recording of live theater

[marietta]

hi,
i have to record a theatrical play in order to get quality sound
for the video of the play.There is going to be audience at the time of
recording.I will rent the equipment needed. i need information on how
i could do the recording. I study music tochnology and acoustics but i
don't have the experience in audio recording for theater. I need info
on what kind of mics i could use, how many, where to place them. multy
track recording or stereo? what other kind of equipment?... Is there
an online tutorial i could read? Any kind of info would be very
helpful.
Thank you in advance.

[Laurence Payne]

> i have to record a theatrical play in order to get quality sound
>for the video of the play.There is going to be audience at the time of
>recording.I will rent the equipment needed. i need information on how
>i could do the recording. I study music tochnology and acoustics but i
>don't have the experience in audio recording for theater. I need info
>on what kind of mics i could use, how many, where to place them. multy
>track recording or stereo? what other kind of equipment?... Is there
>an online tutorial i could read? Any kind of info would be very
>helpful.

How many in the cast? Wireless body mics on everybody are the real
answer, as they are these days for sound reinforcement during the
performance.

If you're capable of mixing the show live, fine - do so to two-track.
If not, record one mic > one channel. Don't be afraid to ask the
cast back for any necessary re-recording.

[Scott Dorsey]

marietta > wrote:
>hi,
> i have to record a theatrical play in order to get quality sound
>for the video of the play.There is going to be audience at the time of
>recording.I will rent the equipment needed. i need information on how
>i could do the recording. I study music tochnology and acoustics but i
>don't have the experience in audio recording for theater. I need info
>on what kind of mics i could use, how many, where to place them. multy
>track recording or stereo? what other kind of equipment?... Is there
>an online tutorial i could read? Any kind of info would be very
>helpful.

What's your budget? What is the theatre like? How many people do you
have working the gig?

I mean, you can body mike everyone and dedicate a person to two to mixing
the body mikes.

Or, you can area mike the stage with two mikes.

Or, you can area mike the stage with two mikes, then add some tight
fills at dead spots in the room.

The deader the room is, the farther back you can get the mikes and get
away with it. Old vaudeville theatres built in the teens and twenties
will be a lot better than a high school multipurpose room, or a modern
theatre designed for rock concerts.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Arny Krueger]

"marietta" > wrote in message
oups.com
>
> I have to record a theatrical play in order to get
> quality sound for the video of the play.There is going to
> be audience at the time of recording. I will rent the
> equipment needed.

How many performances? If the play runs a number of weeks, you'll buy the
equipment with rental fees, faster than you might think. Remember, the
equipment needs to be in place and working for both the rehearsals and the
shows.

> i need information on how i could do the recording.

First shot - find someone who already knows to help you. You don't learn
live sound and recording overnight. I was away from it for a long while, and
came back in about 5 years ago. It's taken me most of that time to get
experience enough to feel comfortable with the current technology.

> I study music tochnology and acoustics but
> i don't have the experience in audio recording for
> theater.

Book learning is only a tiny part of what you need to be sucessful.

> I need info on what kind of mics i could use,

For those with onstage speaking parts - wireless body mics. The wireless
electronics packages vary in quality and price. With sources like
Sennheiser, Shure, and Audio Techica, you basically get what you pay for.
About $1k per electronics package (must be UHF and have diversity reception)
is where things start gettting interesting.

Leading hidden gotcha - going with a technology that runs out of available
free channels before you equip everybody who needs a wireless.

The "one size fits all" mic for wireless mics is the Countryman E6. It is
available with connectors to match most of the better electronics packages.
Shure resells it.

As far as the off-stage performers go - just follow usual live sound
practices.

> how many, where to place them. multi track recording or
> stereo?

Your house mix will probably be mono, maybe LCR if the house is really
modern. For recording, the best bet is track per mic and/or source
multitrack. Leave all the mixing and EFX decisions until after the show when
you can do and redo as you need to.

> what other kind of equipment?...

Depends what the house system is like.

