Church Concert: How to?

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I am a de facto sound guy for a small parochial school that does a Christmas concert in a large church. It's an audio nightmare; 145 or so elementary size kids up front, 400 or so parents, uncles & aunts in the back, room for 600, and nobody can hear or see anything.

I thought it can't get any worse than that, so at the last minute (December)I tried to set up some kind of sound, and it worked. Just that I don't think it worked well! This time I'm looking for some input.

The church has a new and rather nice P.A. system (professionally installed about 1996), four EV dynamic mics, a few wireless mics, XLR mic inputs all over the place up front, and six commercial grade overhead mounted speakers. The workings of the system are absolutely hands off, so I turn it on and play with mics. The system works well for speech and OK with one or two instruments. Sound is OK; biased a little towards the treble.

Last year we had three overhead choir mics (mounted on a nylon string web, but how that happened is another wobbly stepladder story), each pointed towards the center of the altar and about five feet ahead and over the front third of the choir), and three dynamic mics mounted on stands for individuals to use. About 150 kids.

Each mic went into its own channel on a basic Peavey mixing board (8 ch), everything panned left, and one mono left out into a house system mic input. It was a bit of a duct tape exercise, but all the transformers stayed put, I set up a snake for the mic lines, nobody tripped over the wires, and everything worked. I was a hero, meaning I'll have to do it again this year.

Feedback was a problem, although not as bad when the church was full of people. Just could not get much gain before all hell broke loose, so to speak. I had control of all but one mic, which was hooked directly to the system from the pulpit. Two of the overhead speakers were in back of part of the chorus, meaning that they were mounted (as were the others) each to one of six structural pillars in the vault of the church. So I was getting a direct signal to the mics from the two front speakers. I tried to deflect them (placed shields on each of the two), but can't tell if it really helped.

I'm thinking of reversing the direction of the overhead mics, and using reflector boards for each one. I don't know what else to do, other than haul in five hundred pounds of speakers. Do I simply have too much going on to work? The room is acoustically about as reflective as you can imagine; stucco, oak pews, large vaults, sixty feet wide, a hundred long, and so forth.

Anybody have some ideas that don't involve running away? Thanks!
 
You really can't under estimate how sound from non monitor speakers can become a feedback nightmare.I would re-configure your speakers so they don't bleed into your mics.If you have floor monitors,try moving your main speakers foward or to the side and have a helper go out front and see how it sounds. a room full of people will change the dynamic so try to build in a safty zone soundwise that you can tweak.Better mics or hypercardioed mics go along way.sounds like your on the right track.Good luck!
 
Hmmm. That sounds like the "five hundred pounds of speakers" approach.

The house system speakers are all fixed in place; what ya see is what ya get. I can see that moving in an entire system, amp, speakers, etc. would help. It's just that last time, I did it by myself with a few people saying "What are you doing that for?" and not a lot of help. I'm looking for a low-sweat-equity solution; maybe a full blown system is the only way.
 
I arn't sure i understand but if only the two overheads are causing you troble then you should try running with out them, or on lower volume, or eq the shit out of them so they sound like crap, and just don't turn them up too high or run any instruments through them, use them just for light reinforcement.
Also i've found that some overheads suit different jobs better then others; if you have budget and time to play (alowing that you are hireing the overheads) it might help. Could you survive with out the one overhead, or hide it some where on the ground; that might solve your problems.

Hope I could help,
omnipotent
 
I think I'm hearing that the house speakers (which are fixed in place and cannot be EQ'd separately from the whole signal itself) are probably just too jumpy for this application.

That means I might be able to use them as "monitors" so to speak; low gain and a little presence everywhere, and pump the main signal into a pair of powered speaker systems, one on each side of the vault and about a quarter of the way back.

I bet I could set this up simply using the stereo pans on the mixing board; 70% pan to the right meaning a light signal in the left channel headed to the house system; strong signal in the right channel going to the rental powered monitors placed where they won't suffer signal bleed. Two mono signals out instead of one stereo. It could work.
 
