Microphones Micing a Show Choir

[Dillweed]

Hello people of earth i'm trying to find some information on how to mic a show choir (23 kids) i have 6 mics and two wireless mics i can use and a 6 channel mixer. please feel free to comment and share where and how you would place the mics on a 35-40ft wide stage. Thanks!

 

[jkowtko]

How old are the kids? It will make a difference if elementary vs middle or high school.
Are they standing on risers or all on the ground?

Older kids -- 4-6 mics equally spaced, ~7ft off the ground, 1-2 feet in front of the front row of singers pointing 30 degrees downward if on risers, a bit more spacing in front if all singers are standing on the floor.

Younger kids -- my suggestion is 4-6 mins set 3 ft off the ground pointing straight at the kids. The sound will be harsh, but it is more important for the parents to hear their kids at any level of sound quality.

-- John

 

[Dillweed]

they are all high school students and they will all be standing on the stage no risers okay so your thinking similar i was think four mics across the front front and then two on the side on a tripod boom

 

[jkowtko]

I would suggest to get all mics up 7 feet off the ground. If you can hang them great, but mostly what I see is floor stands with boom to get the mic up high.

 

[Dillweed]

Okay I can get the booms up to about 17 feet fully extended and then the floor stand will go about 6

 

[jkowtko]

17 feet? You only need 7 ...

 

[AsherSB]

What type of mics? Kind of important to know..

 

[jkowtko]

I use cardioid condenser mic ... not dynamic.
The specific mics I use for the middle school choir are Behringer C2s ... the cheapest you can get at $50/pr ... but they still sound pretty good. If you want to go a notch up, Samson C02 are cleaner sounding at $100/pr ... I normally use these for percussion in the orchestra

 

[AsherSB]

I use cardioid condenser mic ... not dynamic.
The specific mics I use for the middle school choir are Behringer C2s ... the cheapest you can get at $50/pr ... but they still sound pretty good. If you want to go a notch up, Samson C02 are cleaner sounding at $100/pr ... I normally use these for percussion in the orchestra

I also have some C2s, great bang for buck, but I was wondering what @Dillweed had around.

 

[Dillweed]

@jkowtko yea bigger better

@AsherSB they are dynamic mics I can turn them up on the mixer to about 75% and they'll start picking up footsteps from backstage

 

[AsherSB]

Dynamics for overheads, are they just SM58s, or something else? If they're vocal mics I would put them maybe 4 or so feet in front of them and crank the gain, but they won't match what you could get from a condenser.

 

[Dillweed]

Yea I wish we could afford condenser mic

 

[Fountain Of Euph]

Keep one or two of the wireless for solos. Having a dedicated solo mic is super important.

 

[Dillweed]

Okay thank you

 

[TimmyP1955]

The distance between any two mics should be at least 3x the distance from any mic to the peeps. (The 3:1 rule.)