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| TheWitch |
MicsDoes any one know of a good place online to perchase some head mics? The theatre that we're going to be working with has a crap tech guy and he bought a ton lapel(sp?) mics like one would have for a talk show. And if you use them in a show you can hear pretty much every thing but the actors voice including their breathing and their costumes shifting. I've lsearched through google but would like to know people personal opinians. |
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| Celeste_SM |
What kind of belt packs do you have? | ||||
| kiwitechgirl |
You can convert lapel mics to head mics without too much difficulty - if they're on the head then you lose all the costume noise. There are a few ways to do it; make wires that fit around the ear, cover them with Leukoplast tape and tape the mic to that; attach thin elastic to them so the mic sits on the person's forehead; make "Madonna" mic headsets out of wire and tape the mic to that if you want it near the mouth, or use hairpins to secure the mic at the front of the hair. Personally I like the ear-wire method best, as once you've got the wire to fit the person it's very easy to fit the mic nightly - a couple more pieces of Leukoplast and it's fastened in place. Decent mics are expensive, but with some time and care you can make cheap ones sound OK. | ||||
| TheWitch |
well according to one of the producers of BatB (which only just closed at that theater) the lapel mics will pick up anything but the actor's voice if placed on the forehead or ear. I dunno. | ||||
| kiwitechgirl |
That sounds odd to me, as almost every musical I've ever been involved with has put the mics there! If they're placed on the head you get the added advantage of bone resonance as well, so theoretically it should be far better. Sounds to me like the mics are not properly set up - a bad sound technician can make a well-mic'd person sound terrible... |
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| TheWitch |
that could very well be it. Once we get to the theater within the next to weeks I'll test them out myslef. Thanks. | ||||
| pish123c |
Lapel mics, or body mics as some call them work just fine if they are worked properly.
You'd obviously need sound people adjusting them almost around the clock, but they work really well. Most people (including Broadway) usually run them through someones hair and have it poking out to their forehead a bit if they have a hat or wig on. Otherwise, unless it's like, RIGHT NEXT to the persons shirt, putting it on their collar should work fine... |
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| Mazz |
There's a difference between big bulbous conference mics and proper body mics, though - the former tend to be more directional, the latter more sensitive because the design assumes that someone giving a lecture will not mind their mic being visible, and have it positioned to point at their mouth from somewhere convenient on their clothing, and theatrical mics expect to be hidden so are more sensitive. If your budget can stretch, try to get some contact heads - they're the most expensive, and the best. The head itself is flat on one side, in expectation that you'll tape it onto the side of a sinus(cheekbone or forehead) from which it will pick up the vibrations directly. They also don't pick up much ambient noise, for obvious reasons. | ||||
| TheWitch |
No it really doesn't. You hear breathing and the costumes moving and sometimes you even hear them swallowing. I actually don't need that many mics. I'm planning on doing Cabaret and want a distinct difference of sound from songs performed in the actual club (Don't tell Mama etc) to songs performed in "real life" (It Couldn't Please Me More etc). So the only people to actually use the mics would be Sally and the Emcee. |
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| TheWitch |
Can you point me to a good website that carries them? |
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| pish123c |
Just so we're clear, we're talking about mics that look like this, right?: 
But your idea sounds cool! and thinking about it, I sort of know what you mean about the mics picking up breathing, etc. And they just don't sound natural. As far as head mics, this was the cheapest I found: http://www.zzounds.com/item--AUTPRO8HEX Yeah, it wouldn't look very natural, but it's not like they used mics back in those days in the first place...But if you want something cheap, that's what I found. 
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| pish123c |
Oh didn't read clearly...you want personal opinions. Whoops.
Never used a head mic like that, and I thought I read you said you wanted something inexpensive, so I just searched head mics on google. Sorry. I'm not much help, then. 
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