Mic goes down?

[soundoff]

Hey just wanted to get your opinons on an operating procedure. A couple months ago I was mixing sound for a musical with a large live pit and 16 channels of wireless mics, with lots of swaps to make sure everyone with a speaking line was on mic. The absolute lead of the show had her mic go down right before a large musical number due to an accidental frequency change (i stupidly didnt lock out the front buttons on the mic) When I soloed her channel and got nothing, but full RF onthe reciever I realized it was deeper than batt issues.

So what i decided to do was kill every wireless and switch to the 6 zone overhead mic array, which provided less than steller quality sound, but i followed the dialogue around the stage to have the lowest noise floor i could so i could really jack it.

Was this the right thing to do? should I have kept the other 15 wireless in the mix? My thought process was try to keep the main character the loudest and if her mic was out kill everything. After the show someone came up to me and asked what happened, when i explained they gave me a dirty look and said it was a stupid decision.

Any thoughts?

 

[chausman]

If it were me, I would do what you did...for the most part. I probably would have kept most of the wirelesses up, especially people nearby the lead to try and pick them up the best you could. I would try and keep other people's(who couldn't help the lead be heard) mics lower then normal, just to keep everyone sounding similar.

And the person who gave you a dirty look, who was that? Was is a person of importance (director etc...) or was it just a patron in the audience. If the former, they should be able to understand. If it was the latter, just ignore it. You did the best you could have in the situation, and there wasn't anything that could have been done at that point in time. Would they have really wanted the show to be stopped for it? I wouldn't think so...

 

[Lambda]

We had a similar situation a couple years back, the lead's mic went down but we didn't have the luxury of a overhead mic array to fall back on. We just had her switch mics with a more minor character. The girl who had to give up her mic was not pleased (livid, in fact), but the show went on.

 

[soundoff]

Duh! I didnt even think about trying to get her on adjacent mics! Well live and learn. I could have just rode the faders and read the script really carefully to boost the closest mic. i did somthing similar last year with The Sound Of Music. Theres a scene where two "lovers" sing a duet and they get really close alot, so i ended up patching the two mics so the faders were right next to each other on the board so i could switch back and forth beteween them to get rid of the nasty phase shifting problems i was having. As for the lady who gave me flac, it was one of the directors friends. He didnt seem to mind when i talked to him about it, but as she was a member of the house i just sucked it up and agreed with her, plush she was an adult with more experience than me, but it was still kinda a downer to have the only major error of the night (but it was really major!) brought up immediatley. as for the show, i explained to the SM via ClearCom how to set the frequency back and she was nice and loud in the next scene she was in. Gotta love theatre.

 

[DrPinto]

it was still kinda a downer to have the only major error of the night (but it was really major!)

We all make mistakes. It's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when". Some mistakes are more spectacular than others. Don't beat yourself up over it. It was just your turn.

When you put together actors, musicians, lights, sound, and scenery that all have to work together, it's bound to screw up sometimes.

We should have a thread here where we all tell of our most impressive fails. That would make for some interesting reading!

 

[soundoff]

Okay, I'll go first. West Side Storry, 2009. My worst screw up ever was coming back from intermission, I got signal on all wireless and everything seemed great. As the overture ended i brought my submasters back up as the scene began. I was horrified when i had absolutley no output out of the board! Instead of checking on bussing on the board, i assumed that the amps or some sig processing after the board outs had taken a dive. Ran all the way up to the mezzanie mechanical room where the amp racks were. Nothing tripped out, nothing out of the ordinary. At this point I start to question the dubious recording split that was being made my someone in the casts dad who is an amatuer recording guy. He was taking directs out of the board on the first 8 channels (Mackie VLZ 24-4 with no directs) so to get the directs he had some crappy molded end insert cables plugged in to the insert halfway. We slide the board out a bit to examine these connections, assuming that mabey somthing wierd has happened.

At this point i realize that the "Tape Return to Main Mix" button was pushed.

So for roughly 6 pages of script there was no sound. thank god we have a very small house.

