Using ambient mics for a play

[Crash006]

Hey all,

Hoping for some help with ambient mics to pick up actors in a play.

Hardware:
Yamaha TF3
FOH = 2 x DBR15

Rented two Apex176 shotgun mics.

What I am going for is to have some of the key non mic’d actors come through the FOH so they can be heard, I do understand it won’t be the same as if they were mic’d. These actors would be grouped and in specific sections of the stage. The mics would hide in our proscenium and would be 4-6 feet (or closer) from the actors needing them. They would be pointed away from the FOH and be 3-5 feet in front of the FOH speakers at their closest, and 10-15 feet at their furthest, and have the proscenium as well.

My test this morning did not turn out as I wanted. With the phantom power on, gain and eq set to avoid feedback I was able to just get sound in the FOH but it was not loud to really help.

I tried choir mics last year with little success hence why I am trying the shotgun mics.

Can someone provide some insight in what I should be doing to get these actors into the FOH to help them be heard. Whether I have the wrong mics or tips and tricks to make them louder?

[AlecSp]

The mics would hide in our proscenium and would be 4-6 feet (or closer) from the actors needing them. They would be pointed away from the FOH and be 3-5 feet in front of the FOH speakers at their closest, and 10-15 feet at their furthest, and have the proscenium as well.

My test this morning did not turn out as I wanted. With the phantom power on, gain and eq set to avoid feedback I was able to just get sound in the FOH but it was not loud to really help.

I tried choir mics last year with little success hence why I am trying the shotgun mics.

And you're surprised that distant mics in front of speakers are feeding back...?

Especially if, as you appear to have described, the rear lobe of the mic may be pointing directly at a speaker.

Why not demonstrate to yourself the lack of isolation by playing a source through FOH and soloing your shotgun mic in headphones. You'll likely be surprised at how much it picks up.

Can someone provide some insight in what I should be doing to get these actors into the FOH to help them be heard. Whether I have the wrong mics or tips and tricks to make them louder?

Given that you won't be able to break the rules of physics: move the actors, move the speakers, move the mics (close-mic the actors). One or more of those should improve the situation.

As ever, the loudest sound at the mic will always win.

[tacitus]

AlecSp’s spot-on. Loudest noise wins. In my experience (child-oriented shoes in our village hall) the loudest thing by far is footfalls. If you can’t get a mike nearer the little darlings’ gobs, you’re stuffed. I’ve said for years it’s better to have the best singers in a group, singing, and the best dancers (in this context, probably the smallest and lightest), um, dancing. But nobody takes any notice so I don’t do village sound any more. Life’s a lot more peaceful.

I’ve never used shotgun mikes. I can’t get my head round their weird ways. Usually I stick to cheap cardioids or hypercardioids and eq the the top down a bit. At least I know how these mikes behave. All of which makes me sound more curmudgeonly than I really am.

[Sam Spoons]

A diagram would help us visualise how you are set up, I'm struggling to imagine how you could have the mics in front of the FoH speakers, pointing away from them but still pointing at the stage?

[Hugh Robjohns]

I suspect "in front" actually means up-stage...

But the fundamental problem, as always, is that the mics are too far away. 4-6 feet is way too far. Most shotgun mics are designed to be used 2-3 feet away from the mouth in a non-reverberant environment.

A — any mic — 6 feet away can not compare to a personal mic in the hairline or on the cheek. It's just not going to work.

[Sam Spoons]

I suspect "in front" actually means up-stage.

Makes sense.

But the fundamental problem, as always, is that the mics are too far away. 4-6 feet is way too far. Most shotgun mics are designed to be used 2-3 feet away from the mouth in a non-reverberant environment.

A — any mic — 6 feet away can not compare to a personal mic in the hairline or on the cheek. It's just not going to work.

I have successfully amplified a group of young singers by standing them in groups of three around cardioid vocal mics. These were reasonably strong voices and standing close together they were all within a couple of feet of the mic. Any further, IME, simply doesn't work. That said 30 years ago the use of mics in theatre productions was extremely rare but performers could still be heard, IMHO their common usage these days is not always a good thing.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I've been going to the panto in a local(ish) theatre for 35 years. It's a small, intimate space that seats a couple of hundred people.

