Guide to Being a Sound Designer and Sound Engineer for MTG

Updated by Brandon John

This is a general guide for the positions of Sound Designer and Sound Engineer for the MIT Musical Theater Guild.  Since these positions frequently overlap, and the division of duties varies widely between shows, they are described as one.  Typically, the SD is responsible for the artistic decisions and the SE is responsible for making it happen. This guide is currently aimed at someone who has been a sound designer and/or engineer before, and as such focuses on the details that are specific to MTG.

Things you are responsible for:

• Coordinating with the director to design all sound effects.

• Designing the layout of speakers (especially for Sala shows) and coordinating with the TD to get them placed and cabled

• Designing a mic plot (who gets a mic, and any mic handoffs that are necessary)

• Deciding if the orchestra needs reinforcement, and designing that system if necessary

• Setting up all sound equipment at the beginning of prod week
  

• Recording the pre-show announcement

• Running mic checks each night

• Mixing the live performance and triggering sound effects

• Taking down equipment at strike

Things you may end up being responsible for:

• Orchestra monitor (cameras + display)
• Installing the comms system (Clearcom boxes are owned by Sala and KLT, just have to set them up)
• Hanging + cabling speakers

Schedule

Before prod week:

• Meet with the director and determine what sound effects are needed, and try to decide how they should sound.  There may need to be several iterations, where candidate effects are demoed for the director and rejected, and it’s easier to get the director’s time early in the production, so try to do as much of this as soon as possible.

• Meet with the director and vocal director and determine who needs to get a mic, and if there are any offstage microphones needed.  There might not be enough mic channels, so figure out how actors can trade off if needed. Make sure the choreographer, costume designer, and cast know who will be wearing microphones, so they can start to work that into their plans.

• Meet with the orchestra director and determine what kind of monitoring they need, and how you can run that.  Video monitoring is also usually useful and sometimes falls through the cracks (since it’s not really in anyone’s job description), so if you can take charge of that it would be helpful. See video section, below.

• Determine all equipment that is needed and see if anything needs to be borrowed.  If you’re just miking the cast, the Guild probably owns all of the equipment needed.  If you decide to do orchestra reinforcement or need backstage mics, some items may need to be borrowed (see the equipment section at the end).

• Try to make it to a stumble-through of the show to get an idea of the flow of things.  For example, be aware if there’s a point where an actor has a line off stage so you will know to turn that mic on.

• In conjunction with the SM, decide which sound effects should be fired on the SM’s cue, and which should simply be fired by the board op as a reaction to what’s on stage.  Some SMs will want to cue everything, whereas some SMs will appreciate having fewer things to think about.

• Check if there’s going to be any stage blood, spraying water, or anything else that could damage microphones.  If there is, you’ll need to use condoms to protect them. Make sure there are enough, and educate the cast about their proper use.

Before tech night:

• Set up all equipment in the theater.  If you don’t know how to set up everything, there are people around that can help.  The producer or the board will know who to ask. For KLT shows, it should be possible to set up everything except the orchestra during put-in.  For Sala shows, the audience won’t be built for a while but you can at least set up the sound platform. Consult with the TD to determine the best time to do this.

• Ensure the orchestra has everything before the first rehearsal with the orchestra.

• Get the pre-show announcement recorded.  Usually the director comes up with the script and picks an actor to read it, just make sure it contains the critical bits--reminder to turn off phones, no photography/recording, no food/drinks/smoking, location of emergency exits, and warnings for strobe lights, gunshots, R-rated material, or anything else that might get us in trouble.

At tech night:

• Lay out the mic table.  This is usually placed in the dressing room (West Lounge) for Sala shows and the hair/makeup room (the SR dressing room) for KLT shows.  Use masking tape to tape off a table into sections for each actor, and label them with a sharpie.

• Get actors fitted for mics.  The headsets are flexible, so the real factor to look for is the length of the boom arm that the mic itself is on.  Ideally this should be close to the corner of the actors’ mouths--too far away and it won’t pick up their voice as well, and if it’s too long it will get in the way of their face.  Also note that some are black and some have been painted a lighter shade. Don’t have a dark-complexioned actor use a mic with a white boom arm.

• Explain how to care for the equipment:

• Mics should only ever be on the actors’ heads, in the bag, or in transit between those two places.  The bags should be zipped closed.

• Do not twist the mic plug into the belt pack.  Doing so can break the pins, resulting in a costly repair (and we probably won’t have the part handy, either)

• Nothing besides sound stuff should ever go on the mic table.  Threaten to confiscate anything you find on it.

• Run a full sound check, asking actors to give you the extremes of their volume to ensure the system can handle it, setting compressor levels as needed.  Also have them move around a bit, to check that the connection between the mic and transmitter pack is secure.