> Is there an online tutorial i could read?

A good book to read for background is the Yamaha Live Sound Handbook - runs
$25-30 lots of place, both bookstores and audio stores that cater to the
live sound trade.

[Richard Amirault]

"marietta" wrote ...
> hi,
> i have to record a theatrical play in order to get quality sound
> for the video of the play.There is going to be audience at the time of
> recording.I will rent the equipment needed.
(snip)
You want to record audio that will be on the soundtrack of the video? Are
you going to feed your stage mics into the video camera(s) "live" or add it
in post production? If the latter you need to be aware that audio can
become out of sync after a while. How long? Depends on the quality and
accuracy of the audio recording. You might think that doing a digital audio
recroding would work .. not always .. if the "clock" of the audio recorder
is not *perfectly* in sync with the cameras clock it will still drift.
--
Richard Amirault, Boston, MA, USA
n1jdu.org
n1jdu.org/Fandom/science.htm

[Laurence Payne]

On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:12:26 GMT, "Richard Amirault"
> wrote:

>You want to record audio that will be on the soundtrack of the video? Are
>you going to feed your stage mics into the video camera(s) "live" or add it
>in post production? If the latter you need to be aware that audio can
>become out of sync after a while. How long? Depends on the quality and
>accuracy of the audio recording. You might think that doing a digital audio
>recroding would work .. not always .. if the "clock" of the audio recorder
>is not *perfectly* in sync with the cameras clock it will still drift.

True. But digital cameras and digital audio recorders are pretty
stable. If there is drift, occasional snip-and-realign generally
takes care of it. It's easy to do this unobtrusively when editing.

[bohemian]

I would consider an array of 4 (or more if large stage) condenser mics
at the front of the stage, evenly spaced, just above the level of the
stage, aimed up a bit, fed to a mixer and panned hard-left, left-mid,
right-mid, hard right, and take the stereo output to your camcorder...
if its not a pro camcorder you'll need an attenuator to reduce the
mixer's line level output to mic level for the camcorder's input... (
web search for line to mic attenuator or pad should turn up a simple
voltage divider circut you can build with severl resistors...

On 5 Feb 2007 07:30:15 -0800, "marietta" > wrote:

>hi,
> i have to record a theatrical play in order to get quality sound
>for the video of the play.There is going to be audience at the time of
>recording.I will rent the equipment needed. i need information on how
>i could do the recording. I study music tochnology and acoustics but i
>don't have the experience in audio recording for theater. I need info
>on what kind of mics i could use, how many, where to place them. multy
>track recording or stereo? what other kind of equipment?... Is there
>an online tutorial i could read? Any kind of info would be very
>helpful.
> Thank you in advance.

[[email protected]]

On Feb 5, 10:30 am, "marietta" > wrote:
> hi,
> i have to record a theatrical play in order to get quality sound
> for the video of the play.There is going to be audience at the time of
> recording.I will rent the equipment needed. i need information on how
> i could do the recording. I study music tochnology and acoustics but i
> don't have the experience in audio recording for theater. I need info
> on what kind of mics i could use, how many, where to place them. multy
> track recording or stereo? what other kind of equipment?... Is there
> an online tutorial i could read? Any kind of info would be very
> helpful.
> Thank you in advance.

I suspect that you may not be up to (in terms of money or experience)
wireless miking of the main characters, so I presume you will "area
mic".

1) Determine from rehearsals where most of the dialogue/singing will
take place.

2) Mic those areas with cardiod or omni condenser mics. Ride the gain
up/down as needed. I 'd be inclined to use about 5-8 mics, preferably
onto multitrack for later mixing. But your going to have a devil of a
time synching the audio with the video.

3) Avoid the urge to use fixed shotguns (very narrow pickup pattern),
with one exception: You might want to consider a "mic man" using a
shotgun on a pole (cobbled from an old mic stand) with a wireless
transmitter, who discreetly moves back and forth and aims the mic at
the sound sources. Very iffy, though.