Prior to working with my X90 crew on the Singing Hoosiers gig, I was unaware of how much equalization is routinely done to vocals in PA. Especially in an acoustic space not designed to have much amplification, like Auer hall, the EQ was in a state of constant modification by the head engineer on PA, both for troubleshooting (with a multiband outboard EQ) and for tone (with the less exact EQ nobs on the board). This allowed for not only the mitigation of undesirable frequencies (as defined by either the characteristics of the hall or the mannerisms of the performer), but for an artistic improvement of the signal’s most desirable qualities.

Additionally, mic techniques were used that I had never before seen. My experience with mics being severely limited, the methods used to mic the choir, drums, and soloists were totally gnu to me. The choir, for example, though covering a wide swathe of stage, was mic’d with a pair of shotgun mics split stage left and right. My first impulse in this case would have been to pick up the choir through a mic with a very wide capture pattern- the opposite of a shotgun. What I was told, however, was that though this would pick up more of the choir, it would also pick up too much of the drum set, which placed right in front of, if not within the choir. To further mitigate this, the drum set was placed inside a fiber-glass shield that improved the amount of drum-sound that leaked out to other mics.

Some other skills and knowledge I have acquired in crew include: how to correctly coil mic cables, using the over-under technique; the signal flow of each hall, what’s included in an ideal control room, and an overview of the functions of a recording console.

During my experience with working the Concert Orchestra performance, I learned how the mics can be configured to work through the PA mixer, which was a M7CL, and also be connected to the DM2000 mixer for the recording aspect of the performance.  All of this was configurable though the patch bay.  The PA was then connected to a power amp backstage that powered the PA monitor speakers on the left and right side of the stage.  I also, learned how certain mics with different polar patterns have different uses in an orchestra setting.  We used an omnidirectional microphone for the double bass spot in order to get sound from all the basses.  We used three percussion spots.  One was for the timpani and the other two were for the rest of the percussion section.  Finally, we used a spot mic for the harp.  There was also a tabla that was used during through the first song that required the PA system and it was miked with two cardioid condenser microphones and also sent to the DM2000 for recording.  I was also able to visually see how the direct outs of the DM2000 were connected to Pro Tools for the recording process.

Sam Baker

Before my experience with working the La Bohème opera, I was not aware of the amount of work that goes into recording such a production. We started everyday out by setting our microphones up in the orchestra pit. We used four Pressure-Zone microphones, Orchestra left, left center, right center, and orchestra right. We also used 2 mics for the winds, an AKG condenser for the bass, and another spot mic for the harp. We then set up our foot mics, which were 2 hyper-cardioid mics, and 3 cardioid mics. One of us stayed in the pit while someone else went to the control room to do a mic check. Setting up usually took about 30 minutes, and one of us had to stay down near the pit to make sure the mics were still in the correct place.

During x90 at the opera, I learned how to properly tape down a mic cables, set up microphones around an orchestra, and read along with the score to call out stage notes to the person mixing.

On November 4th I observed the Oratorio Chorus, Philharmonic Orchestra, and University Children’s Choir performing Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem for my major ensemble.  War Requiem requires a few different groups of musicians.  There is a full orchestra with winds and percussion, a chamber orchestra, a choir, and also a childrens’ choir accompanied by an organ.

The mic hang was involved.  We set up a total of twenty-four microphones.  This included a decca tree, two flanks, five microphones spaced over the choir, four microphones for surround, a pair of microphones for the woodwinds, three microphones for soloists, and spot microphones for the harp, piano, timpani, and bass.

I learned to lower cables down so microphones can be attached, and how to then raise them into position.  This process includes twisting the cable to set the microphone at the correct angle and also tying off the cable to secure its position.  The lead engineer, Josh, also taught me how to raise the decca tree.  He showed me that left and right sides are raised first in synch with each other, and then the center is raised.  Jamie taught me that the flanks are hung wider for larger ensembles.  We later adjusted the flanks - we lowered them to get more sound from the string section.

