Band in Orchestra Pit

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

I agree on the 2 basses, we have no idea why she wants two, apparantly there are two bass parts, I shall have words.

 

My main concern is feedback, the room is not great acoustically and even with eq being done well still has feedback problems. Do you think, as a comprimise they would run through their own amps, giving them some "proper sound", but then if I split off before hand and take a D.I. feed to the FOH PA, so I don't need to mic the amps and risk feedback, or would that make things worse?

 

I will look into headphones for monitoring.

 

I will try and look at blocking off the drum kit, but all depends on space to do so.

 

Thanks for the input, great advice.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[Oddball]

We took a production of Godspell to Edinburgh this year and had a silent pit and it worked fairly well.

 

Drums: V-Drums (Electronic) Stereo DI

2x Keys - Stereo DI Each

Bass DI

Electric Guitar through processor -> DI

MD Microphone (On a cheap headset we got from maplins) -> DI

 

Everything from the band was sent to the front of house mix.

 

Also, the link outs on all the DI's (apart from the MD's mic and drums) were plugged into a cheapo 4 channel behringer headphone amplifier.

 

A mono aux was sent from front of house with a band mix which also went into the headphone amplifier and each band member could mix the level of the full band against their own level in their own headphones. Luckily the V-Drums has an aux in, so the drummer had his headphones plugged straight into the drums and had his own volume there.

 

Worked a treat and made sound checking and loading in and out (around 20 minute load-in allowed every day for 20 days) a lot easier!

[Ben Langfeld]

Unless you've got some really serious problems, a mic on a guitar cab will very rarely feed back.

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

Suppose, now I've thought about it, it is so close to such a loud source, the level I would need would be minimal.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[paulears]

I suspect you should hire some d-microphones to reduce the level of the amps, rather than enhance them! Expect the guitarists to insist on setting 11 on the scale 1 to 10, and to then say they can't play at the volume you need (and truthfully, not be able to play at their level, either - but volume disguises a multitude of poor musicianship areas.

 

{/musomiserable mode off}

[Jivemaster]

If you have responsibility for all the sound then you must get the vocals over the band, elec guitars will NEED amp or emulator to sound right, bass and keys should DI ok. If it's a quiet pit the musos will need a monitor mix.

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

With regarding micing the amps, if I have the mics available to me, I may as well mic the amps, but no neccesarily use them. I normally D.I. bass and keys anyway, so that wouldn't be a problem.

 

I think a d-microphone comprises of me with a baseball bat standing in the pit, anyone daring to turn up their amps gets a whack! ** laughs out loud **.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[Bobbsy]

Paulears is completely right about the inability of most amateur musicians to play quietly. Not being a muso myself, it's not something I fully understand...but it's certainly true.

 

However, strangely enough, I've often found that miking and amplifying a band often seems to help them control their levels, especially if you take the time to get the monitoring just right. I suspect this is to do with them: a) being able to hear themselves properly and, b) having the psychological effect of knowing they're in the mix, thereby not thinking they need to belt it out. I know that miking an already loud band seems counterintuitive, but it does often seem to help!

 

....I still suggest some sound baffles and headsets for monitoring though!

 

Bob

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

Right, headsets and baffles are on my list to sort out. I will probably use some sm 57's if they are adamant on using their own amps. I think those V amps look good, but I won't have time to faff around with it, and if the musos have never used one, I think they could be more trouble than they are worth.

 

With regards to headsets, what kind are normally used, are we talking super high quality headphones (money + school = no), or will any do, as long as they have a long enough cable. Surely musos don't like wearing them, for me it would be really weird, as I play the trumpet.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[Bobbsy]

When I've done school/youth theatre stuff with headsets, I've always told them to bring their own (and made sure I had a pocket full of adaptors to plug mini-jack headsets into a quarter inch socket. I also make sure I have enough coily headphone extensions). As I say, I provide a couple of proper headphone amps so they can control their own levels...the ones I use allow for a choice of 2 mixes, so with 2 amps I can have up to 4 monitor feeds.

 

As for the musicians liking them, in my experience they do if I take care in setting up a really good mix for them. Also, I wasn't joking when I said the musicians thought they looked "cool". A bit of "appeal to vanity" never hurts!

 

Bob

[bruce]

Paulears is completely right about the inability of most amateur musicians to play quietly. Not being a muso myself, it's not something I fully understand...but it's certainly true.

 

With many musos - especially very "amateur" ones - there's a subconscious association between "louder" and "better". Add to that that certain instruments are more difficult to play quietly...

 

But more importantly, it's often a confidence thing. Amateur musicians may not be used to working with anything bar local amplification, and will be "expecting" their own sound to be far louder than anything else, so that by the time it reaches the audience along with the separately-amplified vocals, it will be more balanced.

 

I'd also reinforce JSB's comments - think carefully about whether you really need to mic the band. I recently ran sound for "little shop of horrors" in a school, using a 5-piece band of decent musicians. All of the kit was easily DI-able, however after some faffing around, we decided that the best overall effect was obtained by letting the band be "self sufficient". The only feed I took from them was from the lead keyboards, which I sent to the monitors. I also occasionally routed some of this to the main PA during "just vocal+piano" numbers, but for the most part the band were entirely unmiced.

[Dj Dunc]

What I do if I need recordings etc, is use the players amps, but only if they have a direct out, or line out. if this is so, then I can get them to play on earphones almost all the time, so therefore I have control of the sound at all times, and the players have control of their hearing volume, whilst having the quality of the guitar amp at all times.

 

dunc

[dfinn]

Hi,

 

Some great feedback from you guys, I will have words tomorrow to see if headsets are a possibility. Can anyone recommend any headphone amplifiers? Seen some cheapies but don't know if they have the functions I would require i.e. 2 ch for direct feed and mix feed.

 

Thanks,

 

Daniel

[Ben Langfeld]

Behringer do an 8 channel rackmount amplifier with a main input and individual inputs to each channel. Might be worth having a look at that.

[TAG1960]

Check out Behringer and Samson in the Studiospares catalogue, or on line www.studiospares.com . Both make very affordable headphone amps. I Use a Samson S-amp 4channel box...under £40.00 !!