Richelle Thompson's Posts - TheatreFace

Want to be a sound designer?

2011-02-15T12:00:00.000Z

Until the last few years, if you wanted to do theatre sound and get a degree or emphasis in audio, you had to make due in undergrad with special projects style courses and practical experience, and then apply to one of the theatre masters programs with an audio emphasis, or find a fine arts program that offered audio instruction. Sound is just beginning to be taught in general undergraduate programs as a mainstay of the curriculum, and it will be a long while yet before it's as basic as intro to lighting or costuming. In many ways, audio is still the "baby" of theatre fields, even though sound has been with theatre in one form or another since its inception.

Most folks who discover theatre in high school and know they want to do it or at least try it as a career go on to study in college. So with that said, if you want to be a sound designer, what do you do in undergrad to get started?

There is never one road to an end - and theatre is no exception to the rule. There are lots of ways to become a sound designer. A career in sound isn't a cake, so there's no set recipe, these are just a few pointers.

If you're just finishing high school and are one of the few who've already discovered audio and want to be a sound designer, the first step is finding a undergraduate program that offers sound - not only in it's curriculum, but in practical experience. There are lots of criteria to choosing a program - this is just one more point to add to the list.

If you're like most folks who discover audio while studying something else, you're already in as undergraduate program, which may or may not have a structured audio program. If it doesn't, you may want to consider transferring to one that does, or you may want to stay put if you have the opportunities at hand in the program you're already in. Either way, there are some basics I recommend from my own experience, as well as the paths my friends, coworkers, and employees have taken.

Talk to both your academic adviser AND a theatre adviser to help you with design your curriculum. Talk to other theatre students ahead of you and find out what they did that worked, and what mistakes they made. Don't just muck about in classes without direction.

Get involved. Know what your programs doing, and whats going on. If there's a theatre club, join it. Get involved in productions as soon as you can.

That said - learn to manage your time and your commitments. When I was starting out in college, I was balancing a full course load, a stage management stipend, a part time job, and working every production I could - never mind my social life. I wanted to work, so I took on every assignment anyone would give me - and ended up burning out and having some seriously embarrassing grades on my transcript. I ended up taking a lot of time off, and when I went back to school, taking a lot of classes over - a big waste of time and money. Involved yes. Over involvement, not so much. If you know you have a class with lots of outside work or homework, balance your other classes and your production involvement with that.

Every theatre department's guidelines for selecting student designers is different. If you're in a big program with graduate students, you may (as an undergrad) never do a main stage design - but that doesn't mean you can't design other student works or learn the process from professors and grad students. Get involved in productions as soon as you can - the sooner you're learning practically as well as academically - the better.

While you're in college - if you're not designing operate shows. Operation (even though it may just be a "go" button) is going to be the first gig you get as a sound tech. Best to have some proof you have and can do it.

While you're in college - work summer stock or do a summer internship. There can be lots of obstacles to this - summer school, parental expectations, school dates - but work through those obstacles. Summer stock is one of the best routes to professional experience - something you have to have to get a full time job. Best to do this while you can afford to!

If you have the opportunity to work outside your college theatre venue, be it in a local road house loading in shows, doing designs for a community theatre, operating or even interning with a local professional company, do, but within reason. Don't stretch yourself so thin you're not getting everywhere you need to be. Missing a class or two for something else is one thing - missing lots of class is another, especially if your school has attendance policies or if you're missing your classroom theatre training.

Understand the basics of electricity and sound waves. Even if your school doesn't teach an audio class, this ought to be covered in lighting. You can also pick it up in physics or electronics. Learn how to wire and solder. If your theatre program doesn't offer this, try the electronics department. They're skills worth having - especially since most professional sound designers are their own department heads.

Study music. Sing in a choir or learn an instrument if you don't already play one - piano, guitar, whatever. I'm not saying you have to be amazingly proficient or gifted, but playing or performing music is the best way to learn how to read music.

Take some music composition. One of my greatest shortfalls to being a sound designer is that I don't have any composition skills - something that would save me a lot of trouble when I need three bars of something for a scene transition.

A Moment of Audio Nostalgia...

2011-02-08T12:00:00.000Z

During the tech of one of our last shows, a guest designer and I were discussing the computer playback system ASF owns and bemoaning that my budget doesn't have enough leeway to upgrade or replace it, since in the way of programming the software is out of date.

One of my operators (who is only a few years my junior) popped off that at least we were computerized and not having to deal with CD or MiniDisc. This led to me to my own tirade about when I was an engineer and my first shows as an operator (and my first collegiate designs) were on reel-reel tape.

