Microphones Vomit on E6

[MNicolai]

Recommendations on thoroughly cleaning a headset mic that the performer vomited on while wearing?

 

[Call911]

Burn. I wouldn't want to wear it after that.

If your budget doesn't allow for that, a good cleaning with your favorite cleaner is about all I can think of. I personally use some goo be gone and wd-40 to remove mic tape and makeup. Then after air-dry, clean up with some moist towels and Lysol wipes. Been doing this for years and still have my original mics. Clean after every show, have about 15 shows a year where we use 20+ E6 and B3s.

 

[cmckeeman]

for a headset mic i would say get rid of anything that got vomited on and can absorb and hold it.

 

[avkid]

Rubbing alcohol, and plenty of it.

 

[StNic54]

Everyone is forgetting the most important part: make the performer do it, if your budget allows. Puking in a mic is completely and totally unprofessional.

PS: MNicolai, can you send some Spotted Cow to florida? kthx.

 

[Tex]

Everyone is forgetting the most important part: make the performer do it, if your budget allows. Puking in a mic is completely and totally unprofessional.

Not always. I was in a production of 42nd Street with no understudies and a bad case of stomach virus making its way through the cast. I got it about 6 PM on opening night. There were trash cans for me on either side and, truth be know, I probably got a little spew on the mic. I had no choice but to perform and don't feel like I did anything at all unprofessional. Most of the time, a mic is expendable, while an evening's ticket sales is not.

 

[MNicolai]

We were fortunate. After the actor composed himself, he found us at the end of rehearsal and said he had actually torn the mic off before vomiting. We had been told he puked with it on.

 

[DuckJordan]

treat it like a has-mat situation, bodily fluids are very contaminated, Our training for such things is to treat any bodily fluid like it has gonasiphaliaids. That said Personally, Id just toss the mic out.

 

[derekleffew]

Everyone is forgetting the most important part: make the performer do it, if your budget allows. Puking in a mic is completely and totally unprofessional.

It might have been teh Bieber-fever:

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Fairly certain neither performer cleaned his/her own mic.

 

[Kelite]

Ugh!

 

[Talley]

That is kind of disgusting. Glad they ripped it off.
Had a guy with a lapel on who was holding a baby. That baby did a very proficient job of doing what babies do. That mic was a goner.

 

[neotrotsky]

I throw another vote in to just trash it. Yes, in small to medium houses mics are the LAST thing you want to pitch, but it's safety has been compromised, especially when it will be in close proximity to other performers. It's just better to be safe than sorry. As for "professionalism", sometimes things happen. I would hardly get bent out of shape about it. Just part of the business.

 

[LavaASU]

Sad part is I'm willing to bet much rental gear (esp from bar bands and such) is far grosser than a cleaned off mic. I know half my lights have been peed on by a beaver, and later rained on (same night)... and a few probably got some pig pee as well. The response of the staging co (whos stage got far more and worse) was well, that's not the worst this has seen!

 

[MarshallPope]

I didn't know a beaver held that much pee... But then again, I guess I've never actually considered the tank capacity of your average beaver.