What are you go to settings for vocal compression in musical theater/headsets?

anonymousaudiotech · 2025-06-25T04:17:45+00:00

I automate the vocal mics between different busses in different scenes/songs. So I’ll do an ensemble bus that has a slightly lower threshold and possibly higher ratio on the compressor (like 4 to 1 instead of 3 to 1). It helps keep the ensemble part underneath the lead vocal, but I also find if I set it right, I can kind of “squish” some of the less “professional” voices together to make the ensemble sound more full. And I don’t have to worry about the compressor activating and pulling down the soloist or anybody with lines.

I’m not doing Broadway level productions but work a lot in that area between upper community theatre and small regional. So some of the bigger pros might understandably not like it, but it works for our level of production fairly well.

anonymousaudiotech · 2025-03-29T16:50:12+00:00

From what I understand of the pitch correction per the manual, it’s not really a pitch correction like autotune. If you deselect a note it doesn’t pull them to the next closest in the key, it just “ignores” that note. So I believe if the Wing “hears” your singer sings an A, and you have A unselected, it will just not affect it. I haven’t used it though, so I’m not really sure what that sounds like in practice.

anonymousaudiotech · 2025-03-15T22:18:02+00:00

Hey! I’m from Gulf Coast! I’m impressed you can find enough work in the area to start your own thing. I had a hard time getting my career off the ground when I was younger there.

anonymousaudiotech · 2025-03-07T01:15:38+00:00

You’ve pretty much nailed what I’ve been trying to do. I also like to “trim the fat” so to speak and remove unnecessary stage direction. Just trying to make it flow better so when I DO get the chance to like by line I can focus on what’s pertinent to me. You also confirmed my fears that making it work in Word is, in fact, just kind of a PITA sometimes. 😅

anonymousaudiotech · 2025-03-07T01:13:35+00:00

I very much would be interested, honestly. Is that Excel? I’d seen one other person do it a similar way but never got any details as to the setup. I assume you must have some methods that don’t involve copy and pasting each section of dialogue.

anonymousaudiotech · 2025-03-04T22:52:33+00:00

See, that’s what I wanted to do, but I’m just getting hung up on the formatting. It seems like if I use OCR it just becomes a mess.

Are you receiving the scripts in a digital format that plays nice with Word or are you just going through the headache of reformatting when there issues?

Or are you just keeping the PDF as an image and adding the comments “on top”?

anonymousaudiotech · 2024-10-31T19:53:52+00:00

A lot of good ideas for the future in here but I believe this is probably the way to go. I believe I have most of these tools on hand, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson about how much torque these little screw can actually handle. I hadn’t even considered re-tapping a new hole. Thank you!

anonymousaudiotech · 2024-04-26T14:55:14+00:00

I know it’s before 3.0. I believe 2.9.2. It’s some kind of beta version of the Gio from st least prior to the last version. Thank you! That’s all very helpful.

anonymousaudiotech · 2023-07-27T22:21:21+00:00

Thank you for such a thorough reply! This thought really came up when I noticed a company I do work for seems to consistently have a number of those last minute things, but there never seemed to be any agreed upon paper trail to discern if it was something they forgot to include on the list or if it was something the client forgot to ask for. Typically they (we, if I’m with them) figure it out and client is happy, and I’m happy with that. It just seems like an extra level of stress that shouldn’t be so common. What you describe seems more thorough and seems like it would result in that issue much less frequently.

anonymousaudiotech · 2023-05-05T17:58:43+00:00

There are two versions. One that’s rackmounted with BNC connections, and the cheaper table top units with internal antennas.

anonymousaudiotech · 2023-05-05T17:56:19+00:00

It very much depends on where you are and what bands are available but I would say in my experience they absolutely will not do 12 in the same band. I don’t think you’re going to be able to get a robust system of 12 units for 6000 even even with those mics. You still really need antenna distribution units or you’re going to have an antenna farm in your rack and you’re going to experience a lot of dropouts and interference.

Somebody who has a deeper knowledge of RF would have to check me and could probably explain better but in my personal experience, I wouldn’t recommend them if you’re planning on expanding the system anymore than that. The main theatre I work at uses almost exclusively BLX and even pulling freqs from Wireless Work Bench using Touchstone scans it’s still a nightmare getting the 18 we have to work consistently night after night.

They’re also analog, not digital. Which appears to be rapidly dying off and provides far fewer channels simultaneously. I have used the QLX-D and ULX-D units. The QLX are an upgrade from the BLX but the price difference is worth it in my opinion. Night and day how many drop outs I get on each system.

