Alaskapella- Microphones and Sound System!

[rose2blueeyes]

Hello all!

My name is Kristina Paulick and I am the music director of Alaskapella, the resident a cappella choir at the Juneau campus of the University of Alaska Southeast. We started in July 2011 with four members and have grown considerably (we started this past semester with thirty people!), a trend that I foresee continuing on when we start auditioning in new members in the fall and into the future. However, the group is very interested in buying microphones (along with a compact mixing board, speakers, and other such fun sound equipment), and I'm completely stuck as to how to mic a thirty person a cappella group (especially since very few venues in Juneau have space in which to fly microphones above the group)! Additionally, several of the members have been clamoring for choreography, which would mean that we would require handheld mics...but we just don't have the funds for thirty handheld microphones.

Would should I do? We'll need equipment that will last us for a while and that can travel easily (Juneau has no roads out of the city, so the system will need to be durable and compact enough to go on an airplane or a boat), but are of a good enough quality that we won't have to worry about the parts of the system not working during a concert (a problem that has already occurred several times with school and other community equipment, much to my and others' disappointment). Honestly, I'm thinking a fifteen channel system with fifteen mics and two to four speakers would be fine for now, but I have no idea who to buy them from, what models/styles of equipment would work best for the group, how to ship them up here in a way that is both speedy and safe, or what kinds of prices to expect!

If you have any ideas at all about any of the information above, please let me know!

Thank you so much!

-Kristina

[chadberg]

Wow. Let me start by saying that I am not a good person for advice in this matter, having never done more than 4 mics for a 12 person group with limited choreo.

I'd say to on YouTube and look at videos of old ICCA competition sets. The older the better, then work your way forward in time. That should give you an idea of what is possible with more limited options, as a lot of those old competition sets didn't have a mic per person, and often used stands instead of flying them above the group.

Anything is possible with enough money, but without the money you need to decide what the priorities are. Do you need to mic the whole group? Is everyone singing their own line? Can you get away with only having wireless mics for the soloists and rhythm section? Can you design more constrained choreo that keeps everyone behind the mic stands? Can you come up with a fundraising scheme to get the money for the full system? (Engrave donors names on the sides of the microphones they sponsor!) If the venues you are working with have any equipment of their own, can it supplement what you can purchase? If they have wireless systems, will they interfere with the ones you pick up?

Any system that the group can call its own will work better than anything in the school or community loaner equipment locker, if only because members of the group will have the chance to become more familiar with it, and how to set it all up, and how to get it working and do full preshow checks. Lots of the issues I've seen people having with borrowed equipment involve an element of unfamiliarity with the equipment, not knowing how to change wireless channels, having enough batteries, knowing how to get the mixing board playing with the house system, etc.

[sanage]

Put the mic receivers on stage, split at the receiver into two channels.. One to mixer direct, the other to your pedal then to mixer. Problem solved.

Also this is an old thread... Sorry.

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