American Idol Audio

[Paul F]

During the Hollywood tryouts, during rehearsal, the contestants each have a handheld. In the wide shot, I see they also have to shotguns on hand-held poles.

Why both?

During the finals, the contestants have wireless lavalieres and hand-helds. Which is being used? Why?

How is it that with all the movement they make on stage and banging the hand-held with their hands in beat to the music, the audio is clean? I would think the lav would be very uneven with their head turning this way and that and the handheld would have lots of handling noise.

 

[Alex H.]

The shotguns are there to catch dialog during the evaluation, and the hand-held is for vocals during the performance. Likewise, for the finals (since it is a live stage production where boom opd would be too distracting), the lav is for dialog during the evaluation.

The lav is not on during the performance. As for handling noise, the hand-helds are designed to minimize handling noise, and any performer worth his/her salt knows how to handle one without creating too much extra noise.