Audio playback has evolved drastically in the last 15 years, reflective in how quickly media has changed. When I began pursing audio training in earnest in the mid 1990's, I had no idea how much would change in the first 5 years, never mind between then and now. The first show I ran was a small musical. I ran 6 or 7 VHF wireless mics in an enclosed booth with the window open for an attempt at mixing vocals. Playback was split between two 4-track reel to reels, a cassette deck, and CD player. I had signed on for the show as a favor to a friend, and had no idea what I was doing, never had used a sound board, had a crash course figuring out what I was doing during tech. The show was a miserable experience. And I was hooked. The next year I was designing sound, and in the summers, I shifted from working summer stock in stage management to audio.

When I look back at my first days of engineering and operating sound, I loved the challenge of big shows with lots of cues. I enjoyed the fast pace of battle or storm scenes, figuring out where my fingers had to go, how to reassign channels, set levels and pans on the channels in the right order and in time for the next cue on appropriate the deck, if that deck was a reel-reel player, cassette deck, a MiniDisc, a DAT, or a CD player. I had mixed feelings when the reel-reel decks made way for DAT players and MiniDisc decks. When the company I engineered for looked towards converting to SFX and operation becoming a "go" button, I argued with my boss and the designer about taking away from the operation. It was, of course, an argument I lost based on the design advantages, not to mention that many of my fellow operators weren't into (or up for) the challenge of big sequences. Operation lost any challenge or excitement for me, leaving the only artistry as an operator in engineer the live mix.

Now that my focus has become design (a path I didn't originally plan or expect) I'm on the other side of the equation...

A Post from A Dark Theatre

2011-02-01T20:30:00.000Z

I write this blog on a break during a 10 out of 12. Originally I'd thought I'd write a post about the differences between designing for a published work, versus designing for a new work. But instead I'm finding the challanges of period music more on my mind.

My current project at ASF is a sound design for a "The Flag Maker of Market Street," a new play by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder. The play is set in Montgomery Alabama in 1860 in the months leading up to the Civil War. (Lincoln is about to be sworn in as president in the Northern states, Davis has taken office in the Southern.) As the title implies, the action is about the creation of the first flag of the Confederacy. At this place in history, Montgomery is really a small town, as much as it's wealthy inhabitants are trying to make it into a center of society. So what's the music?

One of my long standing professional challanges is that I'm not a composer. Outside of reading a vocal score to sing in a choir, or following a conductor score for a musical, and picking a few chords on a guitar, I have no musical training. (A blog for another day - recommendations for aspiring sound designers. #1 - take music classes including composition and computer music.) SO - original music is out.

The first pieces suggested by the playwright, as well as other pieces I pulled, were music pieces from the period - simple pieces that today that we'd call folk music. (Think Yankee Doodle non-spunky.) The reaction to several of our artistic staff is that the music was too country - that it should be classical to match the aspring society. The problem dramaturgically speaking is that classical music as we think of it isn't yet being performed on a civic level in much of the state. Only a handful of symphonies are in their early years in large industrial cities of the North. Never mind the problem that the music really needs to be "American."

So where do the modern ears meet the period music?

My first reaction was to treat the music as a cinematographic score, using modern instrumentations with melodies or thematics based on music from the period. After listening to a lot of music, I realized that wasn't right. This is not a memory piece - the characters in the play don't even know they will be going to war. Nor does that compliment the world the scene designer has created, or that the actors are living in. We are in the Market street store front that the flag is created in.

My next place was finding the classical pieces that were composed in the States - if not right at 1860 in the next few years, and letting the modern orchestration slide. The problem there were finding multiple pieces that fit the mood of the respective scenes the music transitions in/out of.

The compromise arrived in a combination of looking at earlier, colonial music, and simplified "classical." The closest type name is "parlor music" - a wide variety of tempos and themes, played on violin and piano, both instruments are crossovers between "folk" and "classical." Most of the pieces we are using are violin.

So far... a nice compromise. We'll see how our first audience reacts in a few days...

Chapter 4 of the Care and Feeding of Wireless Mics... Sweat Protection

2011-01-25T12:00:00.000Z

No matter how much time you've invested in setting up your wireless mic systems - planning layout, tuning frequencies, tweaking gain structure, EQing actors, never mind making your system sound good - it's all for not if you loose a mic mid performance due to a sweat out.

As mentioned in an earlier chapter, the two areas most susceptible to sweat are at the connection of the mic transmitter (or belt pack) and the lavaliere element, and the head of the lavaliere element that contains the mic itself. Most of the time, some medical tape and good placement are enough - but not always. Here are some low cost "sweat preventative" measures for the lavaliere itself.

Most lavaliere style elements come with a wind screen. The wind screen by itself is not a sweat prevention measure - in fact it can act like a sponge and draw sweat towards the mic element. A solution to this is treating the wind screen with light repeat coatings of spray starch or a fabric protector, like Scotch Guard. The key is to make sure the foam doesn't become so saturated that instead of a windscreen you end up with an egg shell. This can be pretty tricky, especially if you're using a micro-element and the windscreen is pretty small. Windscreens also add quite a bit of mass to the end of an element and increase visibility - not always the first choice.