 

[peacefulone61]

Hey just wanted to get your opinons on an operating procedure. A couple months ago I was mixing sound for a musical with a large live pit and 16 channels of wireless mics, with lots of swaps to make sure everyone with a speaking line was on mic. The absolute lead of the show had her mic go down right before a large musical number due to an accidental frequency change (i stupidly didnt lock out the front buttons on the mic) When I soloed her channel and got nothing, but full RF onthe reciever I realized it was deeper than batt issues.

So what i decided to do was kill every wireless and switch to the 6 zone overhead mic array, which provided less than steller quality sound, but i followed the dialogue around the stage to have the lowest noise floor i could so i could really jack it.

Was this the right thing to do? should I have kept the other 15 wireless in the mix? My thought process was try to keep the main character the loudest and if her mic was out kill everything. After the show someone came up to me and asked what happened, when i explained they gave me a dirty look and said it was a stupid decision.

Any thoughts?

For an on the spot fix I say you did the right thing.

 

[mstaylor]

Okay, I'll go first. West Side Storry, 2009. My worst screw up ever was coming back from intermission, I got signal on all wireless and everything seemed great. As the overture ended i brought my submasters back up as the scene began. I was horrified when i had absolutley no output out of the board! Instead of checking on bussing on the board, i assumed that the amps or some sig processing after the board outs had taken a dive. Ran all the way up to the mezzanie mechanical room where the amp racks were. Nothing tripped out, nothing out of the ordinary. At this point I start to question the dubious recording split that was being made my someone in the casts dad who is an amatuer recording guy. He was taking directs out of the board on the first 8 channels (Mackie VLZ 24-4 with no directs) so to get the directs he had some crappy molded end insert cables plugged in to the insert halfway. We slide the board out a bit to examine these connections, assuming that mabey somthing wierd has happened.

At this point i realize that the "Tape Return to Main Mix" button was pushed.

So for roughly 6 pages of script there was no sound. thank god we have a very small house.

I'm sure this story is on here somewhere but when I was just out of HS I was hired to run lights for an out of town community theatre. Being very low budget they were using Radio shack headsets and a wireless mic for a little kid. They tested each during tech buut not together. Just before the first show the SM is telling me about skinny dippying the night before in the pool. The problem was it was on headsets and the soundman didn't have the kid's mic muted, turns out the headsets and mic were the same frequency so she was broadcasting in the house. Lesson learned.

 

[soundoff]

On the same show I mentioned before the guy who was recording captured some pretty interesting offstage "banter" on his multitrack rig. Since we were taking directs out of the board on 8 channels, they were live to the multi the whole time the board was on, regardless of the characters level in the mix. So when they were off stage and down in the mains they were still going to their recorder channel. I usually try to refrain from PFL creeping on wireless, but this stuff was hilarious and shocking. Thank God we erased it in editing, because im sure some peoples parents would have been horrified to hear what their children were doing during the run of this show!

 

[Dillon]

There is no "correct" way to handle every surprise that comes your way. Only through experience can you build up your own library of troubleshooting tips to keep in the back of your mind. The best thing you can do to prepare for the inevitable is to know your system inside and out and label EVERYTHING.

 

[waynehoskins]

When a mic goes down (like has been said before, when, not if), there's not much you can do about it. There are two proactive steps you can take that come to mind to minimize the problem.

1. Double-mic your leads. This isn't always a possibility, and on a show where you have handoffs, you probably don't have the few spares to double-mic them. But if you can, it's a nice safety net.

2. Have a spare set offstage ready to go. Ideally more than one spare, but often one is enough. Have spare elements as well. A show I did last year, with 20-some channels of wireless, plus orchestra, we did have to use spare elements through the run when we had B6s die or Red Dots sweat out, and towards the end of the run we had to move an actor to a spare set because his transmitter broke.

Spares presume you have enough time for an actor to switch out to a spare. The show I have up now doesn't have much time for that at all. We do have a spare, and (knock on wood) thankfully we haven't had to use it.

Otherwise, you do what you have to. I had one fail on the show last year on a lead right before he had a solo song. Fortunately it's a small house and the orchestra was in an isolation room, so I was able to drop the orchestra low enough for him to be heard unamplified for his song, and then we switched him to a spare element afterward.

