I have found that an
orchestra playing overly loud is often a result of them not being able to hear themselves. If the violins can't hear the basses, they tend to
play louder assuming the inverse is also true. And if the
Conductor cannot hear all the musicians they may try to get them to
play louder. A properly designed pit or shell often allows the
orchestra to
play quieter by supporting ensemble within the group, allowing the musicians to better hear all the other musicians.
Other aspects can be performers not projecting when speaking or singing (which seems to be becoming a lost art) and houses not designed to provide much, if any, natural reinforcement of sound on
stage. Of course, the same issue that plagues bands where everyone may have to
play up to the
level of the one person who just can't seem to
play softly can also affect orchestras.
I find that with overhead and footlight mics it helps to keep in mind that a mic will simply pickup the sound at the
point where it is located. You can use the mic
pattern along with aiming, EQ and other processing to provide some 'intelligence' but in general a mic is dumb, it cannot distinguish between a desired sound and an undesired one or know what is happening, it will simply pickup whatever sound is at that
point.
Taking that to the next
level, when you have multiple mics picking up the same sources and being mixed together you get signals with common sources but different timing,
level, response,
etc. for each source that are being combined. Those interactions can result in all sorts of issues from reduced
gain before
feedback to phasing to affecting the
console gain structure. The art is in balancing these potentially negative effects with the gains made by having the microphones. While there are some generalities that can be applied, and that is what the
Shure document and other similar references
address, the specifics will vary for every
venue, event, operator,
etc.
