mesavox
11-04-2005, 08:02 PM
Is anyone experienced in sound production for musical theatre? We just finished a broadway revue production at our college. The musical has never had a budget. It's always been excellent none-the-less. But, sound has always SUCKED. Cheap wirless lavaleers from Radio Shack, having to turn house speakers in for monitors etc.
This year I was sound manager. Now, I'm used to working on tight budgets, but the wirelesses were soooo bad. Pops, hisses, dropouts, and more pops were the order of the day.
Well, someone saw the show opening night and heard how bad the mics were and donated us some new ones. We got two really nice Shure true diversity systems with the omni mics and two Shure condensor mics to hang.
This is of course a small start, but those mics performed soooo much better. But, the condensors....
Part of my problem is that I had this Yamaha powered board. It has 4 xlr inputs but not one channel has a trim control. To get all the mics in I had to bring in my Mackie 1202VLZ in. I had to plug it into one of the stereo rca ins with the cd player. This of course meant that if I used the rca in leval knob to turn up the cd, it turned up the Mackie board as well.
My question is this... No matter what mixer setup I may ever be faced with, is a decent mic preamp the solution to all of my overhead micing problems in terms of getting the most gain before feedback out of those condensors? At times I could really pick up the performers with them, but it all depended on the cd player... and I always felt I should be able to get more overall pickup with them.
I do feel that if I had a good power amp and good speakers where I could turn up the base leval and then bring everything else down it would help, but I have low power speakers and amp (the Yamaha powered board) and farting speakers was not a hard phenominon to demonstrate to the folks. All I had to do was have someone sing really loud. LOL
I've been looking at all the broadway pages trying to get some ideas of how they do things (by the way Wicked is the coolest thing sinced sliced bread on Broadway) and I've been assigned to make a list of the equipment I think the auditorium needs to sound good and prioritize that list. We are going to become a fundraising machine over the next few years and I'd like to be able to really explain why I have a tube mic preamp for the condensors on my list. :) But, if I can get more performance out of those mics without it, I'd definately prioritize it much lower on the list after a new board and power amp etc.
For more info... my priorities lie in more wireless mics, a couple more condensors, etc and then in replacing stuff we actually have access to. The PA may not be great, but it will suffice compared to the dissaster that is a lack of good mics. If the performer can't be heard, a 50 thousand dollar mixer is useless.
This year I was sound manager. Now, I'm used to working on tight budgets, but the wirelesses were soooo bad. Pops, hisses, dropouts, and more pops were the order of the day.
Well, someone saw the show opening night and heard how bad the mics were and donated us some new ones. We got two really nice Shure true diversity systems with the omni mics and two Shure condensor mics to hang.
This is of course a small start, but those mics performed soooo much better. But, the condensors....
Part of my problem is that I had this Yamaha powered board. It has 4 xlr inputs but not one channel has a trim control. To get all the mics in I had to bring in my Mackie 1202VLZ in. I had to plug it into one of the stereo rca ins with the cd player. This of course meant that if I used the rca in leval knob to turn up the cd, it turned up the Mackie board as well.
My question is this... No matter what mixer setup I may ever be faced with, is a decent mic preamp the solution to all of my overhead micing problems in terms of getting the most gain before feedback out of those condensors? At times I could really pick up the performers with them, but it all depended on the cd player... and I always felt I should be able to get more overall pickup with them.
I do feel that if I had a good power amp and good speakers where I could turn up the base leval and then bring everything else down it would help, but I have low power speakers and amp (the Yamaha powered board) and farting speakers was not a hard phenominon to demonstrate to the folks. All I had to do was have someone sing really loud. LOL
I've been looking at all the broadway pages trying to get some ideas of how they do things (by the way Wicked is the coolest thing sinced sliced bread on Broadway) and I've been assigned to make a list of the equipment I think the auditorium needs to sound good and prioritize that list. We are going to become a fundraising machine over the next few years and I'd like to be able to really explain why I have a tube mic preamp for the condensors on my list. :) But, if I can get more performance out of those mics without it, I'd definately prioritize it much lower on the list after a new board and power amp etc.
For more info... my priorities lie in more wireless mics, a couple more condensors, etc and then in replacing stuff we actually have access to. The PA may not be great, but it will suffice compared to the dissaster that is a lack of good mics. If the performer can't be heard, a 50 thousand dollar mixer is useless.