If you're using a broad, flat element such as the Shure WL93, or any larger, rugged mic element, a light coating of spray starch can be applied directly to the element head, again making sure not to over saturate and get to hard a build up. This treatment may also have to be repeated if the starch wears off. I would NOT recommend this for a micro element - the starch is likely to do more damage than good.

An alternative to either of these is what my crew dubbed the "mic booty." This is a little more labor intensive, but is safe for micro elements and doesn't involve treating an element directly with chemicals. Instead, match a pair of nylons (pantyhose) to the color of your mic elements. Cut the nylons into manageable sized squares without any seams, extra material, or extra elastic, and stretch them out over cardboard or plywood, cork board or other flat surface with tape or pushpins to keep them smooth, and treat the single layer of fabric with several light coatings of a fabric protector/waterproof-er - like Scotch Guard, letting it dry completely between coatings. Once you've applied 3-4 coats and the fabric has set (according to the treatment's recommendations - usually overnight) cut small squares, roughly 3 times the size of the head of your element. Cover the head of the element like a sock, or booty as smoothly as possible, gathering the excess material at the base of the head. With a needle and thread (of a similar color) sew around the element, snugging the fabric to the head around the cable, with small knot to secure the thread. (Be careful not to punch the cable with the needle, or make the thread so tight that it cuts into the jacket of the cable.) When you're done, carefully trim the excess material away from the thread.

Below: a black micro element (Countryman B-6) with an added earpiece and booty. (The booty hasn't been trimmed yet.) also, a closer look at a tan flat element (Shure WL93T) with a "booty." (This "booty" has had several shows of use and is starting to wear out in the top corner - it's about in need of replacement.)

Until next time cats and kittens...

Cheers,

An Interlude from the Wireless Mic Chapters... Adventures in Remounting a Production

2011-01-18T12:00:00.000Z

Instead of carrying on to the next installment on the care and feeding of wireless mics, (which I'll get back to, I promise) I'm going to enter an interlude blog about remounting productions.

In the last few years, I've done several remounts in different circumstances. Each experience has presented a unique challenge for me - either as a supervisor or as the designer - in some cases my own design, in others that of other artists.

The first (and perhaps easiest as it was designed to remount) was a packaged show - "Menopause the Musical" my first summer at ASF in 2007, which came with actors, set, sound design - everything but the actual sound designer and engineer. In that instance, it was pretty straight forward. The few cues were self explanatory and the music all pre-recorded. Put body mics on the cast and we were ready to do the show. The challenge in this instance was to adjust the show to the expectations of our own artistic staff... namely the volume. Finding the right balance between artistic sensibilities yet covering ABBA while singing about "the Change of Life" was... "interesting" but came out alright in the end.

Another show we brought in already designed, was 3 Mo Divas. This time, with a sound crew. This show challenged me to explain my sound system's limitations in addition to the artistic expectations to a guest engineer. I learned a lot about giving an guest control of your system - in this instance balcony fills. My advance and system explanation failed in impressing on the engineer that our balcony fills are just that - they are not a balcony cluster. They're also hung in a place where if you try to press them to being a balcony cluster, you interfere with the orchestra level sound. In addition to very odd imaging, you get some cancellation, some strange reflection, and lots of ugly. The engineer went the rounds with the balcony speakers, until they ended up right where they'd started... at a low fill level.

I have had several experiences remounting another designer's show. The first was an original musical "Crowns" and was an odd situation in that the original designer (although not being compensated) was available and in town, and came in to be a part of the remount. I didn't know he was in town until he was there for the company meeting. It all went well, but I often felt awkward when I was asked to make changes. The second remount taught me the most artistically - remounting a design we purchased the rights to for "Three Musketeers." The original designer, a long time friend and colleague, Joe Payne, sent detailed paperwork and the original SFX file. The design included his original score, and was (is) a beautiful, complex sound scape. Joe's natural artistic gift is very unlike my own, so my challenge was to do his design the justice it deserved. I did my best in remounting it as Joe would've presented it. I replicated speaker positions, adjusted levels for the space difference, and attempted to assist the stage manager in call placement. The third show was the most extreme - remounting a sound heavy new work "Bear Country" for it's second performance that had been produced first in the round in a black box, remounting it in a road venue in a proscenium space with limited equipment.

Currently, I'm supervising another remount of that last show, "Bear Country," with the original designer. We're back in a proscenium setting, but at least this go we have enough gear to somewhat replicate what was created in the black box environment. It has been interesting contrasting the choices of the two remounts in such different environments. Many of those choices have been different, but I think I did the production justice under my care. (I certainly hope I did, anyway.)

