Some sound probably gets into the hall from outside and from mechanical systems. A good sound technician is subconsciously adjusting the mix based on the ambient sounds in the room, along with what he hears from the sound system.

Every time I have had to mix from an enclosed booth, I spend a lot of time during rehearsals poking my head out the door to listen to the hall to try and calibrate myself. Even when I do that successfully, I cannot account for the fact that most auditoriums sound different with people in them. Some rooms change radically with people in them, because the human body is much more sound absorbent than the seats and floor of an empty hall. Not only that, but the bodies don't absorb all frequencies evenly. The highs and mids are affected more than the bass energy. The amount of ambient reverberation can be reduced greatly by an audience. The loudness that was just right during rehearsal could be way too low with a full house because less sound is reflected through the room, and more is absorbed. There is no good way for the technician to compensate for this while mixing from the booth.

I would liken mixing sound in a booth to adjusting lighting while looking through a window that is heavily tinted in green. You have some idea of what you are doing, but you are never quite sure it is right because what you see is distorted in hue and brightness by the glass. In the same way, mixing in a booth with monitors is not an accurate representation of what the mix sounds like in the hall.

 

[blalew]

The trick to mixing in a booth is that the monitor speakers have to accurately represent what the audience hears in the house in all aspects. That isn't easy to do. Matching frequency response and loudness can be done with some effort.

Agreed. Not only do the monitor speakers have to be accurate (usually most in the $300+/each range are close enough) but you need the actual listening space (booth) to be set up correctly - possible acoustical treatment & monitor placement based on acoustical modeling yada yada.

Even so, it won't sound the same. The auditorium vs a booth are radically different amounts of space/air. Audience reaction (I know I've bumped the master up based on loud laughter/cheering from the audience) is another factor.

To chime in on the other stuff - I don't mix with a headset on, it's impossible for me. I do have a PI Blazon & a telephone handset that I can hold to my head if I need to listen for a second, after they hit the call light.

 

[museav]

To chime in on the other stuff - I don't mix with a headset on, it's impossible for me. I do have a PI Blazon & a telephone handset that I can hold to my head if I need to listen for a second, after they hit the call light.

Keep in mind that the original topic was that the TD didn't want them mixing in the house because it was too distracting. A bright call light, one person on the intercom then communicating to another, etc. all seem to support that the TD is right, it would indeed be too distracting. I believe the focus should be on how to make it less potentially distracting.

I find it interesting that people are apparently worried about not being able to mix with a headset yet are apparently willing to mix in a booth acoustically separated from the audience area because "some shows just do not require it and the trade off is not worth it". That same argument seems to apply both ways and the shows where having a headset might be the biggest drawback for mixing would also seem to be the very ones where mixing from a booth would be most problematic. To me the difference is that one can easily use a headset only when needed while mixing from a booth is something you are pretty much stuck with all the time. Having a headset and/or headphones hanging around your neck while you mix seems easy enough to do, that way they're there when you need them and not when you don't.

The vibrate option on some beltpacks is also another approach for 'low impact' communication.

 

[blalew]

Fair enough... it's difficult for me to mix sound while wearing a headset, but there are a few ways around the issue. One is to have an A2, an audio person wearing headset who's listening to cues (could be your SFX op) that passes anything along to the sound board op.

I used the telephone handset to hold to my head in less than 10 places in the show where I knew I needed to listen to a cue from the SM.

Much easier to use it (with the push-to-talk thingy) than have a typical head-vise-like headset, which honestly is not that easy to slip on & off.

The Blazon could be gaff'd down to just show a small bit of the light... and we only used it if the SM needed my immediate attention & I wasn't on com (I would announce going on/off). This would possibly be taken care of by having the SFX/playback op listening on headset. Usually all their stuff is pre-programmed anyway and so they're just pressing GO but as the board op I'm operating mutes, tweaking EQ & levels, etc.

Some shows may not need much mixing... just babysitting of levels of playback & tweaking, which may be fine from a booth. It's certainly possible to do it, but if it's possible to have the option for both, all the better! Ultimately you'll have to go with what the TD decides, maybe just offer to do the work to move everything out into the house for the beginning of tech week & if she doesn't like it, you'll move it back. Lots of work, but at least you'll have had a chance to show that you can do it (or find out that it's more of a problem than you realized).

