Amy - this too will be a long post ...
I have been designing and installing/selling sound systems for theatre and churches since the late 70s so I think I know a thing or two.
MONEY vs. SUCCESS:If you give me a budget from $5,000 to 500,000 I can "design" a sound system to fit the budget. One that may or may not exactly meet your desired outcome and with reliability that may or may not make you happy.
The point is that throwing money at sound system choices is not always - and usually wont - provide you with a solution that works to meet the needs you have.
Any set of brand name (and many/most off-brand) components will "work". Whether they provide a natural sounding result that is evenly distributed throughout the listening area and with sufficient headroom (that is level before feedback) is a completely different question.
I have heard low budget systems that have worked in a particular situation and I have heard high budget systems using all the "best" product that sound simply awfully.
WHY YOU "SOUND GUY" PROBABLY LIMITED YOU TO 8 WIRELESS AND 5 FLOOR MICS:
Two likely reasons
- it maybe matches what he has and or is comfortable using
- in his experience that is all the "open mics" - number of microphones turned on at any one time - that he can use before he runs out of headroom before the system starts feeding back (squealing like a stuck pig).
If the first, you can ignore his advice entirely if you have someone competent to run the system
If the second - which is likely if he is competent - then the restrictions are based on a combination of the room's acoustics and the speaker system characteristics and placement.
I will try and deal with the following:
- The Space
- Speaker Selection and Location
- Sound Board/Mixing Console/Mixer
- Wireless Microphones
- Floor Mics and Hanging Mics
THE SPACE:What you describe is both common and a disaster from an audio viewpoint.
The biggest problem is the hard walls and floor - if the walls have mats on them (as many do) that can help a lot. These hard surfaces reflect the sound straight back at the stage (that back wall is the biggest culprit) which increases the likely-hood of feedback
This is simply physics at work - the more open mics and the more reflected sound the more chance there is of feedback. As we double the number of open microphones we reduce the safe working environment in the space by 3db, so if with a single mic we can get a maximum volume of say 102 dBSPL before our battle with feedback begins
then with
- 2 this drops to 99dBSPL
- 4 this drops to 96dBSPL
- 8 this drops to 93dBSLP
- 16 down to 90dBSPL
The reflections from the side walls and floor may or may not contribute to feedback, but the will decrease the intelligibility of the speech/lyrics. For school plays the desire of most of the audience is to hear the voice of their performer, and whether they can easily understand the words is of little conseqence, but if you want your audience to hear the message that the playwright was trying to get across then this becomes a major issue.
The schools "Sound Panels" if properly specified and installed will help greatly with reducing the reflections.
TEMPORARY FIX
In the meantime ... purchase or rent some "pipe and drape" - the sort of thing used at trade shoes to separate the booths, except you will want something that is 16ft high and uses heavy velvet/velveteen curtains. Use these to "enclose" the seating area - helps to create an intimate atmosphere too. The more you have the less exposed wall and the less reflections. At least cover that back wall. 60ft of "pipe and drape" takes 2 people about 30 minutes to erect once they know what they are doing.
SPEAKER SYSTEMS:Not all speakers are created equal! There is a reason why even a simple speaker type may range in price from $200 to $20,000. The main differences are
- naturalness of the output - does it sound like the original voice or instrument across the full range
- intelligibility - is it as easy to understand as the person or does it seem you have to concentrate more to hear the actual words
- distortion (lack of homogeneous sound) at the crossover point between whatever is handle the bottom end vs. the higher frequencies
- most 2 way boxes have a crossover point smack dab in the middle of the vocal range (between 1000 and 1500Hz typically)
- unless they use very high quality crossovers (passive or active) the sound wll seen to change tonal quality as the vocal transitions from being handled by the cone speaker to the horn speaker
- power handling, maximum undistorted volume
For theatre I am a firm believer in the use of small cone speaker columns (now commonly called vertical line arrays for natural sounding vocals. This is another physics question and is based on how a loudspeaker reproduces sounds of different frequencies. The larger the diameter of the speaker handling the voice the more complex the actions of the cone to produce a particular note, and the more likely (especially over time) for that to introduce distortions to the sound (not usually harshness, but a loss of naturalness. Since the late 70s I have used column speakers with subwoofers for theatre events and now it seems the speaker manufacturers are getting on that trend.
