Hairline vs. Over-ear Mics

[jgblunners]

I wonder if any sound experts on the board can comment on this... the microphone style that I most strongly associate with musical theatre, and see in use most often, is the hairline mic (as modelled here by some helpful mormons):


But recently I've been noticing more shows using what I would dub 'over-ear' mics (please correct me if there's a proper technical term) - take, for example, Hadestown and Waitress:



Am I imagining this transition or have the over-ear mics always been as prevalent as hairline? I notice they're more often used in fringe venues (e.g. Southwark Playhouse) and I also remember using them for amateur productions at University, so I had assumed they were cheaper than hairline mics. They also mean you avoid potential headgear issues (e.g. Elphaba has to have a separate mic on the brim of her hat because it would obscure sound from her hairline mic), but they are obviously less discrete than hairline mics.

I'd love to know more about the difference and why I'm perceiving a shift in use toward the latter. Does anyone have any insight?

[singularsensation10]

Great question. I’m a bit of a geek with all this!! It’s to do with the sound design in the theatre and also type of vocals being amplified.

A hair line mic will need more amplification and gain given that it is further away from the sound source.

So in a space like Southwark Playhouses where the speakers are very close to the actors, more gain would result in more feedback.

Over-ear mics are cheaper than good quality hairline mics, yes, but it’s more often than not to do with the sound design in the theatre. They are probably being used in Waitress given the pop-rock style of the show, it’s very bass and drum heavy - so a hairline mic will pick up more of this excess noise. Also contemporary singing styles are very different to left / classical singing styles (stereotypically contemporary singing is more consonant-focussed and legit is more vowel-focussed, so Waitress being a pop show the vocals may be harder to amplify with a hair line mic than a legit show such as Carousel for instance). Thus over ear mics provide the sound guys with a more isolated amplification of the sound source (the performer).

[andrew]

Feb 5, 2019 18:00:36 GMT singularsensation10 said:

Great question. I’m a bit of a geek with all this!! It’s to do with the sound design in the theatre and also type of vocals being amplified.

A hair line mic will need more amplification and gain given that it is further away from the sound source.

So in a space like Southwark Playhouses where the speakers are very close to the actors, more gain would result in more feedback.

Over-ear mics are cheaper than good quality hairline mics, yes, but it’s more often than not to do with the sound design in the theatre. They are probably being used in Waitress given the pop-rock style of the show, it’s very bass and drum heavy - so a hairline mic will pick up more of this excess noise. Also contemporary singing styles are very different to left / classical singing styles (stereotypically contemporary singing is more consonant-focussed and legit is more vowel-focussed, so Waitress being a pop show the vocals may be harder to amplify with a hair line mic than a legit show such as Carousel for instance). Thus over ear mics provide the sound guys with a more isolated amplification of the sound source (the performer).

I really like this explanation. I also remember that RENT on Broadway had the Hadestown type mics so it makes sense based on the pop/rock/jazz genre & the on-stage band.

[Deleted]

If you have watched the filmed performance of Newsies, you will notice some of them use hairline mics, while others wear the ear ones. I wonder if performers can decide what feels more comfortable for them?

[singularsensation10]

Feb 5, 2019 19:53:38 GMT @eldermillan said:

If you have watched the filmed performance of Newsies, you will notice some of them use hairline mics, while others wear the ear ones. I wonder if performers can decide what feels more comfortable for them?

Usually no, performers don’t usually get that much autonomy regarding technical elements of the show - it is likely to be to do with the fact it was being filmed so one mic could have been for the recording and one for the live mix. It’s incredibly difficult to split the mix to re-mix when it gets to editing the video so if they have an extra audio track it should give them more to play with in editing stages.

[firefingers]

Yes it's all a competition between level/clarity and aesthetic.

In almost all cases, directors and the visual designers (costume, set etc) will want mics to be as invisible as possible. But a sound designer might push for boom mics for a variety of reasons. Reasons include:

1 A loud show. A mic closer to the mouth picks up less of everything other than the performer, so if you have loud music pumping away you lessen the bleed into their mic.

2. A quiet performer. If an actor struggles with projecting, you will gain some level. Or they may not be used to doing eight shows a week.

3. Sweat. Burying a mic in hair on a sweaty actor can cause sweat to get into the mic muffling the sound and eventually destroying the mic. Lifting the mic off the performer's skin can lessen the chances of this happening.

4. Proximity of performer to speakers. At places like Southwark Playhouse where performers end up being within a few feet of the speakers amplifying them, getting in closer means the mics being run at a quieter level and so the system won't feedback.

5 Costuming. A head mic night get sonically obscured by a hat etc, so a boom mic is a simple way of getting round that issue. You can mount mics into hats to get round this, but more mics is more money and more things that could break.


A lot of us soundies are curious why Waitress has moved from hairlines when on Broadway to booms for the London run.

Only thing I think that is incorrect in this thread is the idea that booms are cheeper than hairline. You can get cheep ones of either (£25), and pricey versions of either (£250), and a range inbetween.

NB Calling them over ears might be confusing. Using a piece of wire to mount a mic close to the ear is common when people have little hair to hide a mic, or if they wear a hat that a mic in the hairline might obscure.

[geeky101]

Feb 8, 2019 11:31:07 GMT firefingers said:

Yes it's all a competition between level/clarity and aesthetic.

In almost all cases, directors and the visual designers (costume, set etc) will want mics to be as invisible as possible. But a sound designer might push for boom mics for a variety of reasons. Reasons include:

1 A loud show. A mic closer to the mouth picks up less of everything other than the performer, so if you have loud music pumping away you lessen the bleed into their mic.

2. A quiet performer. If an actor struggles with projecting, you will gain some level. Or they may not be used to doing eight shows a week.

3. Sweat. Burying a mic in hair on a sweaty actor can cause sweat to get into the mic muffling the sound and eventually destroying the mic. Lifting the mic off the performer's skin can lessen the chances of this happening.

4. Proximity of performer to speakers. At places like Southwark Playhouse where performers end up being within a few feet of the speakers amplifying them, getting in closer means the mics being run at a quieter level and so the system won't feedback.

5 Costuming. A head mic night get sonically obscured by a hat etc, so a boom mic is a simple way of getting round that issue. You can mount mics into hats to get round this, but more mics is more money and more things that could break.


A lot of us soundies are curious why Waitress has moved from hairlines when on Broadway to booms for the London run.

Only thing I think that is incorrect in this thread is the idea that booms are cheeper than hairline. You can get cheep ones of either (£25), and pricey versions of either (£250), and a range inbetween.

NB Calling them over ears might be confusing. Using a piece of wire to mount a mic close to the ear is common when people have little hair to hide a mic, or if they wear a hat that a mic in the hairline might obscure.

When I saw it on Broadway a few months back, all the principals had booms to be fair. It might have changed, but I think if you look up photos of the most recent American casts, they're all booms too.

[rearstallsloiterer]

They all wore booms on the broadway version of Waitress.

Firefingers is correct in describing the reasons for booms, but he missed that sometimes it is pure laziness! It’s a hell of a lot easier than making head mics work, that’s where the art comes in especially if they are hidden in the hairline and not dangling just above the nose like some sort of awful wart!

[Deleted]

Does anyone remember what microphone the lead in Carrie wore in the original production? Because I remember reading somewhere that they had to rethink their tech because the blood in the final scenes ended up breaking her microphone so the tech had to be rethought. Now they just use lighting to imply the blood.