Microphone system recommendations for theatre work

B

Bipedal

Member
I make most of my video cash shooting plays at a local theatre. I generally have two options for getting sound. One is, if the actors have wireless lavaliers/headsets, I can just route them through an aux on the board and put that into the final cut later.

That's really nice, but not every show uses mics, and not all the actors have them on. This means I get great sound for a few people, and slim to no sound from a few others. So it's not really ideal.

The other, even less ideal option, is to just use my videomic. That gives good sound as long as the actors can project, the audience is silent, and there's no music playing. Otherwise useful speech is drowned out.

I'm about to go buy whatever I need to solve this problem, cabling/recorders aren't an issue.

My question to the pros is this: What budget microphone/pair of microphones should I get so that I can get good audio from the actors onstage?

I was thinking just a pair of boundary mics of some kind, but they pick up so much foot noise that they aren't really worth dealing with.

XOXOXO
Caleb
 
Actually, PZM mics across the front of the stage aren't a bad solution. You'll want the mics as close to the action as possible, which means either right on the front of the stage or suspended over the stage. One of those is much easier to do, and the other (hanging mics) may not be the most viable solution anyway. Of course, either way, you need to make sure you've gotten permission from the stage company to add mics to their environment.

It's not a bad idea, by the way, to do that even when you have actors who are mic'd. That gives you something to work with in post. Never trust a board feed to be your one and only source of audio. Board feed for the principals, stage mics for the background, and room mics for ambience/band.
 
Is there any way for me to mitigate the "foot noises" I'm getting with PZMs? I've heard of people putting foam down or something?


You wouldn't mayhap be able to recommend a decent budget boundary mic would you?
 
Well-made pressure-zone microphones shouldn't actually be susceptible to vibrations through the floor. Some "boundary mics" don't use the pressure-zone design, and are just glorified condenser mics in a flat chassis.

Crown PZMs aren't cheap, but they're effective.
 
C2V said:
Well-made pressure-zone microphones shouldn't actually be susceptible to vibrations through the floor. Some "boundary mics" don't use the pressure-zone design, and are just glorified condenser mics in a flat chassis.

Crown PZMs aren't cheap, but they're effective.
Click to expand...

This reply is a bit misleading.

All boundary microphones use the pressure zone and saying "...are just glorified condenser mics in a flat chassis" is not really correct.

I use the Neumann GFM132 which is a darn sight more expensive than the Crown and is probably the best on the market (at least is should be at £4,500 a pair).

So.........................................

All boundary microphones use the pressure zone.

The "PZM" is a registered trade mark of Crown.

The Crown PZM (also licensed to Tandy) has the capsule just over the boundary pointing back at it.

Other boundary microphones have the capsule flush with the boundary. They *are* actually pressure zone microphones as they use the pressure zone, but as Crown trade marked the name they can't be called pressure zone microphones nor PZM due to trade mark laws (not because they are not actually pressure zone microphones).

They are just as effective as each other.

Yes, the Crown ones *are* excellent boundary microphones, as are also the Neumann and MBHO ones.

Yes there are also cheaper ones, some good and some not so good.

The cheap Tandy ones are actually very good, especially at the price they were. And were even better if converted to 48V phantom power, or used with a 9V battery.
 
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