For 32 of those years the PA system, such as it was, only handled sound effects. Music was live and acoustic. Usually piano and woodwind, sometimes with percussion of some sort.

For the last few years they've had a 'Sound Designer' who has put radio mics on some (not all) players, and the music is now electronic keyboards and drums through the PA.

The result is half the dialogue is inaudible and the music frequently overpowers everything.

Such a shame...

[Wonks]

I've been going to the panto in a local(ish) theatre for 35 years.

Oh no you haven't!

[Hugh Robjohns]

Oh yes I have...

[tacitus]

Cm’on, guys. Put all this behind you!

[tomas]

’ve never used shotgun mikes. I can’t get my head round their weird ways.

I have, and it was in a play. A musical with tap dancers. I used a pair of shotguns to reinforce the tapping. It was so-so. Not sure if I would have had better success with a pair of cheap cardioid dynamics.

I have also tried using a shotgun mic on singers, but I found that it was useless when their soundholes were metres away.

For plays, nothing beats wireless headsets. But there are caveats. One is how the lapels react to sweat.

In a 25th anniversary show of an amateur musical theatre group, we had a dozen wireless mics and well over 30 actors, most of whom would be on stage multiple times. The solution was to have two backstage hands in charge of all the mic changes. The headset type with a steel wire frame that sits over the ears works ok, but the lapels we taped onto foreheads and cheeks would go silent after 30/35 minutes. In the intermission and the start of act 2, everything was back to normal. Then the mics would die again near the end of the act. Those mics were all of a top shelf brand supplied by a professional rental company. Being moved multiple times from one sweaty human body to another didn't work well for them, it seems. If we had one mic per actor, the mic would have a chance to cool down while the actor is offstage.

[Bob Bickerton]

I'd agree the exercise will likely be futile.

A point worth making is to be aware of nulls in the polar pattern of mics, in fact it's essential practice to be aware of the polar pattern and frequency response of all mics you use. Added to which it's worth knowing that frequency plots are often ironed out or averaged. A mic with an enhanced frequency band or spike may well feedback at that frequency - though there's lots of other factors at play too.

I've had reasonable success miking choirs and ensembles using well-behaved cardioid and hypercardioid mics being careful to point the null at the source (speakers/percussion) you wish to attenuate. Outdoors was more successful (few reflections) and I managed a reasonable job of amplifying a choir in Carl Jenkins' - The Armed Man, who were being overwhelmed by percussion.

But it's tricky stuff and nothing beats projection from the actors/artists.

And just to add, yes, radio mics are the way this with dealt with these days.

Bob

[Simon Wheeler]

Agree with all the above. Other than as a way of getting tap numbers to feel good and loud (good old Crown PZMs...), or an offstage (dynamic) mic on a stand for voice of god moments, it's head worn mics or nothing. And I would say if you want realism, the more people who are mic'ed up, the better.

Can lean into it and make the mic part of the action so you can use something handheld and dynamic?

Radio mics are an incredible solution for musicals (etc) with big sound departments and budgets. Sadly in smaller productions, in my experience, they do more harm than good,

[ef37a]

To pickup a group of kids many years ago I suspended about 4 cheap plastic mics, Tandy's, weighted with brass tube from a barrel hidden by a hardboard "cloud" which was dropped in for the song. The mics were paralleled and fed up to a valve pre amp in the gods. Repro through line source speakers was fairly good but the main purpose was to record the show on tape.

But I agree, the idea that you can amplify feeble, non pro voices is la la land. Maybe when mixers get AI?

Dave.

[Luke W]

I don't think I've ever seen a theatre without two or three shotgun mics placed randomly across the front of the stage. I also don't think I've ever heard them do anything useful.

In my humble opinion, these sorts of jobs require an all or nothing approach: keep the music low and mic nobody, or mic absolutely everything properly. If you're taking the latter approach, it needs some serious mixing — it's far more involved than your average music gig.

