RBIngraham wrote:Joe has great comments about monitors. No matter what you do, stage monitors in musicals will heavily influence what the audience hears however they should have dedicated monitors. Sometimes those are as small and simple as some well placed tiny bookshelf speakers pointed back at them. However you do need to be careful about that. You don't too much stage volume or you'll have as much music in the lavs as you will voice, which will just start a volume war and will sound like open ass.
They are flown above the performer's heads, but yeah, there were "monitors" hitting them dead on. In this theater I've been running a dual-PA arrangement with the band/orchestra in the upstage speakers (above the band, pointed at the active acting area on the stage). The vocals come out of a different set of speakers. I did this because running the vocals via speakers behind the actors (particularly with Countrymen headsets, when tend to have low gain-before-feedback) produces too much ringing.
As for #2... I call BULLSHIT! Mixing from a control booth is never an option.. period! Mixing anything even close to Aida with a iPad is BULLSHIT! You need to mix line by line, which means Aida speaks, only her mic is open, Radames speaks, only his mic is open..... yes it means you are CONSTANTLY bringing one mic up and another mic down. Welcome to theatre sound mixing.
You can not do that on an iPad, I don't care what software you're using.
Actually, the way we mixed Aida, the cues were run on the LS9 in the booth and the mixing was done on the iPad down below. There are a ton of problems with this arrangement, but everything cannot be done from the iPad and moving the LS9 isn't an option (i.e., hard-wired snake). Yes, we only (mostly) have open mics when there is immediate dialog on those mics. This isn't perfect because syncing the scenes to the iPad from the LS9 is slooooooow (seems to take about 3 seconds) so scenes have to be chosen with this in mind. But there is no way to leave a mic on just because that person is on the stage -- too much ringing occurs in this situation.
FWIW, we had 8 wireless mics for this show and 8 additional inputs from the band (electronic drums, so only two inputs from the drums). Mixing the audio portion on the iPad wasn't *that* bad, other than the scene synchronization issue.
The more you tell us about this place the more it just cracks my shit up. I have one suggestion... complete your current contract as best as possible and when they ask you back, tell them... sorry.. I'm booked.
It doesn't sound like it's worth the hassle. My first clue was when you said the director was in the booth on a headset..... forgive me, but what is this, high school theatre?
Worse, pay to play.
OTOH, the pay is decent (and I get paid by the hour for my people), the work is indoors, and I'm not putting wear and tear on my gear. Also, not every production is by the aforementioned director (though she does a lot of shows there).
Actually even most high schools I've worked with are more sophisticated than that. Directors should go home on opening night... not be in the control booth.
I'm sure if they had the money to spend another couple of weeks in rehearsal before showing up at the theater this would actually work. Problem is, opening weekend is really no more than a full dress rehearsal
. That said, this (Aida) is one group. We work with several others...
I mixed the first full blown, non workshop production of Love Janis (a musical about Janis Joplin, not to be confused with "An Evening with Janis Joplin") before it went to Chicago and then to Off Broadway. I often went went home with my ears slightly ringing during that show and I measured only around 100-105db peaks at the mix position. Granted... that was all the way in the back of the house. Don't blame me by the way, the powers that be wanted it that loud and the entire show was mixed around the lead guitar player. HOw the hell he endured the volume he did on stage I still don't know as he had his amp up on a road case at almost ear level and it was still loud as all hell. Anyway, I use that as my high water (or high SPL mark) since we got complaints that this show was too loud from some (typical theatre audience) and not loud enough from others (those there to hear Janis songs).
True, but that's effectively a concert. I could see that being loud and I could live with that from the director. Something like Aida is another story altogether. I did not measure the SPL (no tool in the theater to do that). Next time I'll bring a cheap Radio Shack unit to get a basic idea of what's going on. However, I believe that 90 dB (average) should be good enough. Louder than that, and I'd imagine Cal-OSHA would have something to say about what we're subjecting these people to.
Although it's rare that I have an SPL meter at FOH, on the occasions I have measured, it's more like 80 to 90 db with only very loud peaks at 100db and even that's fairly rare. Mid 90s peaks are far more common, unless perhaps you're touring and using ground stacks and you're measuring at the front row right in front of the ground stack.
Thanks, that's what I really wanted to hear. I didn't measure Aida, but I'd guess it was well above the mid 90s anytime the (non-quiet sections) music was being played.