Mic'ing the pit orchestra...

[museav]

Also just thought of this - we have ADA Hearing Assisted transmitter/receivers. The hard of hearing will want to hear the music as well as the actors.

I know this is an older thread but this is a very good point and a similar situation exists for recording, overflow, BOH feeds, intercom program audio, etc. However, many theatres use a single ambient mic or a stereo pair of ambient mics rather than direct inputs or close miking for music. That way you get more of what the audience hears than just a dry signal.

I don't think it was mentioned during the original discussion but your house system and how the levels from it and the natural sound from the pit vary over the listener area could be a factor. For example, if you put mics on some instruments but did not mic the brass then might you end up with a result that was brass heavy for some of the audience and brass deficient for others? Similarly, what about the balance between the orchestra and the vocals and might that vary? Its very hard to guess at such issues without knowing and having heard the space and system.

 

[museav]

I am an MD with a theatre company, and one of our upcoming productions is Footloose. I have the option to mic the 8 person pit: 2 keyboards, 2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drum (set), 1 percussion (various perc. instruments), and 1 woodwind player playing clarinet, flute, tenor and bari sax. I'm fairly new to the whole pit mic'ing thing, so I'm not entirely sure what I'm trying to do, but I was thinking about taking the lines from each of the amp'd instruments (keys, guitars and bass) and plugging them in to a small 8 or 10 channel mixer board, then mic'ing the woodwinder player and percussion player and plugging them in to the board as well. I would then take two or three amps (keyboard I guess?) and plug them in to the out-lines of the mixer and control the volume of each instrument on that board for proper mixing.

So my main question: is this possible/a good idea? Or, should I just mic the woodwind and percussion players, considering they will get lost in the sound between a drum set and 5 amps. Any and all help is nice! Thanks everyone!

Are you primarily creating a monitor mix for the musicians or a mix for monitors for the performers on stage or a mix for the house or a mix for BOH and ALS or some combination of these? What you are mixing for may impact how to best approach it.

I have to disagree with FMEng on one detail as many bass players consider their rig just as much an element of their 'sound' as do guitar players. If you are running the band through the house sound system and they are in a pit then unless the musicians absolutely 'have to have' the amp by them, either locating the amps in isolation boxes or using amp emulators can really help clean up the pit sound for both the musicians and audience.