[Organizers] Sound equipment follow-up - Musicians

4 Apr 2013

Hi Dave, Jeff, Jerome, Don, John, & Paul (+ others),

A belated thanks for all of the sound advice!  I've been pulled in many
directions the last month so I put the sound equipment research on hold but
I'm getting back to it now. :)

You all brought up some really good points... the noise of the room/band,
multiple handlers of equipment, various options for micing, etc.

The challenge we're facing is that we're a community band that anyone can
join but we're also a group who are wanting to work on arrangements, hear
different voices etc.  We're quite new so we may grow to 20+ players but
right now we're around 8 and so we're wanting to really hear the nykelharpa
or quiet fiddler do solo work.

I like the mic'ing some people approach!  Our oboe/bombard player doesn't
need a mic, that's for sure. :)

We're also experimenting with seating arrangements and are going for a
tight semi-circle as we don't have monitors for folks. ... ... having a
small sound system to experiment on before we buy is proving helpful.

I'm going to go hunting in that yahoo groups link you sent Dave.

Thanks!
Emily in Ottawa

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    1. Re: Organizers Digest, Vol 42, Issue 1 (John W Gintell)

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 Message: 1
 Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2013 12:09:14 -0500
 From: John W Gintell &lt;john(a)gintell.org&gt;
 To: organizers(a)sharedweight.net
 Subject: Re: [Organizers] Organizers Digest, Vol 42, Issue 1
 Message-ID: &lt;23655727-DC54-4F44-B1AE-B06A01ACB12A(a)gintell.org&gt;
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

  Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 13:47:24 -0500
 From: Jeff Kaufman &lt;jeff(a)alum.swarthmore.edu&gt;
 To: A list for dance organizers &lt;organizers(a)sharedweight.net&gt;
 Subject: Re: [Organizers] Soundsystem question for community band
 On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Emily Addison &lt;emilyladdison(a)gmail.com&gt; 
wrote:
   we have
tested and would like to purchase a soundsystem
 that mic's kind of like a choir (pencil mics etc). 
 A choir has a quiet audience while a dance band has a noisy one.  Most
 singers in a choir are about the same volume (and where they're not
 that's a problem for the choir director to fix) while some dance
 instruments are much louder or quieter than others.  So while a choir
 can do well with mics that are far away from the singers ("area mics")
 that often doesn't work well for dance bands.

 Approaches I've seen work are, in descending order of difficulty,
 effort, and expense:

 1) Mic no one.  Hard on the caller to be loud enough.
 2) Mic only the caller.
 3) Also mic a couple anchor instruments like piano and fiddle.
 4) Also mic some quiet instruments like mandolin or jaw harp.
 5) Individual mics for everyone.

 I think #2 and #3 are a good choice for a lot of situations.

 Jeff 
 To me the basic three musts for sound are:

 1) can you hear the caller?
 2) can you hear the beat and phrases?
   without these dances may fall apart

 3) are the musicians happy?
    happy musicians play better

 Thus I recommend 3) or 4) - depending on musician style.

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