The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

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burtond
Michael
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Re: The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

Post by burtond »

Well have to say that Audio tonight was as bad as I've ever known it:

At least 13 missed cues
Whole Sections of BOOMING voices
Sections of mixed BOOMING voices and normal levels
Ensemble single where one or two cast members voices were heard clearly well above the rest and then adjusted downwards.

Not sure how all this can be explained by the cue system defined at the beginning of this thread. Seems to me there is still a lot of manual intervention required and we have people on the sound desk who are not familiar enough with the show.
An ex-Regular and someone who was Passionate about the show but who has now found the rest of the WEST END.
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johnnyc
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Re: The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

Post by johnnyc »

See what happens when I announce I'm not coming to London for the cast leaving show? The company loses focus, :cry: and the whole production starts falling apart at the seams. Sigh. :cry:
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burtond
Michael
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Re: The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

Post by burtond »

Even worse than last night in places tonight.

First scene, Michael wasn't picked up at all - all his lines were totally lost.
An ex-Regular and someone who was Passionate about the show but who has now found the rest of the WEST END.
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johnnyc
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Re: The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

Post by johnnyc »

Let's all hope whatever is wrong gets fixed by 27 November. It would be ghastly if that evening performance were to be ruined. :cry:
Steamboy
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Re: The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

Post by Steamboy »

I just got home from a month or so working out of town, and found this thread. Feel free to pm me when something like this comes up...

The combined cuing mentioned near the top of the thread is known as show control, where a stage manager is attempting to control everything through one system that then talks to all the other systems, lights, sound, automation, etc. When everything is set up right, and nothing goes wrong, they're a great time and labor saver, and do a lot for delivering a consistent show from night to night. However, when things go wrong, it can be next to impossible for one person to sort it out fast enough, so there's a danger in relying too much on the gadgetry.

In theater, anything that needs to happen at a certain moment can be called a 'cue', which is pretty much everything. The stage managers are most needed to cue multiple things that need to happen simultaneously (for example, end of EY... Michael does his last move, and the followspot goes out, the stage lights black out, the music stops, curtains start flying out, etc.), especially when the various operators can't see what's happening onstage. Delivering the command to the various crews can be accomplished by show control, turning indicator lights on and off, or verbally over the intercom ('Warning Lights 27 through 31, sound J through L, flyrail 14... Lights 27, Sound J, and Flyrail 14 Go... Sound K Go.... Lights 28 and Sound L Go.... Lights 29 Go....")

For sound, how the sound is mixed is a little different each night. Differences in temperature, humidity, and how full the auditorium is will affect how the system sounds, not to mention swapping different actors in and out, plus the actors themselves aren't always consistent about how loudly they say their lines. Unlike lights and scenery, which are completely repeatable from night to night, sound has to be finessed each performance. Modern digital consoles can be preprogrammed like a lighting console, going from scene to scene and changing which mics are active and adjusting the basic equalization (even moving the faders (control handles) to the right spot with little motors), but there's still a lot of hands-on work for a sound op.

Trying to make each line a separate programmed cue would be unwieldy, so a more common approach is to have each mic for a scene active at a low level, with the operator manually sliding the fader up to catch each line, and back down at the end of the line. Works great if the operator knows the show, but if they aren't sufficiently familiar yet, a lot of short lines and first words get lost while the op realizes who's speaking and remembers which fader to move. This kind of sounds like what's been happening lately, so they must be breaking in some new operators.

If one actor is left totally out of a scene, that suggests a problem with their individual mic, either it's physically broken, not turned on or left muted (a big no-no, touching the switches), or the sound system wasn't reconfigured properly to include that person's mic when the daily cast changes were made (mics are sometimes dedicated to an actor, not a role, and all of them are on different radio frequencies, plus the receivers are plugged into the sound system on separate channels, so if you're bringing up the channel for yesterday's actor, today's won't be heard).

Like any other role in a show, there's the a-list operators and the in-training and b-list operators, and the hierarchy is very much like principals and alternates/understudies are for the actors. It would be unusual for 'important' shows, or weekend evening performances in general, to be run by anyone who hadn't learned the show correctly yet.

Occasionally, the equipment itself causes failures. I can remember hearing of at least one performance at the VPT that was canceled during the interval, because the sound board's computer crashed and wouldn't boot back up. Speakers and amplifiers can blow without warning, and wireless mics are capable of acting up in innumerable ways. If the crew's good, and the problem can be traced and isolated, often workarounds can be put into place while the show continues to run. Sometimes the problems are harder to locate, or are unfixable.

Usually, a cause for a sound problem can be heard, if you know what to watch or listen for. It's even easier to spot missed cues when you're as familiar with the show as most of us are, so you're able to see when an actor skips a line or something else unusual happens.
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patc
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Re: The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

Post by patc »

Thanks, Steamboy, for your very interesting and informative input on this subject.

Armed now with all this info what, perhaps, puzzles me most is that it is often the case that it is the "simplest" lines that are missed whereas a scene like the pre-Angry Dance Kitchen scene which has loads of sound effects and lines (including many fast-paced lines) for George, Dad, Tony, Grandma, Mrs. W, Big Davey, Tony's girlfriend etc., always seems to work fine.

I have drawn two conclusions, the first of which I have already mentioned that it's a miracle that any line at all gets heard during a show.
Secondly, if knowledge of the script is so essential maybe the company should advertise for their sound people on this Forum :idea: . However, one shall not be applying for the job oneself :D as it would almost certainly involve one having to take ones eyes off the stage at various points during the show which one would not be able (or prepared) to do.

Pat
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Steamboy
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Re: The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

Post by Steamboy »

The 'one mic at a time' method is merely one way to approach sound, and is the one that gives the cleanest results. For group scenes with rapid, overlapping lines, it's still considered ok to have several mics open at once, figuring that it's better to deal with a little dirtiness than to miss lines. The scenes where the single mic method works best (or is easiest to deal with) are two and three person scenes, but they're also the scenes that make missing lines stand out the most.
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patc
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Re: The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

Post by patc »

I don't want to tempt fate but, in the interest of fair play, I think it should be recorded that the problems appear to have been sorted out.

Pat
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Billy Whiz
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Re: The actors' mic system in BETM and elsewhere

Post by Billy Whiz »

patc wrote:I don't want to tempt fate but, in the interest of fair play, I think it should be recorded that the problems appear to have been sorted out.

Pat
That's torn it :D :D ;)
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