Microphones Mics for youth musical theatre

Lyle Williams

Well-Known Member
What styles of mics to people favour for youth musical theatre? I've started building out my wireless (now 14 channels, including gear that's in the mail) but my mic fleet is all over the place.

At the moment I have a mix of tie-clip lavalier, twin-earworn, single earworn, and "fitness instructor" style mics.

Kids seem to fit the "fitness instructor" mics most easily. But they are very conspicuous.

Tie-clip lavs have some costume noise.

Twin earworn seem to get tangled in big hair, but they stay in place.

Single earworn (E6-style) seem to be the pro-choice, but we have trouble getting them to stay put. Maybe we just need better fitting technique. Or more tape. :)

We're always going to be using dirt cheap mics, because I need to be able to break them without crying. (If you are recommending countryman or DPA, please also recommend next week's lottery numbers.)

What style of mics should I focus on ?
 
I assume you are talking "kids" at the elementary school level or below ... for High School and above I would do the same as for adults, headworn lavs through the hair whenever possible.

If you want to keep the budget down you might consider Samson Wireless ... They are about half the price of the "regular" wireless, and in my past experience they sounded fine for kids. Samson used to have a transmitter with built-in mic and mounting spring clip all in the Tx body that made it very easy to get the mics on/off the kids, but they discontinued that unit a long time ago so I think you are still stuck with a "tie clip-on" lavalier and separate Tx box. As noisy as they can be, I still think the clip on lav is easier to deal with on kids than headworn.
 
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Lyle, like you I've used a number of different wireless mic styles and brands over the years. I settled on the single ear hook mic style. Seems to work best with costume changes and active actors. Medical tape does wonders to keep a mic in place. I usually go with a small piece in front of the ear to hold the mic boom in place and another on the back of the neck (below the collar line when possible) to hold the cable from pulling. It's not much fun to pull off (kids have a tendency to make funny faces!! LOL), but it does hold!!

After having some more expensive mics get ruined (seems that no matter how many times I tell both students AND adults to NOT pull the mic off without help from myself or dressing assistance, I have cables get pulled out of mics by over eager people who are in a hurry to get changed. I finally decided to treat the mics as disposable items and started using cheapies. From my experience, the sound good (or good enough) and they don't break the bank when they get broken. And they're cheap enough to have several spares on hand.

I'd been getting mine from Rod at https://www.bodymics.com/about-us.html. Super nice and very helpful guy.

Hope that helps a bit.

Joel
 
Thanks everyone. It's great to be able to hear from a pool of experience.

I don't think we'll have the time to mount mics under hair. A halo might be an option. I haven't yet found this style of mic in a "dirt cheap" variant. :(

I'm heading towards being OK for electronics. ew100 and Line-6 xd-v55/75.

I'll play around some more with the single earloops and try and get my technique down a bit better.
 
Hair mounting does not take a lot of time, it just takes prep work. Sew the element onto a weave or toupee clip and place the clip at the hair line. Use a few bobby pins to secure and a piece of tape at the back of the neck. I own E6s and other booms and find that a hair mic sounds better in all but the loudest shows and solves so many problems whenever two actors are close together, not that happens currently. If you need an example of what I mean, I can post a picture if you like.
 
If you have noise problems with lavs, consider whether you have omnis or cardioids. Omnis are much less susceptible to mechanical noise, less prone to plosives, and tend to sound generally better. The boundary placement of cardioid lavs seems to negate any theoretical improvement in gain before feedback.

The same seems to apply to headset mics. My experience with headsets is that omnis always outperform cardioids.
 
What's the cheapest mic that could be halo mounted?
Any lav can be put on an elastic halo. I would always tie a piece of elastic in a head sized loop, about 2" below the base of the element. The difficulty with using the halo is because they're elastic, they move.

Like mentioned above, I'd say toupee clips are the easiest and fastest way to secure the mic. Even if you're in a hurry the worst that would happen with short hair is they'll have a fluff of hair sticking up. Those with long hair can quickly make a part and snap the comb in.