In November I remounted (and greatly modified) a design for "Peter Pan." The do over was a much better experience and much better product. The other recent experience is remounting my own design of "The Nacirema Society Invites You to a Celebration of Their First One-Hundred Years." The show was first produced at ASF, then after it's three week run closed here in Montgomery, was remounted with it's co-producer The Alliance Theatre, in Atlanta. Again, getting a "do-over" was a great chance to tweak things I wasn't originally completely happy with. It was also a great example of how things can be very space specific. I had one sound cue that drove me crazy and went through upwards of 25 revisions. In the remount, I had planned on being ready for another 10-15, and didn't make one. The sound wasn't perfect, but wasn't so bad that I hated it with a flaming passion as I did the first time.

The biggest thing I've learned where the remount is not to go to extremes - dreading the remount doesn't do me any good, and thinking it'll be a walk in the park isn't the right approach either. And the best part is that unlike life, sometimes you do get a "do over."

Chapter 3 of the Care and Feeding of Wireless Mics... Protecting Mics

2011-01-11T13:00:00.000Z

To condom or not to condom, that is the question. No.. this has nothing to do with sex... I'm talking about wireless mic packs.

This is a much bickered over topic, and both sides have points, but in my experience of the musical, weather you prefer condoms, choose to construct gortex sleeves, or rig mic belts with plastic wrap or sandwich bags, you've go to take some protective measures where mic packs are concerned, because sweat kills. So - bag that puppy - ESPECIALLY with dancers or individuals who sweat a lot. For the average actor, putting a condom or gortex sleeve over the mic pack and folding it over is enough. If you have a profuse sweater however, you're going to need to take greater steps. If you're using condoms, you may want to double bag a pack, since you're using a something tubed shaped on something square, they're far more prone to tear or pop than in their "intended" application. We'll get back to protection in a minute...

Sweat is most damaging at two points - the mic connector (where the mic element connects to the pack) and at the end of the element itself, where the mic actually is. Next is the internal components of the mic pack itself - depending on how the pack is constructed depends on how much moisture is likely to end up on the inside. Finally, sweat can
damage the exterior of the mic element itself. The immediate danger is the moisture itself. Water and electronics do not mix, and mic packs are no exception to the rule. Sweat can also short out the mic element, or if the pack becomes saturated enough, do lasting damage to the pack's circuit boards. Even if you're equipment doesn't fail immediately, problems and damage can result from the salt and minerals that sweat leaves behind. The minerals can build up on the connector, or on the mic itself, restricting the movement of the mic element and changing its sound. The connector can be cleaned out with a good contact cleaner, the head of the element, however, tends to be damaged for good once minerals have built up. Over several shows, the salt and minerals can actually be deposited in such quantity that the mic element can't even move.

Don't believe me? Here's a little experiment to show you what sweat leaves behind. Get some saline solution (over the counter, regular contact solution) which is actually LOWER in salt and mineral content than sweat, and a metal container, like an Altoids box or candy tin. Tinfoil in a small Tupperware container works too. Next, fill the bottom of the container with just enough saline to cover the entire bottom. Let it evaporate. When the water part of the solution is gone - you'll find a lovely white crust at the bottom. That's just with one dose. Imagine how much would be left if you refilled the container every day? or three or four times over a weekend like a mic pack is used during a show! The white crust - that's exactly what sweat can leave on your element connector and INSIDE the mic head. Bad enough when it's in solution, in a dry form it's even worse. The build up itself is physically a problem, never mind salt's long term corrosive effects on metal can be disastrous. Seen what a car long exposed to salt on the road looks like?

Protecting mic packs.In all honesty I don't have a "favorite" method - the two options I'm going to talk about are more workable options that ideal solutions. Each have their shortfalls, but in my experience one of them is a necessary evil. The first is the non-lubricated condom. The pro's of the condom is that they're readily available, sanitary, and require next to no preparation to use. If you're buying in bulk, you can get condoms for under 20 cents a piece. The down sides are, that as mentioned, you're literally , putting something square or rectangular into a tube. Ruptures are going to happen, regardless of brand. Even in bulk, if you have a long running performance with lots of mics, you're looking at a pricey expendable. Although you may be able to reuse a condom once, I wouldn't recommend it - based on the breakage issue, not to mention hygiene. The other option is building re-usable gortex sleeves. These cost more out of the gate, but the whole point is they're reusable. I have made these in the past - the idea constructing a pouch that's just big enough to slip your mic pack in without a hassle. The down side is even though the material is waterproof, you'll still need to waterproof the seams, and will probably need to re-waterproof them anytime the sleeve is washed. Sleeves also are not the most hygienic option as the outside will become repeatedly soaked with sweat. (When I use them I label or otherwise track them so the same actor gets the same sleeve every time rather than passing germs around via mic accessory.)

