This is a copy of a blog I did for the Newberry Opera House Sound/Audio Blog

Well, sound check and rehearsals/warm-ups for tonight's shows have finished. We have about and hour before the House opens and the seats begin to fill. Tonight, we have a very easy set up audio wise. Our input list consists for only 4 inputs, 4 wireless microphones. For the mic's we have used our two Sennheiser wireless handheld microphones and two of our Shure wireless handheld microphones. The Spirit Singers consist of about 30 teenagers standing on risers. The two Sennheiser microphones have been positioned directly in the front line of the chorus about 3 to 4 feet away and they will be used for solos taken by the front line singers, as well as, picking up the overall image of the chorus. The two Shure microphones I have placed behind and to the outside of the chorus and they will be used for the rest of the individual singers solos. The plan at the moment is for the students to pass the Shure microphones to one another. We will see how that pans out during the performance.

In order to keep things as simple as possible I have decided not to mic the piano for tonight's performance. There were a couple of reasons for this. They are playing with the lid on half stack and facing the chorus. At first thought "Yeah let's throw our mics on it".. However, for our piano mic set up I usually use our Rode's NT1A

microphones. Our stage's area is about 40 feet wide by 30 or so feet deep. Not very large. When we use the Rode's NT1A microphones I generally have to careful and considerate on my placement and treatment so I do not get a ton of bleed from other instruments and performers. Second was that while listening to the overall sound I was getting off of the stage during sound check with the microphone at, what will be, show levels, I decided that some of my microphones I was already using were picking up enough piano already and even all of the microphones in use or muted everything could be heard, distinguished, and understood. So, after a touch of House EQing we were finished with sound check. Not bad, it was quick, smooth, and painless.

This is all for now. The doors to the house open in 20 minutes. I need to go and do some last minute battery checks. I will let everyone know how the show goes on our end later on tonight.

Thanks & Peace,

~JAG