You have my sympathy--virtually everything is working against you.

First of all, micing large groups of kids is difficult, all other circumstances being assumed ok. They yell one time, mumble the next, forget where to stand, fidget with handhelds, etc. I'll tell you my honest-to-goodness Chrismas play story (the ultimate nightmare) but first, your issues.

Strikes against you, as you've already pointed out:

- misplaced house speakers--they're too far back and therefore bleeding into the mics. I don't think bouncing sound off plexiglas is going to help--that would create new feedback problems on its own.

- inability to shape your sound. EQ is a feed-back fighting tool and if you don't have access to it, you're hobbled.

- hard surfaces in the building. Need I say more.

A few ideas.

First if possible rent a portable system. Bypass the whole stinkin' mess 'cause I for one wouldn't want to work under those conditions. If you can't do this, mic only the solo stuff and let the group singing etc. carry itself. That many kids can make a lot of noise. The close-miced stuff won't usually give you problems as you don't need so much gain.


Avoid monitors if possible. I've gotten away without them apart from one unit to play the prerecorded music that the kids were singing too. That gives you more room to place mics without a threat from the monitors. Kids usually freak anyway when they hear themselves in monitors. They have good hearing (haven't burned out their ear canals with years of musical mayhem yet) and can ususally hear each other on stage just fine.

Try to get the pageant's director to work with you on solos. Have clearly marked spots where the soloists or speakers should stand and put mics there. Go to rehearsals, stay right there with the kids and train them to use the mics properly...hopefully the director will understand the importance of this.

Your better condenser mics can then be distributed appropriately to pick up the choral parts. A great mic for this is the AKG C3000. You could even rent a few. Another idea (this worked for me) was a PZM on the floor (where there were groups of kids--shepherds) sitting on the floor.

My dream is to do a pageant like this with 150 rented FM lav mics each on its own channel, automatic gain control and gating on each channel,with in-ear monitors for each kid. That and world peace.

Back to my story--I was doing sound for a Christmas pageant, all the lights were down, things were going great, I had conscripted my wife to queue and run the sound track which worked great since I had enough to think about without that--and suddenly the whole board went dead--lights, the rack, everything went dark. 400 faces turned to look at me in the back. Up till then I thought I'd seen every possible problem but I'd never lost power like that. After about 2 seconds of brain paralysis I thought a breaker had tripped. There was nothing to do--I announced to the house in my loudest, in your face voice that I'd lost power, turned around to get up and look for the panel, and right behind me was about a 2-yr old little girl holding up the plug for the power cord to the mixer with a proud look on her face, kinda like "look what I found." She'd yanked it out of the wall.

Yeah, the night from h***. And Christmas and all that...Still in spite of that stuff the thing was a success (they always are) so as long as their message gets through, you're doing ok. We sound types just don't want to get in the way, y'know.



[This message has been edited by Tapehead (edited 04-10-2000).]
 
We seem to be on the same wavelength. I haven't had a little one pull the plug, though.

It seems that I'm going to have to bite the bullet. Guess that means use a mixer, run mics in, and send the signal to a couple of hulking powered speakers on either side. That's simple, which has its advantages with volunteer work.

But I just haven't figured out the mic thing. Overhead chorus mics make sense if there's no bleeding from speakers, but I nearly killed myself getting them up the first time. And explaining what I was up to was worse; nobody Else had done that kind of thing before. . . Might be different this time.

I ran nylon braid (1/8") longitudinally in the vault on the right and left sides, between two of the support pillars. One up at the altar (R & L) and one about twenty feet back (R & L). Tied 'em to the speaker mounts! Nice and tight; had a twang to them, and about 14 feet high. Sixty three feet apart. Then I ran a line between them, as tight as I dared. Had a web kind of thing; a splayed "H". Hung the chorus mics from that center line and ran the wires to the left onto an aluminum support made from a roof rake handle, straight up and duct taped to a church pew. Ran the (snake) from the three mics down that, into preamps and so forth, then into the Peavey board. A few more mics on stands, pan left, one mono signal into an impedance matching transformer (actually a D.I.) and then into the house system.