Precautions often need to be taken with mic elements as well. For the average actor, a piece of medical tape under the head of the element may be all the protection you need. For a profuse sweater, more measures may need to be taken so you're not going through an element every few shows. If you're using a headset or over-ear mic, you are a step ahead as the element 'should' sit away from the skin. However, if the actor wears the element too close to his/her cheek, or is the kind of person who produces a lot of moisture around the hair line, you may still have a problem. Again, step one is a small piece of medical tape under the head of the element to separate it from the skin. For the bucket sweater, you may need to wrap the earpiece with cotton or another absorbent material (like a sweat band for your mic) to keep moisture from running down the length of the element itself and pooling at the end.

Inevitably, even with precautions, elements and packs are going to get sweaty. If you discover a mic element or a pack is soaked, the best way to address it is to get as much of the sweat out as you can BEFORE it dries - and the best way to do that is hit the element or pack with some canned air. If you get the sweat out while it's still liquid, the white
gunk has less of a chance to form. If you have someone who is a profuse sweater, you may want to have a mic wrangler, dresser, ASM, or ask the actor themselves to hit the element with canned air at intermission, or even between scenes to keep it from sweating out.

All for now cats and kittens. Next time I'll show you some low cost, low tech methods of waterproofing mics and elements. Until next time!

Cheers! ~R

Chapter 2 of the Care and Feeding of Wireless Mics... The Mic Pack and Element

2011-01-04T12:00:00.000Z

Happy New Year, ya'll!

Last time I talked about set-up and tuning of your wireless system to get the best results. The next step is making sure the mic pack and accompanying element are placed correctly on your actor.

Starting with the mic pack... There are lots of places a mic pack can live on an actor's body with reasonable comfort. The most common is the small of the back, and the most typical, cost effective, and user friendly rig is simply an elastic waist band with a pouch sewn on to hold the pack. This works in about 50% of applications. However, mic pack placement can become a real challenge if you have a cast who are physically active. If you're doing a lot of lifts, falls, or rolls, the small of the back can not only be a bad place for the health of your mic pack, but can hurt the actor as well. Sometimes simply swinging the pack from the small of the back to the side of the waist can take care of the problems... other times another location needs to be determined all together.

Another thing I recommend, just like laying out your console and planning who gets what mic and element, you should give advance thought to where a mic pack is going to live on the actor when they're in costume. Relying on pack placement when you're in rehearsal can be deceptive since actors rehearsal clothing isn't necessarily what they're wearing in the show. For example if you're doing a a musical in period costume say from the 50's or 60's, and you've got women in authentic or vintage clothing, putting a mic pack in the small of the back may be a physical impossibility based on the structure and fit of the clothing. The same goes for a girl in a corset. If you have a costume designer, look at their renderings and have a discussion with the designer or draper about the clothing and where they think the best place will be to hid a pack. If you're just pulling from stock, talk to your costumer about what folks are wearing so you can be prepared. Also, think about the fact that you want your cast to look as nice as they can, and adding a lump to someone's back in a tight fitting dress or shirt may be more Hunch Back of Notre Dame than Bell of the Ball. Great alternate placements that reduce visibility include under the arm, high on the actor's thigh like a garter, or (though not my favorite choice) in the front of a dance belt. If your actor has a fitted top but a flared coat or big skirts, the hip or gluteus maximus may be an alternative also. All of these locations can be rigged with various elastic configurations for rehearsal. If you have an on-site costume shop with time to help, or you or a crew member can sew, a great route is having pouches sewn onto foundation garments or in costumes themselves. Wherever you place the pack, you want to make sure that both the pack is safe and the actor is comfortable. Whenever possible avoid somewhere that the mic connector and antenna on the pack are going to be subjected to a lot of bending or flexing. Someplace like the hip is great for someone who doesn't dance. It can be both damaging to mic pack, mic element, and actor if they squat or jump. Also, don't be afraid to try someplace unusual. There are times extreme or different placement is necessary. Although I've never had to do it myself, I've known an engineer who had to place a pack in a wig as the actress was naked, another who used a pack with an extra l long element that was worn in a cowboy boot, and another instance where a pack was hidden in the padding of a bra. That must've been one heck of a bra.

After the pack has a home, you need to place the head of the element itself. The "easiest" place on the body for a mic element - the lapel - is also typically the worst sounding. Unless you have an actor who never moves their head, placing an element on a lapel is a bad idea. Yes, wireless mics come with lapel clips. This isn't because that's the best way for a theatrical performer to use them - the lapel clip is intended for reporting or presentational situations - lectures or speeches - i.e. static bodies and controlled environments without much singing or dancing. Lapel placement is also susceptible to a lot more noise from clothing, movement, and feedback. Yes. Feedback. Because the element is farther away from the actors mouth, you have to turn the mic up more. The higher the volume you have, the more likely you are going to ring. Ideal placement of a mic element is low on the cheek, just up from the corner of the mouth - headset mics are designed to accomplish just this. That said, many directors, costume designers, producers, etc. aren't interested in SEEING a mic element that prominently - particularly on a period musical - and the words "but that's what they do on Broadway" don't tend to help. The next best choice is higher up the cheek just beyond the ear, or, if the actor is wigged or has lots of hair naturally, over the center of their head with the element on their forehead.

