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Post by Nelly on Feb 9, 2016 10:35:42 GMT
The Les Mis (or should that be Les Miz, as it sounds like a US cast) video is fascinating. It looks so complicated, I'm amazed there aren't more screw-ups. I've never heard any really bad mistakes, just sometimes mics coming in late so the first word or two of a line is not amplified (and one of the advantages to sitting at the front as much as possible is being able to hear lines even if the mics are late). Might be the pedant in me and coming from a technical background but i'd actually count line drops as a really bad mistake haha! |
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Post by firefingers on Feb 10, 2016 0:18:32 GMT
The Les Mis (or should that be Les Miz, as it sounds like a US cast) video is fascinating. It looks so complicated, I'm amazed there aren't more screw-ups. I've never heard any really bad mistakes, just sometimes mics coming in late so the first word or two of a line is not amplified (and one of the advantages to sitting at the front as much as possible is being able to hear lines even if the mics are late). Might be the pedant in me and coming from a technical background but i'd actually count line drops as a really bad mistake haha! Personally I think it depends on the bit of the show they are in. Clipping a line in La Vie Boheme is understandable due to the pace of the thing. Clipping a line in Bring Him Home, not so much... |
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Post by Phantom of London on Feb 17, 2016 1:05:18 GMT
So each actor has their own mic. So why have this and not just have mic, fixed to the stage like sometimes you see.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2016 6:09:01 GMT
So each actor has their own mic. So why have this and not just have mic, fixed to the stage like sometimes you see. It's a combination of the inverse square law and that it's easy to mix separate sounds but difficult or impossible to separate mixed sounds. With a mic on a person you get constant volume and the advantage of the mic picking up the person far more than any nearby sounds such as other performers, footsteps, and so on. With fixed mics at the front of the stage the performers get louder or softer as they move around, you can't pick up one person preferentially over everything else, and there are phase differences in the signals picked up by each mic that throw their own frequency-dependent highs and lows into the mix. Fixed mics provide a boost to the volume but little else; individual mics offer control. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2016 13:24:50 GMT
So each actor has their own mic. So why have this and not just have mic, fixed to the stage like sometimes you see. Going back a long time but I have a video of an early seventies West End show (Danny La Rue at the Palace) which, as was often the case at the time, had a few fixed mics at the front of the stage. The show had to be choreographed so that whoever sang got to one of those microphones in time (not always successfully). Also, before radio mics I recall the original Jesus Christ Superstar (on tour in Manchester, the first big show I ever saw) where they all had mics with leads, that must have been a logistical nightmare trying to avoid them getting knotted up. I seem to recall that a mic lead was used for the 40 lashes. |
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Post by Phantom of London on Feb 17, 2016 16:11:16 GMT
Thanks all very intersting.
So just to move the subject on a bit further, what about gun shots in a show, is there different levels of gun shots in loudness? Who are responsible for these? How loud is a gun shot? What's the difference in loudness between a real on stage one and one that is done via the soundboard?
Maybe here a weird question to ask, but I am a fella over 6ft and petrified of some gun shots, I cover my ears in Les Mis and Phantom as I know these are coming.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2016 16:58:46 GMT
So each actor has their own mic. So why have this and not just have mic, fixed to the stage like sometimes you see. Going back a long time but I have a video of an early seventies West End show (Danny La Rue at the Palace) which, as was often the case at the time, had a few fixed mics at the front of the stage. The show had to be choreographed so that whoever sang got to one of those microphones in time (not always successfully). Also, before radio mics I recall the original Jesus Christ Superstar (on tour in Manchester, the first big show I ever saw) where they all had mics with leads, that must have been a logistical nightmare trying to avoid them getting knotted up. I seem to recall that a mic lead was used for the 40 lashes. The hand-held mics in Superstar, yes... and there were also three at the front which rose and disappeared again on stands as if by magic for the principal singers. Look carefully at my avatar and you'll see them! The Arrest was always very interesting as it featured pairs of reporters singing into one mic, and there were leads all over the shop. Never in my years of seeing the production did they ever get tangled though... And the mic lead was indeed used by Pilate for the 39 lashes (it would have become tangled on the 40th!) |
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Post by Nelly on Feb 17, 2016 17:45:38 GMT
Thanks all very intersting. So just to move the subject on a bit further, what about gun shots in a show, is there different levels of gun shots in loudness? Who are responsible for these? How loud is a gun shot? What's the difference in loudness between a real on stage one and one that is done via the soundboard? Maybe here a weird question to ask, but I am a fella over 6ft and petrified of some gun shots, I cover my ears in Les Mis and Phantom as I know these are coming. It really depends on how it's done. There's a few different ways this can be achieved, a gun onstage with a cap (small bit of gunpowder) in, a sound effect or a totally separate off-stage pyro explosion. Until very,very recently, Les Mis' gunshots were all fired from a pyro room above the dress circle, stage right. So that's why the sound was never the same for them. Some would miss-fire and make an odd or dull noise. |
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Post by Dawnstar on Feb 29, 2016 21:41:33 GMT
I was thinking about this thread last week when Showstopper was at my local theatre. I saw 5 of the 7 shows and not once do I remember hearing a mic error. So does anyone know how a sound operator would go about mixing an improvised show? I mean, it's not as if they know who will be speaking when as they would do on most shows where everyone's saying the same lines each night. Would they just turn an actor's mic on when they enter & leave it on the whole time until they exit? And at one point someone did a voiceover from offstage, how would the sound operator know that was about to happen?
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