Microphones Recommendation for mic to feed backstage monitors

[gafftaper]

I have the ability to switch the source for my lobby/backstage monitors to either being a copy of the main L/R send or being a microphone. The mic input is located on my second house catwalk. It's about 30 feet from the main speakers and 40-50 feet from the stage. I'm told that there used to be a shotgun mic in this location but it was stolen before I was hired. I want to replace it but I have a couple questions.

1) Should I consider moving the location? The default position is about 25' horizontal and 5' lower than the mains. It seems to me a shotgun might be overwhelmed by the mains in this position. In my old theater this was a problem and I was constantly switching between a shotgun and a condenser depending on how loud the event was. I can easily reposition the mic to the rear of the house or to a side gallery. What do you think?

2) What mic should I use?

 

[jkowtko]

Is this mic feeding your Assisted Listening Device (ALD) system? If so, then it's a fair bet that the sound will be decent. Worst case you are allowing your cast & crew to hear no worse than the hard-of-hearing patrons in the audience.

 

[gafftaper]

Currently, the assisted listening is coming off a copy of the main L/R in the DSP. But I don't know, it may switch to the mic source when the monitors switch to the mic.

Of course now that I think about it, the discussion of position location really doesn’t matter now. Once I get the mic, I can move it around the theater later.

 

[jkowtko]

generally the house mics hanging from a catwalk will pick up the main speakers louder than direct sound from stage ... so you will have to make a judgement call where the best location for that mic will be based on what you are pumping through the PA vs hearing direct. The biggest issues tend to be the orchestra which produces a lot of direct sound.

One other way of thinking -- put the house mic where you are at the sounds board, and it should sound the best from there

 

[Footer]

One other way of thinking -- put the house mic where you are at the sounds board, and it should sound the best from there

Unless you are like every house crew in existence and talk about whatever pre-show. This is the one reason why I have yet to put a mic back there to do this exact thing.

 

[gafftaper]

I have a narrow balcony across the back wall of my theater, above the booth. It's the home of a follow spot and my projector. As well as some storage. It seems like a good place to get a more balanced source. Like I said, I'll experiment when I get the mic.

Now as for question #2... What mic should I get?

 

[gafftaper]

So the second part of my question. Mic Selection. From the $29 Nady to the $2,500 Sennheiser the price range on shotgun mics is vast. Although I want a nice clear sounding mic, this is only being used to feed backstage and lobby monitors, so I don't need a really high end product. So what should I get? I'm looking at something like an Audio Technica AT897 ($250), AT 8015 ($300), or maybe a Rode NTG2 ($270). I'm leaning toward the AT 8015 because at a little over 18" long it's more of a traditional long range shotgun. I am looking to pick up the stage from 50'-75' away depending on where I end up installing it.

Thoughts?

 

[sk8rsdad]

My venue is happy with our Sennheiser ME66. Distance to stage is about 45' hanging off our primary catwalk. It feeds our hearing assist and CCTV systems.

 

[carproelsofly]

I would suggest a cheaper mic and a good compressor.

In my room, I have an old SM58-equivalent hung above the apron, pointing straight down, that does a pretty good job of getting stage (direct) sound above than the PA (good for hearing scene changes, but maybe not great for your lobby feed?), and also picks up the audience fairly well. I would argue that including the audience sound in your monitors (and in your Assisted Listening) is a good idea.

The most important piece of gear in the chain, though, for me, is the compressor. I have an old, hearty DBX-160 in between the mic and the distribution system. It's typically set at a very high ratio, so that, even if the audience is noisy during house loading, the actors don't turn the monitors off in their dressing rooms then complain that they can't hear the stage (or their calls).

The comp is in the booth, so if I'm asked I can back off the comp a little bit for a particular show, but that's rare. The important info for those who will be using the feed is "where are we" and "what is the house like", not "are they being loud or quiet right now".

HTH,
Jen

 

[gafftaper]

Thanks @carproelsofly The compressor is a great idea. Currently I'm just running straight into the DSP.

 

[Footer]

I actually have a pretty drastic comp on my entire backstage feed. 8:1 with a low threshold. That way no matter what comes through the backstage will stay the same. I even overdrive it a bit.

 

[FMEng]

People tend to overestimate the magic powers of a shotgun mic. At long distances, an expensive shotgun won't perform any better than a $50 cardioid. The following explanation was written by someone else:

Working distance and the meaning of life in audio.

If you like the sound you are getting out of an omni microphone a standard cardioid microphone will give you a working distance of about 1.7 to 1.8 times the distance of Omni.