There are lots of ways to attach mic elements to actors. The most useful, inexpensive starting place is clear medical tape. A few rolls can last you an entire performance, and can be safe to use on the face, neck, and body if necessary. Latex free varieties are common for folks with latex allergies and aren't any more expensive. If you have an actor or dancer who sweats so much that the standard medical tape doesn't stick, you can look at surgical tape or wound tapes/dressings that will stick under hotter/sweatier conditions, although they are, of course, much more expensive. When dealing with young actors with sensitive skin, I've used paper tape to help with the discomfort of removal. (There are also so great adhesive removers available for all ages of cast to help them keep from getting tape gum buildup on their necks and faces.)

If you have headset mics, you won't need much else outside of the tape, as the mics will fit over one or both ears and are self contained.

When dealing with a traditional element, ear pieces can be made or bought, toupee clips (which are designed to clip toupee or other hair pieces on) can be attached to the element with thread or elastic and serve to clip the mic element in into an actor's hair. (Pictured right are three colors of toupee clips - the top "blond" clip with elastic tied to the clip for attaching to an element.) Toupee clips can occasionally be found at beauty supply shops or wig stores, but the best idea is to shop around for them online. They run anywhere from some change to $3 a piece. Don't buy from the first place you find them!

Bobby pins can also be used to the same effect, though they don't stay with the mic had have a tendency to get lost. Both bobby pins or toupee clips are great under wig caps. Although not one of my favorite choices, elements can be attached to a loop or circle of elastic (or even a store bought hair band) and held on that way.

If you're using a mic element with a large head, or a flat head (like the Shure WL93) a great supply to add to your expendables is toupee tape. (Which is a double sided, skin friendly clear tape made for false hair pieces. It's sold in beauty supply stores, wig shops, as well by theatrical suppliers and from all of the above online. A single roll can be a bit pricey, but since you use it in small pieces, you don't need much.) Toupee tape is great cut into small pieces to attach the end of the element to the cheek or forehead. Not only does it keep the element in place, it keeps the "out" side (that is receptive to sound) facing out.

(Pictured above left: three types of toupee tape in rolls. Also sold in strips. Right, a close-up of the tape, and below, views of top-stick tape applied to the back of the head of a Shure WL93 mic element.)

Harking back to Chapter 1 - it's well work taking the time to see what each actor will be wearing (not only as on their bodies) but on their heads to help you plan element placement. Wigs are great to hide elements, but also can be problematic if an element gets tucked up under wig lace or under the wig itself. Make sure that elements are free of hair, wig lace, or jewelry, and is hopefully in a position that doesn't see a lot of sweat. (Sometimes that's about impossible.) Hats are also a challenge for placement as well as EQ.

Once you've settled on a placement, the important thing is that the element goes in EXACTLY the SAME SPOT EVERY TIME. When you're dealing with a lavaliere mic, a few inches can mean a huge difference in volume, which can leave your engineer struggeling with the mix, not knowing what's going on, but knowing something isn't "right." Wig lace, jewelry, and hats can make a lot of unwanted noise. If the element is buried under a wig, you may not get any sound at all. If you are working with an inexperienced cast, it is important to remind them about placement frequently, if not daily, and the mic technician (if you have one) engineer, dresser, or even stage manager should spot check people to make sure the mic element is where it ought to be.

Other mic pack reminders:

Check your mics (element AND pack) EVERY performance. Just because they worked the show before doesn't mean something didn't happen to them when the show was over, or that something wasn't done right during set up. Check not only that the pack works, but that there aren't any kinks, pinches, or other problems with your element. Checking the connector to the element and antenna on the pack are good ideas, too.

Just like a phone, CD player, or any small piece of electronic gear - sudden impact is bad. Don't drop mic packs - and encourage your cast and crew to be mindful of the same.

Always use fresh batteries. Batteries are expensive - but ALWAYS use fresh batteries for each rehearsal/performance. These days, rechargeable batteries are sophisticated enough that they CAN hold enough charge to power a wireless reliably through a performance - IF they're high quality and if they're managed. I recommend using high quality batteries and METERING them EACH TIME to make sure they've charged properly prior to use.

DO NOT have performers turn on and off their own mic packs. Yes, you may be preserving battery life, but what happens if they forget, or get off a switch and turn on the mic pack when it's supposed to be turned off? Mic packs can also encounter interference or reception drop out problems if they're frequently re-powered. Leave the on/off in the hands of your engineer. If your mic packs come equipped with a power lock feature, power lock them. If not, tape the switch so the mic can be inadvertently turned off.

If you don't know how to solder or repair electronics, never open a mic pack. If your pack is under warranty, don't open it if you do! Send it in for a warranty repair.

All for now cats and kittens... Until next time!

