shug Posted November 26, 2009 Report Share Posted November 26, 2009 Hi everyone, i find myself with two similar jobs coming up that i would like some advice on. i recently did a show; it was a choir competition. There were three judges, a presenter and then different choirs came on and sang. The judges and the presenter were wired with lavs (two hard wired and two wireless) and i had two schoeps cmc mk41 in a stereo pair for the choirs. all channels came into my allen and heath desk and recorded onto a 788t. it was one of those days where everything sounded great. so we are moving onto the final of the show but there will be a difference this time. an audience. my concern now is that the audience will have to hear what the judges and the presenters are saying. we are filming in a theatre and i can split all the signals so i can send what i'm getting to the front of house. my worry is that in order for the audience to hear the presenter through the front of house his mic level will be raised and it will cause feedback. i am using DPA 4060 as my lav mics. am i being overly concerned about the feedback (it is a large auditorium with a small audience and a line array flown type PA) issue? how do chat shows normally deal with audience foldback? as always your wise words are much appreciated, Hugh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Toline Posted November 27, 2009 Report Share Posted November 27, 2009 Hi everyone, i find myself with two similar jobs coming up that i would like some advice on. i recently did a show; it was a choir competition. There were three judges, a presenter and then different choirs came on and sang. The judges and the presenter were wired with lavs (two hard wired and two wireless) and i had two schoeps cmc mk41 in a stereo pair for the choirs. all channels came into my allen and heath desk and recorded onto a 788t. it was one of those days where everything sounded great. so we are moving onto the final of the show but there will be a difference this time. an audience. my concern now is that the audience will have to hear what the judges and the presenters are saying. we are filming in a theatre and i can split all the signals so i can send what i'm getting to the front of house. my worry is that in order for the audience to hear the presenter through the front of house his mic level will be raised and it will cause feedback. i am using DPA 4060 as my lav mics. am i being overly concerned about the feedback (it is a large auditorium with a small audience and a line array flown type PA) issue? how do chat shows normally deal with audience foldback? as always your wise words are much appreciated, Hugh Going to a cardioid lav would help a lot in controling feed back or you could use something like a Countryman Earset where the mic is on a thin boom at the side of the mouth. That setup will give you 6-8db more gain before feedback. Another option is a handheld cardioid or hyper cardiod wireless mic. Eric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Mayer Posted November 27, 2009 Report Share Posted November 27, 2009 Hugh, I talked to a friend of mine who works on a big-name talk show. He says they use DPA 4061 Omni's -- the cardiods were too problematic on head turns. All the stage mics go to PA which are single speakers flying over the entire audience area. They just use the board EQ to go after the offending ring frequencies. Granted, they have had a lot of time to make it just so, and their FOH guy is just amazing at doing this by ear. It will really all depend on the auditorium FOH guys. Hopefully they know their space and equipment well and can ring out the house without needing too much time. It might be better if they got a split of all the mics and did their own house PA mix so that they can EQ the mics individually instead of doing one EQ for t mix you feed them. ---Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted November 27, 2009 Report Share Posted November 27, 2009 cardioid lavs are also more sensitive to contact noises... I'd take the omni lavs the show is accustomed to, on individual (split) feeds if possible. depending on the shows production values (read: budget) I might even include an automixer --the Dugan is the industry favorite-- and I'd include a feedback killer in the PA's output; my current favorite is the dbx, available standalone or as a part of the Driverack-PA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Tuffrey Posted November 28, 2009 Report Share Posted November 28, 2009 You can't be too concerned as a bad pa will ruin your day. Line array is not a bad thing as long as the volume is kept to a minimum and obviously eq'd to reduce the resonances. Then eq each mic for the pa at foh if there are splits. Generally making them a bit peaky and knocking out the powerful low mids should get your voices across to the audience with minimal colouration from pa spill. It's not about warmth with the pa mix but rather it's intelligibility that counts. Warmth and fullness of tone will be more likely to cause pa spill. It's low level feedback long before howl round which you need to avoid. You will hear the strange effect of pa spill on monitors before the pa guys hear it. I find a limiter over the pa will help to stop sudden transient peaks from occurring. Cardioid lavs tend to pop and suffer from wind issues from the breath too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Perkins Posted November 28, 2009 Report Share Posted November 28, 2009 There's nothing that says that the the PA and the recording have to use the same mics. Let the PA use dynamic vocal mics on stands, whatever, and you can stick with your lavs. Lavs in the PA, esp if the people wearing them are moving around, are very hard to deal with no matter how much gear you have. Philip Perkins Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Howland CAS Posted November 28, 2009 Report Share Posted November 28, 2009 I remember going to tapings of both Leno here in LA and the Conan Show when he was still in new york and one common thing I noticed was that, in both situations, the level of the lavs over the house speakers was EXTREMELY LOW! The volume was so low that you had to be very quiet in the audience if you wanted to hear the talent at all. They also had many small speakers mounted over the audience rather than fewer large speakers. I'm sure that made a difference and reduced the chance of feedback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikewest Posted November 30, 2009 Report Share Posted November 30, 2009 Worked in many audience shows in the UK years ago The sound mixer had control of the PA level and we were generally using studio booms. From memory the feed to the PA was through a compressor to take the edge off. You justn need to make sure level on then PA is ok and that if any ringing happens pull the level back. Lavs will give you a big advantage so tight rig them high to the mouths not low down. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shug Posted December 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 2, 2009 Hey guys, Thanks for all the responses, this forum is so good! my first show is in a huge concert hall with a very small audience. had a good chat with the FOH guy there and he says he does conferences there using DPA (4060) with no problems (that is the three judges for the show sorted). they just keep them low in the PA and it works. also i am going to wire the presenter with a DPA and i've convinced them to use a handheld cardioid wireless mic which i think i will just send to the front of house. i feel happy with that situation. Coincidently the next show i am doing (a pilot for a chat show) is in the same complex but in a very different type of room. (not the type of room that one would normally film a chat show, it is just for the pilot). It is the completely opposite type of acoustic space. you know in big theaters you often have small performance spaces, that's where this is. the room does sound like a bathroom, is very small and has speakers hi up in the air that the talent are going to be in front of (not good for feedback). Some good points were raised by LA soundmixer. i'm thinking that all you can do is raise the volume of the lavs until before the point of feedback and if it's not very loud that people have to listen (the space is so small that it shouldn't be a problem hearing people without the PA). also Philip you raise a good point that what goes to the front of house need not be the same microphones that are being recorded with. on chat shows you always see table mics which i presume are used only for the front of house (am i right or are they backups for lav failure?). what kind of mics are these table mics normally (some kind of podium shotgun?). On another note the wireless i'm hiring are shure UR series which i haven't used before but they look suitably expensive to be good (you get what you pay for Senator!). thanks for the input and discussion, Hugh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Mallery Posted December 2, 2009 Report Share Posted December 2, 2009 I've seen all different kinds of mics used as podium/desk mics. I know on the big awards shows they often use Schoeps. I've heard the Shure MX418DC and thought they sounded pretty decent for what they are. One thing to keep in mind, you should have a mic or two for the audience too. You want to record their reactions & applause and have them as an option for mixing in post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 2, 2009 Report Share Posted December 2, 2009 in that small reverberant space, you may want to set up your own SR speakers... the Shure R series is quite good, and very popular in SR use... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Blankenship Posted December 2, 2009 Report Share Posted December 2, 2009 Just a heads-up... I find the Shure wireless to have too much noise for my tastes. They appear to be optimized for live performance use (i.e. singing and other loud signals) rather than low level dialog. You may wish to arrange to "try before you buy" (figuratively speaking). John B. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shug Posted December 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 2, 2009 Hey john, thanks for the heads up. Do you really think they have too high a noise floor. I was wondering why I had not heard of them being used in TV before. I'm really hoping they would work because it is impossible to rent radios in Dublin. I have two lectrosonic myself and four sennheiser g2 but I just couldn't trust the g2 in that kind of situation. Would you find the shure to be noisier than a sennheiser g2? Thanks John, hugh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Blankenship Posted December 3, 2009 Report Share Posted December 3, 2009 Would you find the shure to be noisier than a sennheiser g2? The ones I tried several years ago were the portable diversity receivers (and three or four different transmitters). That was before I had any Lectros or G2s. I found the Shure to be too noisy for dialog and sold them. I've gone through many upgrades since then, so I'm not sure I could give them a fair comparison. My memory-sense is that they were quite a bit noisier. The ones you have available my be a different model and may perform differently but I wanted to give you a "head's up." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 3, 2009 Report Share Posted December 3, 2009 The movie industry (film-video) is not Shure's target, they sell tons to musicians and SR, and are trying to get a bigger piece of stage... that said, the R series is quite good, and several generations beyond their last attempt at a portable (aka ENG) system. Shure's current products RX's all require external power, though mostly DC, and they are not built for the rigors of Production sound, and are happiest installed, or at least in racks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Steigerwald Posted December 3, 2009 Report Share Posted December 3, 2009 I've been using 8 channels of the UR4D series with both lav and stick mics quite happily for the last couple months on this show. I don't have any experience with their ENG receivers, but the studio stuff is rock solid and sounds great. Shure's current products .. are not built for the rigors of Production sound .. I've toured their gear all over the world without a single hiccup. Your mileage may vary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted December 3, 2009 Report Share Posted December 3, 2009 " I've toured their gear all over the world without a single hiccup. " and you are not alone! their stuff is great sounding and solid. but as you noted, their current RX's are not battery portables, suitable for bags or hops... their wireless systems are currently not targeting "our" niche... For a couple of years, recently, Shure even stopped exhibiting at NAB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shug Posted December 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2009 That's great news about the Shure wireless. i understand it is not suitable for portable or cart based applications but i'm going to be sitting down for this one in a studio type situation so it should serve me well. i have back up just incase Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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