Friday, August 06, 2004
Mike flex
Rich has blogged about the experience of the production of Joseph that we were both involved in and I thought I'd share some of my experiences during the same production.
I was employed as the sound engineer which basically means I had a little box bought from Tandy with some knobs on which I twiddled to try and get the microphones loud enough for the people at the back of the hall to hear and not so loud that the equipment and everybody's ears melted in the feedback. We had about three microphones of which two were normal ones on stands.
We also had a radio mike.
The thing about the radio mike was that it didn't have a wire connecting it to the amplifier. This meant that it was in strong demand for people to sing their songs and also move about the stage unimpeded by long cables. The other thing about it was that it had a radio transmitter in it that meant it needed batteries. The other other thing about it was that it induced microphone snobbery - everybody wanted to use it, not those crappy things with wires, aren't we in the 20th century now?
It was the job of the stage manager to make the announcement at the end of the interval in order to get everybody back into their seats. Every evening would be the same. I used to turn the radio mike off at the amplifier to stop it feeding back. He'd try to use it to make his announcements. I'd gesticulate to one of the normal mikes. He'd gesticulate fiercely to the radio mike. I'd give up and let him use it. Inevitably this took its toll on the batteries.
In act two, we got to the Benjamin Callypso. One of the brothers had to sing the main part and his voice was not the strongest - a microphone of some sort was essential. A little choreographed ballet had been concocted whereby the narrator unobtusively handed the radio mike to him. On the last night, the narrator thought he'd have a laugh and handed the brother a banana instead. The brother didn't realise (nerves etc) for several seconds and it was all hilariously funny.
Or would have been. The radio mike had been flat lining since the beginning of the act. The banana was of equal utility in amplifying the human voice as the brother found out when the correct implement was finally handed over. Basically, it was murdered by the radio snobbery of the stage manager.
I was employed as the sound engineer which basically means I had a little box bought from Tandy with some knobs on which I twiddled to try and get the microphones loud enough for the people at the back of the hall to hear and not so loud that the equipment and everybody's ears melted in the feedback. We had about three microphones of which two were normal ones on stands.
We also had a radio mike.
The thing about the radio mike was that it didn't have a wire connecting it to the amplifier. This meant that it was in strong demand for people to sing their songs and also move about the stage unimpeded by long cables. The other thing about it was that it had a radio transmitter in it that meant it needed batteries. The other other thing about it was that it induced microphone snobbery - everybody wanted to use it, not those crappy things with wires, aren't we in the 20th century now?
It was the job of the stage manager to make the announcement at the end of the interval in order to get everybody back into their seats. Every evening would be the same. I used to turn the radio mike off at the amplifier to stop it feeding back. He'd try to use it to make his announcements. I'd gesticulate to one of the normal mikes. He'd gesticulate fiercely to the radio mike. I'd give up and let him use it. Inevitably this took its toll on the batteries.
In act two, we got to the Benjamin Callypso. One of the brothers had to sing the main part and his voice was not the strongest - a microphone of some sort was essential. A little choreographed ballet had been concocted whereby the narrator unobtusively handed the radio mike to him. On the last night, the narrator thought he'd have a laugh and handed the brother a banana instead. The brother didn't realise (nerves etc) for several seconds and it was all hilariously funny.
Or would have been. The radio mike had been flat lining since the beginning of the act. The banana was of equal utility in amplifying the human voice as the brother found out when the correct implement was finally handed over. Basically, it was murdered by the radio snobbery of the stage manager.
# posted by JeremyP : 7:34 pm
