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