I've captured ensembles with pairs of Crown PCC 160s along the front edge of a stage and had far more workable results than you'd get with a couple of shotguns, but you're still at the mercy of performer levels and distance. I've used them in an FOH mix for strong ensembles belting it out downstage, but once the performers take a few steps back they wont get enough direct sound to be useful. Good enough for a cue feed for the lighting team, but you wouldn't want them in your mix.

I could rant for days about theatre audio, but speaking from experience, the best approach here is to keep the playback levels low and have the performers work on their projection. Trying to make do with select bits of distance miking will just leave you with lots of room sound, and annoyingly, less vocal intelligibility than you started with!

[tacitus]

This is totally off-topic but it concerns boundary mikes, which tend to get a bad press but do sometimes save the day.

I recorded a live recital a year ago - early music played by four ladies who sported 40 instruments between them. I put a pair of cheap Samson boundary mikes on the floor in case my main omni pair missed anything, which in the event they didn’t - everything came out just fine on the AT4022s I used. I went through the recording to see if anything came out better on the boundary mics, and thought that maybe the quartet of crumhorns did. So there you have it - boundary mikes are officially, um, crummier!

[Tomás Mulcahy]

I don't think I've ever seen a theatre without two or three shotgun mics placed randomly across the front of the stage. I also don't think I've ever heard them do anything useful.

Agreed, it is the wrong tool for the job. They are for boom mounting to record dialogue for film, not much more really. However, I've never seen them in world class theatres During Covid lockdown here on this forum, there was a discussion about several being used for audience pickup on a well known TV show here... and it sounded dreadful.

As an aside, before this post came up I was thinking to do some tests with an Audio Technica AT8035 (a proper long shotgun mic) versus a parabolic for wildlife recording. Just to demonstrate which is best

[Philbo King]

I have seen theatrical stages with 4 or 5 small mics hanging from stage front. I assume they are cardoid, facing down. But these might be intended for choral groups, I don't know.

I can't imagine a highly directional mic like a shotgun or hypercardoid would be good for a play unless you had a stagehand to point it at whoever is talking.

[Bob Bickerton]

We used to use a couple of Audio Technica suspended choir mics in some shows to balance choruses with radio miked soloists - but with minimal success.

The mics themselves were rather nice, but the laws of physics got in the way.

Bob

[Luke W]

I don't think I've ever seen a theatre without two or three shotgun mics placed randomly across the front of the stage. I also don't think I've ever heard them do anything useful.

Agreed, it is the wrong tool for the job. They are for boom mounting to record dialogue for film, not much more really. However, I've never seen them in world class theatres

I've not seen them on world-class shows, but I've been surprised at just how common it is as part of a standard house setup, even in quite reputable places.

The main problem with these things, is that you can pretty much guarantee that the approach that sounds the best will also be the one that looks the worst. So it's about trying to find a compromise that leaves you with recognisable human voices and a happy director. That's a real skill.

[Dave Rowles]

A local sound guy was in total shock that I didn't want to use the shotgun mics he always used for shows. I placed some sE8s in strategic places in the set as it was a static set, and had a far better outcome.

I've never managed to use shotguns in a live situation and it work well. Better than nothing I suppose, but hard work to get anything really usable.

[MarkOne]

I have a choir to mic up on Sunday and they have requested 2 mics on stands as well as the soloists on their own wired 58s.

I've seen them using their own gear on previous occasions using a couple of LDC studio mics for this and yes they were dreadful and more or less useless.

I will do as asked and at least I can use them on the livestream mix where they won't be feedback magnets. I'm sure they will tell me it sounded fine after.

[Tomás Mulcahy]

A local sound guy was in total shock that I didn't want to use the shotgun mics he always used for shows. I placed some sE8s in strategic places in the set as it was a static set, and had a far better outcome.

I think this is what is termed "plant mics" in film production.

[ef37a]

A local sound guy was in total shock that I didn't want to use the shotgun mics he always used for shows. I placed some sE8s in strategic places in the set as it was a static set, and had a far better outcome.

I think this is what is termed "plant mics" in film production.

Indeed and I have also been on the pan deck end of a "practical telephone".

Dave.

[Tomás Mulcahy]

Never heard it called a pan deck before