The majority of the work done in the control room was routing the microphones to the console.  The more important mics were routed through the Hardy preamps.  The other microphones, like the surround microphones, piano, etc. were routed through the console’s preamps.  After all the channels were laid out and roughly mixed, they were put into special groups and were placed on a remote layer for easier mixing.

During the performance, the second engineer, Walter, called out musical events to Josh.  Things like vocal solos, entrances of the childrens’ choir and brass, and other musical events marked forte.  Josh reacted by bringing up the corresponding faders to pre-determined levels.  I wrote down the time of the start and end of the different sections of the piece.The sound in the control room was very realistic.  It sounded a lot closer than the perspective from the balcony, and the sound was over all a little thicker, and more tightly packed.  During the performance, more artificial reverb was used, which sounded less realistic.  Jamie pointed out that one of the soloists sounded out of phase.  He remedied this by delaying the soloists microphone roughly 1ms / foot.  There was also some general high-pass filtering / low shelf cutting to remove some of the rumbly room noise.

ensemble within the Wind Ensemble was performing, we used only the center pair 

in order to reduce unnecessary noise. While working at this gig, I
realized that setup moves inward to the control booth, starting at the
microphones. After the mic hang, we came back and began to set up the recording
for the night. Initially we had some problems setting up the computer, where I
learned another important facet of tech crew; never be afraid to ask questions.
Even though it might be embarrassing at first to admit that you don’t know what
to do in a situation, it is important to learn the right way to do the job.
Thanks to this, I learned how to correctly coil cables and attach microphones
to stands, whereas I didn’t know the correct techniques beforehand.

I recorded my high school orchestra so I had done a bit of research about

where to place mics and what kind of mics to use, but I had no experience

with hanging mics or the signal flow involved in the MAC. I was usually

involved in the setup and tear down and got to see how the process of

hanging mics went. I also had to help raise and lower mics during one

performance to make accommodations for a projector. I was also interested

find out that the stereo pair Km1-30's are omni mics that have baffles on

them to make them directional.

While working in the MAC I became fairly familiar with the signal flow. Almost

all the issues that we had during rehearsal or setup could be found by

following the signal flow. One time during a rehearsal we found that a mic was

not getting any signal. By following the signal flow we found that the Phantom

Power was not turned on on the preamp.

During my second gig I had to help with filling out the meta data and post

production. I learned that it is important to have studied the piece beforehand

so that post work is easier. I also learned that if you ever have issues, you can

usually find an answer in the manual saved to the computer.

I worked with the vocal jazz ensemble for audio crew. Although all the lecture classes are helpful for learning, the hands-on experience has taught me a lot about the process. As far as microphone techniques I learned that you have to plug the XLR into the stage jack before you plug it into the microphone. Also I learned where to plug the snakes into at Auer Hall and that they are super helpful to have when you have a lot of microphones like we did in vocal jazz and also when you have a lot of mics it is important to keep track of which number jacks you are using for patching and sound levels for the console. Also, Jake taught us about monitor mixes. While he was setting the EQ’s for each monitor on stage, he had us stand behind them with him to listen to his techniques about adjusting the EQ. He used the words ‘Hey, Check, One, Two”. He said that those are the only words monitor mixers use to get the correct sound. During that he also taught us about the frequency ranges used on the EQ and which ranges made what sound. Once it came to tear down, I obviously learned the exact way to coil a cable because there was TONS of that. After the production I also learned a little bit about post-production. I learned about labeling the files and how you have to mark and name sections the recording of the performance.

Some of my main jobs during the opera were to follow along with the score letting the mixing engineer know when something of note was coming up, placing mics, tearing down, doing pre and post production on the recorded audio files and also setting up the backup recorder to have the correct variations ID. The opera was an excellent experience that, while time consuming, taught me a LOT of different things about live sound and recording live shows as well as just generally showing me how working a gig goes.