I’ve spent a lot of my career mixing musicals, in London’s West End and on tour. They range from a five-piece band and six in the cast with one SFX to a 20 plus cast and a 20 piece orchestra with 100 + SFX in each act. Depending on the piece it takes a lot of concentration, and learning a show from another operator can be very stressful. You’re trying to read the script and get the lines in before they start speaking so they aren’t topped (cutting the top of each line) and you are trying to make it sound nice at the same time. Lines in musicals are mixed individually. If you don’t do this, then you will get phase cancellation between the Omni-directional radio mics and it is very audible, so to get a clean mix you mix one line at a time.
The cast is acting and interacting with each other even when it is not their line and they know their mics aren’t up if its not a scripted line so they will be quietly saying things to help them stay in character. During numbers, they aren’t usually on mass singing into each other’s mics so you can have more mics up then without getting lots of phase cancellation. Sometimes with a duet you have to pick one mic and mix it on that.
So you have to get the mic up a millisecond before they sing, at the right level, and get it out again and mix the band and get the next line in and fire SFX.
I have included a section of the made-up script for a show I have mixed. The aim of the script is to get you to learn the show as painlessly as possible and then you memorise it and get “off script.” Musicals are designed shows so the mix is largely dictated or directed by the Sound Designer. You do have artistic input as the operator but the overall shape of the show is something that you have to stick to i.e. this is a loud bit or this is a quiet bit. The first time you look at that script you could easily think this is just mixing by numbers. It isn’t. There are green highlighted squares with desk cue numbers in and there are yellow highlighted squares with levels for the band fader in. I know it seems like mixing by numbers but all that is I know it seems like mixing by numbers but all that is doing is giving the person learning a heads up of what is coming. Is it a loud number or a quiet number, you need to know that before you put the faders up, once the song has started its too late and you’ve messed up the start of the number.
This is a cast recording of the part of the show that matches the script so you can hear the speed it has to be done at
Audio Cum on feel the noise.
Script FOH SOUND SCRIPT FINAL JULY 2013 (NO STAGE DIRECTIONS)
The Book of Mormon Opening number has to be tricky getting the right mic up at the right time. It takes a couple of weeks to get a new show under your belt and then over the next few weeks and months you will finesse it, and that’s where the art is. You get better and better at pushing the show into the right shape. There will be deps in the band and understudies will go on, sometimes in the middle of the show, but like a steam train as long as people are buying tickets that show will keep going and you need to make it sound the way it should.
There are eight shows a week a normal split for the mix rotation will be
No1 – 4 shows
No2 – 4 shows
Sometimes the producers will want an under the buss cover (if one of the operators are out of the country on holiday and the other operator gets hit by a bus)
Then the mix ratio will be more like
No1 – 4 shows
No2 – 3 Shows
No 3 – 1 Show
This generally only happens on really long-running shows
There are eight shows a week and if you aren’t mixing you are still there doing the backstage plot. So if you have a partner that works 9-5, you won’t see them. If you have kids its great until they go to school because you will head off to work as they are coming home from school and they will be in bed when you get home.
Staying on a long-running show for a long time can get tiring and long term I have only done jolly shows. But if you get on a show where everyone works together and the egos aren’t running away with themselves then you can have a lot of fun.
Lonny’s entrance
Yes that’s the rest of the sound crew
Yes that’s during the show
Yes there could also be some work going on
Dan takes a break.
Sweaty vest
Stacey Jaxx.Last night
Lonny sums it up