Good luck!

 

[Eboy87]

A solution to the blazer, with due credit to Andy Leviss who turned me on to it. The Com-Bit Much more subtle than a strobe going off.

 

[TimmyP1955]

Yes, talking and page flipping at FOH can be distracting. So are the sniffles, burps, whispers, and crinkling candy wrappers of the audience members. Even more distracting is sound that is not up to par because the mixperson is stuck in a booth and cannot hear what the audience is hearing. Our FOH is immediately behind the back row, with a VERY large opening that wraps around a bit. Even with this comparative advantage, we still don't hear what the audience hears.

 

[bishopthomas]

A solution to the blazer, with due credit to Andy Leviss who turned me on to it. The Com-Bit Much more subtle than a strobe going off.

That looks like an amazing product. I'm ordering a couple right now. Although, it doesn't look like it will pass signal through with only one connector. For $25 I won't complain.

 

[FMEng]

I was reminded of this topic today as I was running sound in church. Normally, we have two services and the seating is around 30 to 50% full. Today, for Pentecost and confirmation, we had one service and the seating was mostly filled. I was having to run mics around 5 dB hotter than normal to make up for the increased absorbtion of the audience. That's a big change! If I had been mixing in an enclosed booth, it would have been too soft, and I would have been oblivious.

I would expect this room to be affected LESS by change in audience size than other spaces, because I had the acoustic engineer specify amount and type of the cushion materials on the pews to try and make the reverb time as consistent as possible from empty to full.

 

[jevans]

I have a similar issue at the moment with our Music Director. Except he said he doesn't want to because the equipment is too fragile to move.
It's a brand new Soundcraft GB9 and all the connections are there. Surely moving it out of the booth once a year isn't going to be an issue!

Sorry there Aidan, it's a Soundcraft GB4!

 

[gizm770o]

My sophomore year of HS the mix position was moved into the house permanently and it's awesome. Never once have I gotten a dirty look from a visitor. It makes verything sound better in addition to making my like easier. For my last show in college we moved the mix position to the back of the orchestra section. It was a hassale to get all the electrons where they needed to go but it was worth it. No way I could have mixed that show from the booth. If her concern is the talking and page turning, there is nothing to fear. Any time e've worked in the house i've been quiet and paid attention to what I was doing. I have had more complaints about noises (laughing, talking, clickclacking) about the LX crew in the booth than anything else.

 

[techfreek]

We have made a sort of compromise at my high school. We were lucky enough to get a large theater, a large theater with an upper and lower balcony. So for musicals, we simply grab a few tables, set them up on the upper balcony, string a snake across from the booth, move all the gear we need over. This way we are closer to a FOH position, with out disturbing the audience too much (we close the upper balcony for musicals.... not like we ever get close to selling out)

 

[arshan]

My 2 cents:

For me, mixing live sound from a booth (especially for a musical) should be a last resort.
No matter what monitors, window, etc. you have for your booth, it will not sound the same. Besides calibrating monitors correctly, choice and especially placement of whatever mic you are using to feed those monitors is extremely tricky and makes a huge difference. I've never worked in a theater where the placement of program mics accurately reflected the house balance of direct stage sound to playback/reinforcement sound, let alone the proper EQ, reverb balance etc. already mentioned.

I'd fully support the idea of doing everything possible to quiet things down at the mix position in order to mix from the house. The best argument I could make is that a musical is about... well... the music. If its dead silent in the house with regards to page turns etc. but the whole thing sounds like crap, that's a much bigger failure than some thoughtful, carefully timed, slow page turns. I've never found cutting corners on the sound side of a musical to pay off and having to mix from a booth is a huge corner cut. Therefore, for me, the task (no matter how much of a pain it might be) is to figure out how to make FOH position work for everyone, or you risk giving up on the whole show IMHO.

-Arshan

 

[2mojo2]

Brian:
I am a High School TD, and I would be happy to talk to yours.
You are on exactly the right track.
You should be mixing from front of house, that's why the connections are installed there.
That said, you do have to be VERY QUIET, so you do not distract the audience.

Maybe a little pipe and drape would help visually.

 

[Studio]

Thank's for all the advice guys, I am going to talk to the TD who I know well and I will show her the positives and negatives and try to convince her. Again thanks for all the help.