A hyper-cardioid gives you about 2 times the working distance of an omni.

A short shotgun like a Sennheiser MKH 416 will give you about 2.2 times the working distance of an Omni

A long shotgun like a Neumann KMR-82 or a Sennheiser MKH 70 will give you about 2.8 to 3 times the working distance of an omni.

The longer the shotgun generally speaking the better the low frequency pattern control and the tighter the HF pattern. Off axis performance is usually dependent upon how tight the HF pattern is. For example the now discontinuied Sennheiser MKH 816 had a very tight HF pattern. It had a tendency to sound "telephone" like off axis. The Sennheiser MKH 70 on the other hand has about twice the HF "width" as an '816 but off axis is truly HiFi and we use them along with the Neumann KMR 82 (narrower than a '70 but not as narrow as an '816) as spot mics for opera soloist on Colorado Symphony Orchestra sessions. Usually at about 6 foot in front of them on a low mic stand (about 18 inches) aimed up.

Shotgun mics are not the miracle devices depicted in TV and movies as able to hear conversations in the middle of Times Square during rush hour at 100 yards... Even the parabolic mics we used on the sidelines of football games "fell down" when there were 60,000 screaming drunk fans (which is why the Line Judge is equipped with a wireless mic that TV uses to get the snap count).

On a quiet fairway you could pick up a golfer at 25 feet whispering to his caddy. At a press conference in a noisy room with acoustics designed by Hellen Keller that same mic would be hard pressed to delver useable audio at 3 feet. Getting your News Ferrets to understand this can be a challenge and generally requires training that includes demonstrations in both quiet and noisy environments.

Inexpensive shotgun mics can do a good job when worked within their limitations. Typically the issues are pattern control, noise floor and frequency response both on and off axis. And this will impact their working distance and resultant audio quality.​

So, at 50-75 feet, you are well beyond any benefit from the mic pattern because you are way into the reverberant field. I would choose a very inconspicuous mic, and place it a lot closer to the stage. Something like a PZM or one of the small, condenser, hanging, choir mics. Even if you can't hear, at least you won't see it.

 

[Fountain Of Euph]

I use a pair of PZMs on acrylic panels hung in the house. A little big for me, but it works

 

[gafftaper]

Thanks guys. I've got a sound guy on my crew who really knows his stuff. He spent years in recording studios and out on tour with some top of the line groups and is well known in this area. These days he programs DSP software and occasionally plays in my theater just for fun going back to his roots. Anyway, he's with @FMEng on this. He wants me to just get a middle of the road Condenser, locate it as close to the stage as possible, and then he will do some EQ wizardry inside the DSP and he says it'll be great.

 

[StradivariusBone]

We have a setup similar to as described above. Using a pair of Sennheiser large diaphragms in an XY on our catwalk about 40' diagonal to the edge of the stage (I don't know the model by heart) we feed into our console and drive the ALS, backstage and video feeds. It also doubles as a recording rig when we get the school music groups in. It's way easy to pull straight from the USB on the board. For the video and backstage feeds, they're run through pretty aggressive compressing as well. Basically everything that's been said we do too, so one more yea vote in the pot and I've had no complaints about it so far.

Unless you are like every house crew in existence and talk about whatever pre-show. This is the one reason why I have yet to put a mic back there to do this exact thing.

This had me laughing and I have a story/confession to share. I first learned about audio when I was 12 and got tapped to run sound for my church (I think the old guy before me was just done with it all and saw that I was mildly interested and could pay attention for at least 15 minutes or so). Anyway, we had just bought a new ALS system and I was learning how to install it (pre-Google days, so I actually read the manual).

I patched it to an Aux channel and started adding channels when I realized that I could also patch in my Discman and play CD's through the transmitter and pick it up with a pack. Being 12 and thinking this was awesome to have my own "radio station" I kept one channel on the board open and would frequently play whatever CD I had with me that day while going about my business at church.

Fast forward a few Sundays and increasingly long story short, definitely left the CD player on after the ushers began passing out the receivers and after about 10 minutes I had one of the Deacons come inform me that some very strange music (Voodoo Glow Skulls I think) was being picked up on the hearing devices. I've never been more panicked in my life. I don't remember exactly, but I think I made up some story about a vicious trucker and his CB radio crashing our frequency. In any event, it was a very formative experience in my young life to not screw around with audio and the public. If I put a monitor mic anywhere near my kids they'd turn it into their personal talk show very quickly.

 

[TimmyP1955]

The only reason to use a mic IMHO is if it is common to have speakers or solo performers are not mic'd. A mix of the performers' close mics will always give a much more articulate result.