Cheers, ~R

The Musical and Chapter 1 of the Care and Feeding of Wireless Microphones

2010-12-28T17:00:00.000Z

I’m sitting to write this blog between projects – cleaning up holiday gunk and writing a strike list. When this blog posts, the ASF Christmas musical, Peter Pan, will be about to launch into its final week of performance, closing with a matinee on New Year’s Eve.

This particular production is my 3^rd trip to the Peter Pan rodeo – the second as a designer, and in a backwards way, the second time as an operator. (I’ll get to that in a minute.) Pan has been THAT show for me… part Pandora’s box, part Scottish Play, part case study of Murphy’s Law… Now, that said, I make no aspersions on the productions themselves. All three productions I’ve been a part of (one at the Utah Shakespearean [now Shakespeare] Festival in 2000, and two at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 2007 and 2010 respectively) have been charming audience pleasers with talented casts and designers. However, my own personal experiences with the first two trips to the Pan Rodeo were nearly enough for me to throw in the theatre towel once and for all. I will forgo the gory details to spare the innocent, or to show mercy to those who suffered with me from reoccurring nightmares, but in summary, both drove me to drink. SO! You can imagine my surprise when the third trip actually started out fairly respectably. And, with only a few per-the course obstacles, opened without me owing my soul to the liquor store. The show still got me in the Murphy’s Law way. Due to unfortunate circumstances, I ended up first being the mic wrangler, then doing playback and orchestra mix for about two. Only on Pan.

This long preamble is a warm up to one of the most talked about sound topics… the musical.

Let me start out by saying that I’m not a musical hater. In fact, many of my favorite shows are musicals. Nor do I think we should stop doing musicals. But speaking from the role of audio supervisor and resident designer in regional theatre, where musicals are the exception, they pose an interesting challenge. 80% or greater of our season is NOT musical. So, what does this really mean for audio? That 20% or less of my season program is a completely different animal. Let me break this down a little more.

As a resident designer who is also the audio supervisor (unlike electrics who have a lighting designer and a master electrician, or the scene shop who has a scene designer and a TD and/or shop foreman) the musical is the show where I’m most challenged by having dual roles, especially as video systems, cue lights, paging, and com are all a part of audio’s responsibility –AND it is a musical that puts all those systems to the test and the type of show that demands that I pay attention to them, yet as a designer, I have the least time to spend on them, since my ears and person are in use from start of tech through opening or longer.

Speaking as a supervisor, the musical is where staffing becomes a challenge. With playback being computer based, any intelligent, reliable person with some theatre experience can run playback with some basic training. Not so with a musical. Having an AUDIO ENGINEER or TWO is crucial. Something I’ve discovered as well, a very crucial personality is the mic wrangler. I can teach the skills necessary for just about anyone with a theatre background to run mics, but I cannot teach them the right personal skills, or change their personality. I’ve been burned by the blanket assumption that I just “need a body” in that role.

The musical is also where my gear is tested. I was incredibly lucky (blessed) to walk into a well geared department when I came to ASF. That said, it’s gear primarily for playback, with additions made to accommodate musicals. With the scale of the musical shows ASF is producing, I have to get creative. For example, the largest console I own is 40 channel board, with a 32 channel right behind it. With body mics and orchestra support numbering in the 80’s, I need 3 boards before we even add playback to the tally.

And then there are the mics themselves… the primary audio component in a musical. And wireless mics are, like so many things in technology, wonderful when they work, and you’re worst nightmare when they don’t.

So that’s REALLY what I want to talk about… and answer some of the most common questions I get. Some of what I’m going to share may be old hat if you’re an engineer/designer with several musicals under your belt. If you’re just starting out in sound, a lot of what I’m about to say probably reads like Japanese. But either way, I hope it’s
some useful information:

Chapter One in the care and feeding of wireless microphones – set-up.

The first place designers and engineers go wrong when using wireless is in the set-up process. And nothing misbehaves more so than a neglected wireless mic.

First off, know your gear. If you’re using a type or brand microphones for the first time, or a make and model you aren’t familiar with, get familiar. Look at the instruction manual. (If you don’t have one, you can probably find one online.) If you're like me, and don’t use wireless every show, a little brush up before hand certainly doesn’t hurt even though I’ve been using the same series of wireless mics since college. Make changes and adjustment with a mic system - make sure you know what your system is capable of and how to use its features – long before the pressure of tech. With the 700 MHz ban of the FCC, I just bought a new bank of wireless mics. They have a heck of a lot more bells and whistles than the older systems we own, so I took a little time and read up. Glad I did – it saved me time and stress.

And time is always an issue in theatre – but there are things that are worth taking or making time for – and enough time to set-up and test your wireless system is one of them. After reviewing my gear, I make sure that my crew and I have adequate in space time to set-up and test everything we’re going to use. I’ve opted to work alternate calls (evenings or late nights) during load-in in order to accommodate the time I need rather than forgo set-up time. I have never regretted that choice.