Personally I've never attached the toupee clip with elastic using those holes. Too often we're changing elements or changing clip color to bother. I've always just threaded the cable through the open slot in the clip. Only issue is if someone tries to drag the clip down the cable but in the 1 minute tech rehearsal spiel where you tell people how to coil the mic cable at the end of the night and when and where to pickup and drop off the mic includes not dragging the clip.
 
Our theatre hosts a youth theatre production 2-3 times a year. Large shows, two casts of 50 or so. 24-30 mics. (Also a couple community shows a year.)

I know the concern with the initial price of Countryman, but they have been much cheaper for me over time. I buy B3's with the 2mm cable, coil the cable and tuck into sheath/pack for strain relief, and have a 20 minute training with mic parents. We might have 1 failure out of 24 on a show. Max. Their longevity, and that they can be repaired in case of an issue, makes them cheaper over time.

We do hair clips, halos, or ear rigs (Hellermaned to a piece of thick wire) when need be. The sound is good, they look good, and I get a reasonably consistent sound (as much as you do with kids). I didn't buy all my B3 at once, it's been slow acquisition over the years. But it is worth it now to have a reliable set of mics to deploy and not worry about on shows.

Mike
 
Sadly, Countryman is a bridge-too-far for me. While I can buy bodypacks and receivers second-hand at good prices, I can't get mics that way. B3's would double the up-front cost of the overall system.
 
Sadly, Countryman is a bridge-too-far for me. While I can buy bodypacks and receivers second-hand at good prices, I can't get mics that way. B3's would double the up-front cost of the overall system.

I will say in my experience with cheaper elements, I've had to replace them at a faster rate, making B3's cost about the same. There are some exceptions (I know some people swear by the stuff from microphone madness) that balance the cost and need to replace. It also depends on how responsible actors are with caring for them.
 
Sadly, Countryman is a bridge-too-far for me. While I can buy bodypacks and receivers second-hand at good prices, I can't get mics that way. B3's would double the up-front cost of the overall system.
There is that, and my experience is that all actors are rough on our gear. In defense, it only took me losing a couple of good mics to move to cheap (disposable, almost) mics. I no longer own them because they made *doing the sound* a really difficult task. Theater is challenging enough without fighting the sources themselves.

The units from Microphone Madness probably have the best bang:$ ratio. They're not the cheapest and they're not DPAs or Sennheisers or Countrymans, either.
 
Hey TimMc, did we really join CB on the same day, or is Feb 16 2017 a magical "the corrupted database got restored" date?
I really don't remember my join date, but I blame @RonHebbard for my being here!

Update - since Google is forever, I found my registration confirmation on that date...
 
Hi

I am a tech Director for a non-profit youth theater in my area and I do there sound. We use to use Samson wireless mics with clip on Lavs nothing but trouble with the Samson body packs transmitters. I still have them for back up in extreme emergency cases. At this point we are using Audio Technica 2000 series one Audio Technica 3000. We use to always use the clip on Lav's but after years of trying to figure the best way of keeping them on the Kids/teens/Students and going through many broken lavs we finally went and bought headset mics that plug in to the Audio Technica body packs. Those than can be put under there hair and ran down the back of there shirts or costumes. You can get some on those in flesh color. I have found them to work great and have had great luck with them. Here is a link to the headsets I am talking about on Full Compass website https://www.fullcompass.com/prod/24...th-audio-technica-hirose-4-pin-connectors-tan
 
I've ordered a bunch of that double earworn style (in a much cheaper model...)

Everyone has talked me out of cheaper wireless mic electronics. I've now got 6ch of ew100 g1/g3, and 8ch of line-6 hd-v55/v75.

ew100 g1 is physically very solid, but lacks a pilot tone so turning off a transmitter creates a risk of a static burst if the receiver squelch isn't set right.

ew100 g3 is a lighter build, but people seem to find them solid enough. Along with all my ew100, I am worried about the frequencies being sold in the future.

I really enjoyed using the line-6 gear. Simple frequency selection and built-in antenna distribution on the v75 receivers. The body packs are very solid, and allow you to lock out the buttons you don't want pressed (like mute.) No compander means I can use them with Smaart for PA tuning too. If I were to lend gear to someone without an RF background, I know the line-6 stuff would cause the least heartache. Obviously it's got to be in RF1 mode.
 

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