Gotta be a better way.

[This message has been edited by Treeline (edited 04-11-2000).]
 
How about suspending them from small helium balloons. ;> )

Actually it sounds like you don't have any other options unless you want a few mic stands around set really high.
 
Hi, again...
Does the stage have wings? Is the stage not too wide? if you can answer yes to the two questions you might be able to pick every one up with a few shotguns(preferably large ones, neuman or sennheiser) mounted up high on large booms, pointing towards the chorus. Sometimes when i play with them a bit i can even use them for solo speaking/singing parts. I like the idea of PZM on the flaw too, or even as well.

I do a few shcool productions every year to, some of them have been quite highly funded aswell. For one of them last year the MIKADO i had 3 people helping with the setup as well as one FOH on the night and 4 back stage, moving around 10 U series SHURE lavaliers with sennheiser mics.(the helpers were almost all students of the school, but some of them were quite helpful).
I mixed on an Allen-Heath GL-3300 with 4 Large Mayer speakers (2 centre cluster, 2 LR FOH), it was a reletively small theatre but i was able to setup 2 rows of reenforcement speakers over the audiance.
There was a 12 peice Orchestra, of some very skilled musicians.
The production played for 9 days and i think it made quite a bit of money. It was one of my best live experiances ever. I'd like to be able to mix that again.

omnipotent
 
Wow. Sounds like quite a ride.

I'm more in the paper bag lunch brigade. Your comment about booms and overheads is intriguing, though. I'll have to think about that.

Part of the challenge is that we have lots of kids filing through. The chance of somebody tripping on a speaker stand or a mic boom is high. I might minimize that with sheeting around the tripods to make them more obvious.

The stage, so to speak, is raised only about three or four steps - not a stage at all. It is a nave (if my terminology is right) in a typical cathedral - style building; a wonderful old stone church built in the late 1800s. So the performance up front is around and in front of the altar; the area was never designed to be a stage, although it does provide a visual focus for the entire congregation. It was designed for a Mass; perhaps five people up there at a time. Load it up with 150 kids and its pretty tight. And because its function is not "performance" oriented, simple functions one finds at a high school stage - like elevation - are inadequate. The congregation occupies a level plane, not one inclined as in a theatre or an auditorium. No provision for assistance from the "wings" is made, although there are areas to each side that could serve the same function.

So the challenge is to set up in advance exactly what will be used, import the performers and the audience, and make the whole thing as unobtrusive as possible. Booms sound nice, here; once cabling, speakers and the mixer are each in place, the mics could be moved in fifteen minutes before the performance and connected, allowing the previously scheduled Masses to happen without much in the way of distraction.

That's another challenge; the area is used three of four times a day for various things and a crew with stepladders and duct tape can be intrusive.
 
Hi, I've been a professional youth minister working for catholic churches for the last 8-9 years. And I know this nightmare all to well. Because I also happen to a musician and quite knowledgeable with sound systems I usually get asked to help out with youth Masses and the sort. Inevitably, I find that the sound system of every Catholic church suffers the same fate--they had the company with the lowest bid put in the sound system. And they buy the sound system based merely on price, not capabilities. They are always great for voice audio for readers and presiders, but terrible for music. I have always ended buying or renting a separate sound system for these youth Masses or suffered with the existing system in the church and getting time out from purgatory when I'm dead and gone.

My advice to you is to somehow get permission to get into the hands-off area of the sound system and turn down or off the speakers giving you the most problem and work that direction. Get together withthe pastor and music minister and go over the problem with them and share some of these responses with them to show that this isn't just a crazy off the cuff idea. Instead, your plan of attack has merit because you have studied the problem and gone to "the experts." It may not get you far, but when you show them the $150 rental fee for a SMALL setup that would be inadequate, you might get them to change their minds. Also, you might consider putting an anti feedback rack device into the sound system to see if that might help.