The other major advantage of any line array design (whether columns or those big clusters used in concert arenas and on broadway) is the controlled dispersion. This helps us direct the sound at the audience and not fill the space above their heads with unnecessary energy (which also hs an effect on how loud the system can get without feedback. Most 2 or 3 way speaker boxes utilize horns to handle the higher frequencies and control the directivity of the box - these are most commonly 90 degrees wide by 60-70 vertically. A column line array is usually 120-120 wide x 20-30 degrees vertical, which results in a much more targeted beam of sound which can be directed to the audience and not into unoccupied spaces.
For portable systems all the major manufacturers have suitable systems that comprise a subwoofer with the amplifier built in, and a column that mounts on top. With the sub on the floor the column center is at about head height. The once worth considering range from $800 to $2,000 per side. I personally like the JBL PRX ONE at around $3,000 and have had great success with their previous model the JBL EON ONE a pairand with the Turbosound IP2000. Models from Bose, RCF, EV and LD Systems are also worth looking at.
Permanent versions have a major advantage:
- The columns can be mounted high on the wall allowing to sound to be aimed at the whole seating area
- The height means the sound level between the first row and the last row is much closer to the same volume than floor mounted solutions
- Bear in mind that our brains expect the volume to be lower the further back from the source and to some extent compensate, so you do not need the levels to be equal front and back to achieve acceptable results - otherwise we would have to give each person their own speaker. Our sub-conscious brains are very clever.
These are on the whole more expensive as you need the column array, mounting hardware, subwoofer/s for bass and power amplifiers (maybe in the subwoofer), plus cabling. Suitable columns range from $400-$2500 each and subs (without amps) in the range of $400 to $1000 and then another $1000-2500 for good power amps.
If you want to stick with the idea of a 2 way box on a stick (speaker stand) don't buy cheap - the least I would look at would be the QSC K series or the JBL 600 series. The smaller the cone driver is the better. A 3 way box will handle the vocals more honestly, but there are few available.
THE SOUND BOARD-MIXING CONSOLE - MIXER:If you ever think you may need to control more than 12 channels, I would seriously advise the use of a Digital Mixing Console. Having said that these cover a large range of devices from simple iPad controlled boxes to a Broadway 80 channels half million dollar solution.
- A board with real "Flying Faders" is easier to control that something based on a computer or ipad. Also more expensive
- You want something that will provide you with ample "scene memories" so that you can get each scene (which may or may not match the scenes in the script - usually not) set up in tech rehearsal, and come show time you just have to press next and make minor tweaks, usually just to volume when an actor goes quiet or decides to yell their line.
- Have enough channels to be useable as you input needs grow (and from experience I will guarantee they will grow). eiither with plenty of on board mic pre-amps or the ability to add additional "digital stageboxes"via CAT 5/6 ethernet cables.
Our favorite at the moment is the Soundcraft Si Impact - this has 32 on-board mic preamps, digital scribble strips (allows you to label/color-code each input), flying faders, add expansion digital stahge boxes, ability to control up to 48 simultaneous inputs, iPad control and 100+ scene memories - Runs around $3,500. There are similar units from Allen and Heath and Presonus that are worth considering too. If you think you will never need more than 16 input channels (including mics, sound effects, backing tracks, walk-in-walk-out music I would look at the Allen & Heath SQ16 or QU16 and the Soundcraft Si Expression 1.
WIRELESS MICROPHONES:This is likely he most expensive part of of a theatre sound system, it is also the most complex and most likely to give you heartburn.
There is almost no limit to the number of wireless microphones that can be used in a single location - at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 my previous company used over 100 wireless and another 50 wireless intercom chanels for the opening and closing ceremonies. They repeated this in the Beijing Olympics with even more. The limitations on how many is money and headroom (level before feedback - I think this is were your sound guy was coming from).
For you the first consideration is "will I need to grow how many I need over time". From experience I would suggest over the life of the mixer (7-10 years) you will likely double the number wireless you start with.
Because of our ever increasing need that our cellphones become supercomputers, the wireless carriers will continue to ask for more and more bandwidth . we have already lost the 600MHz and 700MHz bands and I suspect we will lose more in the next decade. This means we need to squeee more channels into ever decreasing space. To this end we have almost entirely upgraded our 500 rental systems to Shures digital audio over UHF series (SLXD, QLXD, ULXD). These systems allow more channels to fit in a given space. Even with the entry level SLXD we are able to get 50-60 channels to play nice in even the toughest RF markets (NYC, LA)
These units also sound better. Sennheiser also released a quality digital audio over UHF model recently. The entry price of the SLXD system with bodypack is around $700 plus microphone. This is most likely what I would recommend for your program. These systems rent for around $600 for 8 channels with mics first week the 8% per extra day (this includes shipping to you and back to us).