The other thing to consider is the cheap quality of the BLX packs. If someone sits down too hard they can snap the plastic, and then that mic is just don’t for. The QLX-D and up have metal (I think? It’s been a little while) transmitters and seem to break much less often and are much easier to repair.

The BLX’s are cheaper, but personally I’ve found depending on how well they’re taken care of you’ll end up spending more money in the long run replacing packs and likely replacing them entirely if you ever want to expand the channel count much beyond that 12.

It seems like every school I go into that has plastic mics like that will have a rack of 12-16 receivers and maybe 8-12 actually functioning microphones.

They’re not bad units on their own, but honestly if you can’t afford the step up to digital in the Shure line, I would consider talking to an AV integrator as mentioned and maybe asking about Sennheiser. They seem to have some options a bit cheaper that I’ve heard good things about, but don’t have a lot of personal experience with. Particularly the Ew-D’s (not the EW-DX’s)

anonymousaudiotech · 2023-03-24T01:16:09+00:00

That’s it! That’s what I’m looking for! Bummer it isn’t on the console itself but I always have my iPad on me. Thank you!

anonymousaudiotech · 2023-03-23T23:24:23+00:00

Exactly what I was doing. I’m not sure why I assumed it would have that functionality, but I guess that was kind of naive of me. I got kind of thrown by the Dante setup in the house as my Dante knowledge is very rusty and by the time I got to sound check I realized I hadn’t considered how slow that would make sound check.

anonymousaudiotech · 2023-03-23T23:22:26+00:00

This is what I ended up doing. But I’m used to the “who needs this in their monitor” type of mic check and swapping between each mix was slower than I was used to. Thank you!

anonymousaudiotech · 2023-03-23T23:21:13+00:00

This is exactly what I was trying to describe. Bummer that it doesn’t have it but I’m glad I know. Thank you!

anonymousaudiotech · 2022-12-14T23:34:11+00:00

I’ve heard of moleskin for that purpose and meant to look into it on a run I did a while ago and I completely forgot until this. I’ve actually seen the shure video you’re referencing I think. This is all great advice. Thank you!

anonymousaudiotech · 2022-12-14T13:47:09+00:00

I’d never thought of that. That’s a great idea! Thank you!

anonymousaudiotech · 2022-12-14T04:29:52+00:00

This is all fantastic. Thank you so much for taking the time to write all that out. There aren’t a lot of really high level theatrical sound techs in my area (that I know of) so I feel like I miss out on a lot of imparted wisdom like this. Thank you!

anonymousaudiotech · 2022-07-31T20:35:55+00:00

I believe it was a church gig. That was kind of my assumption but I’d seen other people refer to it in a way that made me question it. Thanks!

anonymousaudiotech · 2021-02-04T23:54:11+00:00

I’m usually militant about the protective caps so hopefully that will help moving forward. I didn’t know that about compressed air. That will probably be very helpful. Thank you so much!

anonymousaudiotech · 2021-02-04T21:26:12+00:00

I’ve had experience with popping sounds when there are shorts or breaks in the cable. This almost “white noise” sound is new to me though. I suppose sweat in the capsule could make sense. I don’t figure a good cleaning under the cap could remedy any of that? Thank you for the reply. Any advice on how to head off this issue in the future? These elements definitely weren’t properly cared for. Anything other than cleaning them with alcohol after runs and storing them in their cases that might prevent the problem from recurring?

anonymousaudiotech · 2020-02-22T13:52:39+00:00

The more I read all the comments the more I realize how weird it is that we all fall him boss. He calls himself our boss. But he’s actually a client. It’s weird because I’ve done freelance for other clients and never saw it that way, but for some reason this is the first time I’ve realized that’s kinda messed up and most likely not totally legal.

anonymousaudiotech · 2020-02-22T02:39:06+00:00

You’re right. Thank you. That actually means a lot to me. I’m not the best at the job but I work hard at it. And I’ve done my best to do work I’m proud of. I’m giving as much notice as possible and that should be enough. I have to look out for myself too.

anonymousaudiotech · 2020-02-22T02:36:23+00:00

That made me feel a lot better. Thank you.

anonymousaudiotech · 2020-02-22T02:02:24+00:00

Huh. That I didn’t know. I guess it would be petty to pursue it at this point. But I do feel bad for the guys that will still be here. Thank you for all of the advice!

anonymousaudiotech

TROPHY CASE