You have all my sympathy. I know to well how doing something at a church better than it has been done before gets you volunteered for the rest of your life. Good Luck.

Peace, Jim
 
Hey, Jim-

My sources tell me there's a corner office waiting for you in that chrome highrise in the sky. Hell of a view, so to speak. But it has a tenant with a pretty long lease, so you'll have to wait for now. At least you're not scheduled to be the new Music Director up there next week. . . <G>

I may still have a good card or two; we have a really good musician's store in town who lent us basic sound reinforcement the last time. The whole thing generated some sound and cost nothing. We made sure everyone there knew who helped us, so it works all around. This time, I will own some of my own sound stuff; lightning has been known to strike twice. . .

And the practical reality is that the house sound system really took some doing to get; the Pastor is understandably wary about allowing anyone to mess with it, and I'm simply not going to second-guess him. My approach (if I can pull it off) is to come up with some solution first; I can always speak with authority later if it's called for.

By the way, the store I spoke of sells on the 'net. Check this link out!
www.guitarsam.com

Thanks for the input!
 
Ok, i just had a good idea.

A while ago i was doin a speachnight or some thing for a school called Bialik College. It was in a reletively nice hall that was desighned for such an event, so there was no problem with speakers. There were different singing groups coming on and off stage through out the night and the roof was about 30-40m high (not somthing i would like to climb. I had to find a way to mic up the stage.) There were no wings and no places on stage to hide mics. It was a quite large stage, about 9 * 16 m. There was no way PZM mics would work bacause i couldn't put a mic in the middle of the stage and the singers were close to the back. I ended up using 6 shotguns (actually i'm not sure they were shots, they way have been some kind of omnidirectional mic, with a large range), but i had them mounted on tiny stands (they were pretty cool you could change the angle they were on from the very bottom) at the frount of the stage. Each stand was set to a 64 degree angle to the stage, and the shots mounted at the top were at probobly a 30-45 degree angle to the stage. The stands were about 50cm tall, they were thin and very spaced out; no one really noticed them but me.
It worked well, it picked up pretty much everything, and with a bit of EQing sounded nice.

Just another thought. I hope i'm helping, you do have a difficult job.

omnipotent

ps. An eq rack would help
 
Omnipotent -

Knee height mics? I'd like to learn more about them. Here, the kids would trip over them; I need something big enough so they will know to walk around it when they're distracted; they're pretty young kids. But this intrigues me.

You were picking up reflected sound? Or direct?

Re EQ: I will be able to EQ the signal from the mics; everything will probably go through a board that has some onboard effects (I'm shopping around, but focusing on a Mackie CFX 12, www.mackie.com ) and pretty nice EQ capabilities. But the speakers - well, we'll just have to see.
 
Hay,

I'm not quite sure if "knee high mics" is a technique, i think it's more of an invention, but it works. You just need to make sure no one will hit the flaw too hard around the mics because they normaly will pick up more ground noise the overheads.

With the mics they were at the very front of the stage, and if someone was going to walk into them, they were pretty much going to fall fo the stage. If you are worried about kids tripping over the mics you could just organize a time to explain it to them when they are all quiet. Also raise the the stands a bit higher and put some tape (brite yellow does the trick)on the ground around the mics, and make like a no entery zone. It dosn't matter if it doesn't look the best, you are there for sound not set desighn. Try to make it look good, but you have to remember, that your priority is the sound quality.

I was picking up the sound direct. I played around with the placement a bit; but was able to have mics in the right place for every preformance (the vocal groups were all in different places on stage).

I really do think this might work for you.
Feel free to ask any other questions you may have.
Good Luck!!!

omnipotent
 
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