Ernesto
Thanks for reaching out . Thanks to Jerry and Bruce for the shout out.
I replied to you email yesterday, but thought I would put out some thoughts for the group similar to those I sent to you.
Please avoid off brands - especially no name ones from companies that are not really involved in theatre audio. Our Creative Audio range is of course the exception .... only because our design premise was how can we build a cost effective theatre wireless system based on our 45 years of doing theatre audio.
If you are in or near crowded metro areas we highly recommend the use of digital audio over UHF systems (currently only made by Sennheiser and Shure) as these allow us to get good numbers of systems playing nicely together in the limited band-width we now have to operate in. Avoid anything transmitting on 2.4gHz or 5.8gHz bands as these can prove problematic around WiFi hotspots, and are limited to 10-11 sets working together. That may sound a lot when starting out, but just based on our clients rental requests we know that 8 this year will likely become 12 next year and then 16 and 5 years our you are trying to work out how to mic your show with just 20 channels. Give yourself room to grow.
Having said all that, good or better mics are not the whole answer. It seems that the current perception of a sound system is that any speaker set is just fine and it doesn't really matter how it is placed!!!! I have lost track of the number of schools that tell me they have a great sound system, only to find out they are using a major brand name box with a 15" woofer and horn speaker mounted either side of the stage up 12 or so ft and mounted flush to the floor. If you have a physic teacher handy ask them about how sound travels from a box like this placed up there.
85-90% of the sound in this situation is being pumped into the air above the audience's heads, and much of it is bouncing off the side and rear walls creative all sorts of reverb and echos - all this lowers the volume before feedback. Moral - less is often better. Speakers should be vocal oriented (multiple small speakers cones - 2-4" is my sweet spot); have a relatively narrow vertical dispersion pattern (20-40 degrees is the range - achieved by mounting these small cone speaker in a column to provide a more controlled dispersion pattern) - less wasted energy; then mounted high - 12-16ft above floor, angled inwards and pointed at head height 2/3rds of the way into the seating area. These is a very generic description and each room and use requires a little more engineering to get it right. We refer to the standard 2 way speaker boxes as DISCO BOXES because their main aim is to pump out heaps of bass with little or no regard to the voice.
The other issue with most of these "disco boxes" is that the horn speaker cuts in right in the middle of the vocal range, causing a distinct difference in voice quality for notes above and below this cut over. We have been using column type speakers for theatre since our start back in 1977, and in just the last decade have the major brands started to follow our lead with some of their designs (Bose L1, JBL Eon One, EV, LD Systems, RCF and others with their compact sub and mounted column designs boxes.) Yes you will need to consider using a subwoofer or two to enhance the bass - cross these over to handle signals below 200Hz (150-250Hz range usually works great.)
My point is .... if you want good sound, the most critical components in order of importance are
- speaker system - design, quality and placement
- microphone elements - good mid market is as good as you need (as it is unlikely that the rest of the system will benefit from top end units) - BRANDS - bodymics, Microphone Madness, Point Source, entry level Shure
- mixer - if over 12 wireless seriously consider a digital console with 100 scene memories - Soundcraft, Allen & Heath, Behringer
- wireless systems - stick with major brands for reliability and sound - Creative Audio, Shure, Sennheiser, MiPro and if you must Audio-Technica (why must? AT uses a proprietary mic connector that limits your choice of microphone severely - mainly to their own mics and some high end brands)
If you have limited capital then this is the order to work on things - since microphone systems are the easiest to (lowest cost) rent then we think that they should be rented until the rest of the system is in great condition to make the most of your shows. (yeah I'm biased as I rent wireless mics but it's still true)
The other thing about renting wireless is the best use of capital. If you only do 1 or 2 shows per year, the economics of renting makes it a no brainer, somewhere between 3 and 4 makes it viable to at least own a core of 8-12 channels.
The advantages of renting wireless systems include
- getting the number of systems you need vs. fitting the show around what you have
- no maintenance - other than cost of repairing actually damaged equipment
- no storage
- no worrying what other departments might do - loss of transmitters, broken mics
- no worries abut theft or vandalism between shows
- better use of capital
If you or anyone has questions please feel free to reach out
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Rod Reilly
Owner, Bodymics
908-899-1277
NJ and NY offices
rod@bodymics.com------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 10-04-2022 22:29
From: Ernesto Rosas
Subject: Mics and lights
Hi all. I'm trying to bring my high school theatre up to date and need help finding headset mics with receivers. We have 5 line 6 mics and receivers but need 5 more. Also, I'm running a lighting system console from the 90's. Does anyone know where to find a new up to date system that can run about 60 lights? I'd love to find new lights as well, but need to start slow. Thanks for you help.
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Ernesto Rosas - SAG-AFTRA
Theatre Arts Teacher
East Hickman High School
Lyles, TN
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