The place to start is antenna/receiver placement. Many theatres were built without a musical mix position in mind, so wireless mic racks often live in dark corners under balconies, or stuffed into alcoves in the wings. Every wireless system is different, so that situation may be ok. On the other hand, it may be a guarantee for signal drop-out before your actors see the stage. If you have the budget/rental option to use powered antennas, do so – then you just have to find a home for the antennas rather than an entire rack. If you’re stuck with using the antennas on the mic receiver units themselves, the rule of thumb is line of sight. This means the dark corner under the balcony is only ok if the rack is high enough to clear all that metal hidden in your theatre seats – not to mention all the bodies and respective pieces of technology your audience may bring into the theatre with them. One of the best ways to find the “sweet spot” in your building is to simply power your system up and try your receivers in different places – see where you get the best reception. As long as you can get a snake there to pick up audio, try to find what works best. It may not be where you think… as was the case at the Utah Shakes. Wireless manuals will tell you that company switches, dimmers, and other places where building power run are bad for reception. Except that in the indoor space, the best location for reception is offstage behind the stage right torm – right next to a breaker panel.

Following reception, an absolute key to wireless performance is frequency selection. Preselect frequencies and check them. There are great resources online about picking frequencies – many of them from mic manufacturers, which is a great place to start. All towns/cities/buildings have frequency issues. Newer model wirelesses often have frequency scanning to check for open frequencies too. If they do, take advantage of the feature. Either way, once you have your mics set, turn them all on and check them for common problems in a controlled environment, so you know what your hearing IS or ISN’T a frequency issue.

On the same line, have your gear prepared well in advance. It sounds kind of basic, but know your show, and know your cast. It’s a lot easier to choose the right mics elements if you know what the actor looks like, not to mention when that actor does what and when. If you have 10 actors who need mics, make sure you have 10 wireless mic packs with elements tuned to 10 receivers that are labeled with those actor’s names or characters long before you’ll ever need to mic them up (plus a spare or two). Don’t leave mic pack assignments and element choices to the day of or on a “as you hand it out” basis. That’s a great way to get really confused. The bigger the show, the more important this is. For my current show of Pan, we’re running 30 wireless mics and three spares. Had I gone into tech without knowing what mic pack was what and who was wearing what element, we would still be trying to get the mix right a month after opening.

Pre-gain your mic systems. Sure, you’re going to make adjustments once you have the actual actor in the pack, but it’s a lot easier to have a place to start from that the sensitivity of the mic is gained appropriately on the pack and isn’t pegging out a receiver, or receiving so little signal you don’t even know if the pack is working or not.

Plan your console mic layout. Figure out (by actor or character) the mics you’re going to use together, and the mics you’ll use the most. Group them on the end of the console or center of the console – whatever makes the most sense based on if you’re left or right handed, where your masters are, and the size of your board. Yes this really makes a difference, especially if you’re mixing on the fly with an analogue console. For example, in Peter Pan, Wendy and the two Darling Boys Michael and John are often in scenes together. Wendy and Peter Pan also have several scenes together. So it makes logical sense to put Wendy’s mic between the boys and Peter on the console.

Once you’ve set up everything and tested the components, fire everything up once more and test it all again. If it’s done in advance, the first day tech can be about setting EQ and fine tuning gain – a much lower stress situation than scrambling to get things working.

That’s all for now, cats and kittens. Another installment in the care and feeding of wireless mics next week. Cheers until next time. ~R

Sounding Off

2010-12-20T03:07:36.000Z

I'm a theatre professional - mostly sound. I write. I spend a lot of time on the net. So I'm going to combine the three, and write about theatre sound via a TheatreFace blog. To introduce myself (in a nutshell): My bachelor's is in technical theatre from Southern Utah University with emphasis in sound, electrics, and stage management. I joined the Alabama Shakespeare Festival as resident sound designer in 2007. I've designed sound for over 20 productions in my tenure at ASF, and have also designed for companies including The Alliance Theatre, the 13th Street Ensemble, Birmingham Festival Theatre, and was resident sound designer (and master electrician) for the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Department of Theatre. I've worked with companies including The Alabama Ballet, The Alys Stephen's Center, The American Folk Ballet, Nevada Dance Theatre, and The Utah Shakespearean Festival. First off, though I've got a lot of field experience, I'm not an expert. I don't have ALL the answers. What I DO have is a lot of stories, and I certainly have lots of ideas and opinions. That said, I'll write about what I'm doing, and the interesting/odd/difficult/cool things that come up in the day to day, show to show life of a theatre designer. I'll try to keep of the soap box, but no promises... Hopefully some other theatre folk out there will be interested in what I've got to say, and maybe share some experiences of their own. Do sound too? What do you want to hear about? Maybe more importantly, what do you NOT want to read about? Give me a shout. Until next time... ~R