At each tech run and performance:

• Ensure that the batteries are charged.  The chargers automatically detect when the batteries are charged and stop trying to shove electrons into them; beware that sometimes this detection goes awry and the charger thinks a drained battery is charged.  Make sure that all 32 batteries are fully inserted, as they often are slightly out of the socket and do not charge.

• After the preliminary full sound check, you really just need to check that each channel is still working.  Just ask to hear a bit, make sure everything looks like you expect, and release the actors to do other things.

• Remember to shut everything down.  Amps should be the first thing off.  If you’re using a video monitor, turn it off too.

General tips and tricks

If you’re going to have offstage singers, give some thought to where they’re going to stand and how they’re going to be miked.  If they’re going to stand by the conductor (right in front of the orchestra) and get picked up by their headset mics, then you’re going to get a ton of orchestra sound in those channels.  Consider setting up special mics that are directional and a small distance from the orchestra. This also solves the problem of having to track down exactly who’s supposed to be singing offstage at what times--you always have dedicated channels just for offstage vocals.

To mic or to not mic the orchestra?  If the orchestra is placed behind the set and behind a heavy curtain (which is common for Sala at least), they will end up sounding very muffled and distant.  The curtains act as a gentle low-pass filter, leaving everything thuddy. Just adding an area mic or two and feeding it gently into the mains helps greatly with presence and clarity.  However, this also adds a significant amount of complexity to the whole system. You can easily end up with a feedback loop due to the vocal monitor. You could fix this by close miking the orchestra and getting rid of the area mics… but that’s even more work.

If the show makes use of cap-firing prop guns (i.e., ones that make and actual “bang” on stage), have a gunshot sound effect cued up on a hotkey — the prop guns we use fail to fire about 30% of the time.

MTG-Owned Equipment List

• 17x wireless mic belt pack transmitter, receiver, and rechargeable AA batteries, ample headsets
• 1x Handheld wireless mic (SM58 with built-in transmitter), uses same receivers
• 5x technically illegal (due to FCC) receivers, with 3 body pack transmitters and 2 functioning handhelds.
  • These are identical to the 1x body pack and 1x handheld that is owned by KLT. If in KLT, feel free to use them together.
• Behringer X32 32-channel mixer
• 4x Behringer MULTICOM PRO-XL MDX4600 (4-channel compressor/gate, for 16 total channels, largely unneeded with the digital mixer)
• ART HQ-231 (2-channel 31-band graphic EQ)
• Behringer DI800 (8-channel DI box)
• 
  
• 2x Crown CE1000 power amps
  • 560W@2ohm, 450W@4ohm, 275W@8ohm
• 12x “Pizza Pizza” speakers (4 with mounting brackets)
  • 100W RMS, 6 ohms, 57Hz-30kHz
• 24x4 175’ snake
• 16x4 100’ snake
• XLR snakes (16 total channels), for going from the wireless receivers to the mixer
• Insert snakes (16 total channels), for the compressors
• All the cabling you could ever need
• Video monitoring system

Equipment owned by Matt Putnam

• Presonus 24.4.2, 16.0.2 mixers
• dbx AFS 224, Driverack PA+ (automatic feedback suppression, other fanciness)
• Lexicon MX400 (digital effects unit)
• Headphone monitoring system
• Mics of all types
• Mic stands, clips, shock mounts
• More DI boxes
• 16x4 50’ snake
• 6x2 25’ snake
• Lots more XLR, TRS, and other cables
• Equipment for doing digital video monitoring
  • Its nicer than MTG's analog stuff, but largely unnecessary

As of this writing in June 2018, basically everything that is in the back of the office or in the tech cabinet is MTG's, and the stuff behind the tech cabinet and under the table to the right when you enter the office belongs to Putnam.

Video Monitoring

In recent shows (as of 2018), the sound engineer has often been assigned the task of setting up video comms. Currently this is done through a mixture of a couple 12v "security cameras", which we gaff tape to the nearest appropriate object. We then use BNC cables to run to the displays, or use BNC -> RCA adapters and RCA -> XLR adapters to run through the sound system snake. 

On the display end, we use a BNC -> RCA adapter to connect to the RCA -> VGA box. These boxes can then drive any standard digital monitor. We often hang these displays from the spot-op scaffolding or pipe grid, or just stick it on the SM or sound engineers desk. Make sure to test the setup before running the cables and installing everything, because most of our equipment is pretty cheap and liable to break. Also make sure to check that the monitor you choose has a very low latency, as the entire point of the monitor is to let the actors see the beat straight from the conductor.

For debugging and for camera alignment we have a small (4") display that can be powered from the same 12v supply that powers the camera. I suggest setting this up and leaving it with the conductor's camera, so that they can readjust the camera angle if necessary.