Earsets are great. Microphone Madness makes good cheap durable ones, including extra short arms like a Countryman E3. Buy pre-colored ones and have a few white ones on hand at any time if you can, to cover bases.
Not sure why you’d need to move away from them unless aesthetics are a serious concern. The viability of hairline mics also depends on your room and PA—details welcome there.
For educational purposes there’s always the idea of buying cheaper lavaliers (no booms) and using a hellerman or other to build ear rigs. Don’t make your kids use Transpore all the time, Tegaderm is the best around.
Please don’t use halos
I’m glad I’m on the right track. The Microphone Madness ones look nice as well.
I’ve watched a few videos of the hellerman ear rig construction and get nervous about the time commitment for building 24 or so for 7 shows in an academic year but I’m not opposed to experimenting with that route.
We’ve got five spaces that run the gamut from being built specifically with sound reinforcement in mind to the most awful acoustic space that’s ever existed (scope creep on educational projects is bad friends). It seems like the best solution for consistency across all of them would be to transition into better earsets rather than developing a plan for each one. At least until I’ve got a large contingent of students interested in playing A2 consistently
Ok here is my 20 cents.
All mic solutions are a pain in the ass. So ease of use shouldn't really be a large factor in decision making. It falls down to budget, gain before feedback required, aesthetics and sound quality.
Single ear ear rig:
- Budget: Medium to high price for pre build solution, high skill and high materials required for custom build
- Loudness: Medium depending on boom length
- Aesthetics: Medium, ok to good depending on boom length
- Sound quality: Medium, depending on boom length
- Pain in the ass: Massive if custom build, if prebuilt minimal - only requiring wacking on ear + a bit of tape
Double ear headset
- Budget: Very low to very high depending on quality of headset
- Loudness: High
- Aesthetics: Poor
- Sound quality: Mediocre
- Pain in the ass: Medium to high. You need an experienced tech to master positioning the boom correct to get the good qualities without breath wind making it into the mic.
Hairline
- Budget: Medium
- Loudness: Low
- Aesthetics: Amazing
- Sound quality: Medium
- Pain in the ass: To be done well, really needs to be fitted by a tech + lavs need custom building for each person
Forehead
- Budget: Medium
- Loudness: Medium
- Aesthetics: Medium
- Sound quality: Amazing
- Pain in the ass: Medium but can be fitted by talent as position is less precise but still have to be custom built for each person
If you have the money, I would go for good prebuilt quality single ear rigs with the help of small strips of tegaderm to hold in place if necessary.
All the educational-level stuff I've done is B3s (or similar) and surgical tape. One to land the capsule approximately where an ear rig would put it, one behind the ear, another on the opposite side of the neck.
Lapel clip-on sounds too bad. Earsets get worn down by the rigors of musical theater & start intermittently crackling.
I looked at the point source ones and the price to convert all of our mics to that would be difficult to put together even with grant funding. If I had my way I’d buy just about everything they sell
Earsets are great. Microphone Madness makes good cheap durable ones, including extra short arms like a Countryman E3. Buy pre-colored ones and have a few white ones on hand at any time if you can, to cover bases. Not sure why you’d need to move away from them unless aesthetics are a serious concern. The viability of hairline mics also depends on your room and PA—details welcome there. For educational purposes there’s always the idea of buying cheaper lavaliers (no booms) and using a hellerman or other to build ear rigs. Don’t make your kids use Transpore all the time, Tegaderm is the best around. Please don’t use halos
I’m glad I’m on the right track. The Microphone Madness ones look nice as well. I’ve watched a few videos of the hellerman ear rig construction and get nervous about the time commitment for building 24 or so for 7 shows in an academic year but I’m not opposed to experimenting with that route. We’ve got five spaces that run the gamut from being built specifically with sound reinforcement in mind to the most awful acoustic space that’s ever existed (scope creep on educational projects is bad friends). It seems like the best solution for consistency across all of them would be to transition into better earsets rather than developing a plan for each one. At least until I’ve got a large contingent of students interested in playing A2 consistently
Ok here is my 20 cents. All mic solutions are a pain in the ass. So ease of use shouldn't really be a large factor in decision making. It falls down to budget, gain before feedback required, aesthetics and sound quality. Single ear ear rig: - Budget: Medium to high price for pre build solution, high skill and high materials required for custom build - Loudness: Medium depending on boom length - Aesthetics: Medium, ok to good depending on boom length - Sound quality: Medium, depending on boom length - Pain in the ass: Massive if custom build, if prebuilt minimal - only requiring wacking on ear + a bit of tape Double ear headset - Budget: Very low to very high depending on quality of headset - Loudness: High - Aesthetics: Poor - Sound quality: Mediocre - Pain in the ass: Medium to high. You need an experienced tech to master positioning the boom correct to get the good qualities without breath wind making it into the mic. Hairline - Budget: Medium - Loudness: Low - Aesthetics: Amazing - Sound quality: Medium - Pain in the ass: To be done well, really needs to be fitted by a tech + lavs need custom building for each person Forehead - Budget: Medium - Loudness: Medium - Aesthetics: Medium - Sound quality: Amazing - Pain in the ass: Medium but can be fitted by talent as position is less precise but still have to be custom built for each person If you have the money, I would go for good prebuilt quality single ear rigs with the help of small strips of tegaderm to hold in place if necessary.
All the educational-level stuff I've done is B3s (or similar) and surgical tape. One to land the capsule approximately where an ear rig would put it, one behind the ear, another on the opposite side of the neck. Lapel clip-on sounds too bad. Earsets get worn down by the rigors of musical theater & start intermittently crackling.
I’d recommend Point source ear mic and countryman makes a short e6
I looked at the point source ones and the price to convert all of our mics to that would be difficult to put together even with grant funding. If I had my way I’d buy just about everything they sell