SWING!

Assistant Sound Engineer

 Overview

Ensuring that there was no feedback coming from any of the speakers

Ensuring that the Front of House Engineer knew the correct information if something went wrong

Ensuring that the EQ for every mic is set effectively to eliminate feedback, but make each mic sound its best

Ensure mic placement is at its best for optimal performance

Being the assistant sound designer, it was a bit different than being the head sound designer. I did not get to make a lot of the final decisions, however it was a very good learning experience. I was in charge of making sure that the mic placement did not get moved and putting an EQ on the mics. This was very effective due to the fact that the drum set was on stage and was, in my opinion, heavily miced. I was also in charge of making sure that the FOH Engineer made sure that they had accurate information so that if anything went wrong, they were knowledgeable enough to know how to fix it. This was not an issue because this person had worked with me before and was already knowledgeable on the topics that would needed to be fixed. 

The other big issue with this show was the fact that the orchestra was on stage. If anything went wrong, it would have had to have been fixed on stage. With that being said there was not really any room to work around this. We had to ensure that things were going to work, so there was a lot of testing that went into this. Between testing power and cables and DI boxes and several other scenarios. Everything going through Dante made it a bit more reliable, in my mind. Especially since in this venue it uses a primary and a secondary network, so if something happens, there is always a backup. If something were to have happened it would not have been good. The best that could have happened in this case is that the power went out. 

Within this show there was a lot of dancing and singing with different vocal parts, which also made the micing of actors a bit more difficult because the actors that are singing are also dancing, but like any other musical theatre piece, that is often the case. My preferred mic rig for actors is a halo rig for most mics. The Freed Center is stocked with Countryman B6 lavaliers as well as Sennheiser MKE2 lavaliers. In a few cases there were some actors that had shorter hair to where a halo rig was not feasible, so an ear rig was constructed.  This show went very well and without any issues at all.