 

[soundoff]

Thankyou so much, guys. This is all really great information!

 

[gcpsoundlight]

one thing that can be a life saver is to have a wireless handheld side stage with some destinctive coloured tape (i prefer red) on it, so if worst comes to worst you can give them that as a temporary solution. The colour helps the FOH engineer to notice as well, although you would hope they already knew.

 

[FACTplayers]

A few years ago I was running the board for a show and one of our lead's pack quit working. I don't quite remember exactly why, but we had to switch her pack out; the problem was she wouldn't come off of the stage for another 20 minutes. I radioed to back stage and the SM grabbed our spare pack and walked up the side of the stage. From there he got her attention and she causally walked to the curtain and turned her back him (her pack was attached to the back of her bra). While she was on stage and delivering lines her pack got switched out and I slowly brought her back in. One of the most impressive feats I have ever seen.

 

[soundoff]

Hahaha thats awesome, man. I think bringing things back in smootly once they fail is an art of its own!

 

[Chris15]

one thing that can be a life saver is to have a wireless handheld side stage with some destinctive coloured tape (i prefer red) on it, so if worst comes to worst you can give them that as a temporary solution. The colour helps the FOH engineer to notice as well, although you would hope they already knew.

Erm I'd be making that a wired mic with a long cable. If you've lost wireless to anything radio like interference then your HH RX is about as useful as the beltpack that's off the air already...

 

[Tex]

After the show someone came up to me and asked what happened, when i explained they gave me a dirty look and said it was a stupid decision.

As for the lady who gave me flac, it was one of the directors friends. He didnt seem to mind when i talked to him about it, but as she was a member of the house i just sucked it up and agreed with her, plush she was an adult with more experience than me

Any "adult" who would use the word stupid to describe a high school student's snap decision in a high pressure situation is not somebody you should be concerned about.
You made a perfectly valid choice and attempted to fix the situation to the best of your abilities. Don't beat yourself up over an opinion. Opinions are like a certain part of the human anatomy. We all have one...

 

[gcpsoundlight]

Erm I'd be making that a wired mic with a long cable. If you've lost wireless to anything radio like interference then your HH RX is about as useful as the beltpack that's off the air already...

I would agree but for a musical etc. where you just want the singer to be heard and not create and OH&S hazard. I tend to find packs dying because of the following (in order): Dead Batteries, bad connection, dead capsule, and then RF. you would have (hopefully) found any RF S*** already.

 

[Blacksheep0317]

I also am a fan of the "this how to vocally project" method. Currently I have been getting a large amount of calls for musical reinforcement in area schools. As much as many parents of the one liner may be opposed, or the director may be opposed, sometimes whats needed is a good vocal coach instead of a FOH engineer with a couple racks of body packs. Maybe i am still a bit old school, but esp at the beginning levels of HS theater and such, I would always rather see an actor be taught proper vocal technique than falling back on a techie crutch. HS isnt about being perfect, its about that foundation to build off of. Analog gear to teach principles of audio reinforcement, and boundry micing for the most part.


Sorry for the rant..
just getting tired of 200 seat venues calling in because they are having issues getting the 30 rented body packs to work.

 

[chausman]

I also am a fan of the "this how to vocally project" method. Currently I have been getting a large amount of calls for musical reinforcement in area schools. As much as many parents of the one liner may be opposed, or the director may be opposed, sometimes whats needed is a good vocal coach instead of a FOH engineer with a couple racks of body packs. Maybe i am still a bit old school, but esp at the beginning levels of HS theater and such, I would always rather see an actor be taught proper vocal technique than falling back on a techie crutch. HS isnt about being perfect, its about that foundation to build off of. Analog gear to teach principles of audio reinforcement, and boundry micing for the most part.

I agree with you. While I do believe that using mics can be beneficial, high school students still need to be able to project! "Old, half-deaf aunt Irma, sitting in the back of the house still wants to hear you. Make sure she can, without yelling or screaming."