- RENT vs BUY
- Because of the relatively high aquisition cost and high maintenance of wireless systems unless you are using the whole system 3-4 times a year it is generally better use of resources to rent the wireless and spend your capital on the "best" sound system for your space that you can afford.
FLOOR MICS-HANGING MICS:While adding floor or hanging mics is the easy way to "capture" the sound from the chorus or minor players, it is fraught with problems.
I love a combination of floor and hanging mics for straight plays where everyone has reasonable projection skills - in this case it becomes an equal opportunity vocal lift - everyone still sounds like they should and the audience can hear more easily.
When combined with wireless systems on the "important" cast members the difference in sound quality and tone between the haves and the have-nots creates a theatrical apatheid where some are more equal than others. If any of these "have-nots" have lines and are not just a chorus this difference is even more exaggerated. If you can't mic every one with a line, then choreograph it so that are close to someone wearing a mic and teach them to project, or have a handheld mic that they use (works well in crowd scenes when they are just a voice). If you are trying to capture the chorus, use a rotating trio/quartet that gather around a stand mic/or two - eventually all the parents will hear the progeny, and the entire show will have the same sound.
If you choose to "share" wireless systems, always have each actor who will get a transmitter pack during the show fitted with their own microphone, which then can be connected to the shared transmitter as required. This results in faster transfers and less microphones becoming dislodged once the actor enters the stage and hence useless - lost count of how many times I have seen this. Really messes with the flow of the show.
Please feel free to contact me directly or via this forum
In summary there are as many answers to your questions as there are sound gurus - you have to chose which factors are most important to address
I am pretty sure the $40,000 is one the high side for a portable quality system with your current spec, but if I used the "best of everything I could certainly get there.
My take:
4x Crown PCC160 floor mics
8x Shure SLXD14 wireless systems, with antenna distro and racked ready to use
10x Bodymics Broadway earsets or lav/cheek/hair microphones for wireless bodypacks
1x Soundcraft Si Impact 32 channel digital mixer with road case
1x Soundcraft mini Stage box 16 - to plug in floor mixs and outputs to speaker system
1x 100ft Tactical Cat 6 cable (stagebox to mixer)
2x JBL PRX One vertical line array systems with sub. column and built in power amp
set of XLR Cables from PCC160 and to speakers
1x case for cables and PCC160
TOTAL AROUND $24,000 - not a quote but a guide to a good mid-range portable solution
Using lower cost analog wireless and a 16 ch digital and a smaller speaker systems it would be about half that
See no easy answers
Hope this provides some insight
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Rod Reilly
Owner, Bodymics
908-899-1277
Somerset NJ
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-18-2021 14:22
From: Amy Williams
Subject: Sound Equipment Purchasing
Sorry for long post but I need guidance on purchasing sound equipment.
We are a fairly new high school theater department and we have been renting our sound equipment for each show and it's not cheap! I have decided to purchase our own equipment to save money down the road. I am in a small town and our small stage is in a small gym. The acoustics are horrible and the school keeps saying they are going to put up sound panels to help but they have yet to do that.
I was told by the person we rent the sound equipment from that we shouldn't have more than four floor mics and eight body mics. Not sure why this is the limit but that is what I was told. It would be nice if we could do a few more body mics though.
I know we need a mixer (13 channel minimum so we can connect a laptop for sound effects), digital snake, speakers/stands, 4 floor mics, and 8 wireless body mics. I know how it all works and how to hook it all up, I just need help with what to purchase. The problem is that there is so much out there to choose from! I got a quote from the person we rented from and he said $40,000 for everything we need. I have priced stuff on my own and it ranges from super cheap to super expensive. I know you "get what you pay for" so I don't want to do cheap but $40,000 seems horrendously expensive! I don't know what brands are good and what is "crap". I don't know if $40,000 is a good price or if he just wants me to keep renting from him.
I searched this forum and found a couple of posts that helped a little but both were over 5 years ago so I thought I would ask for help and see if anyone can give me more updated info. What brands have worked for you? What price range is good? Where do you purchase this stuff from? What am I forgetting? What else do I need?
Any help you can give is appreciated!!
Thanks!
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Amy Williams
District Librarian/Theater Teacher
Thespian Troupe #8881
Auburn High School
Auburn, IL
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