I recently had an opportunity to produce a musical theater group production at 2Rivers. Although the fundamentals were the same (if not more simple than mixing a normal 2Rivers service), the nuances were a plenty. I'm thankful for the experiences we've had so far on the M32, and grateful they paid off in fixing some really early and huge challenges I faced.

The Background
The production was Annie Jr. by LifeLight Youth Theater. My daughter, Lily was the lead role. Here was the setup:

• 12 wireless headset microphones
• 4 principle actors (didn't change mics - most of the dialogue, singing, dancing)
• 2 secondary actors (didn't change mics)
• 6 rotating microphones (for secondary actors and ensembles)
• 5 group numbers with both leads and secondary or ensembles
• 36 audio queues/scenes
• 1 consistent background score source (AV) - this was the easiest part thanks to co-director and her que software!

What worked well

• Having a director who provided clear audio queues so that I could anticipate what needed to happen and when 
• Knowing what equipment I would get to use before the show
• Spreading the wireless mic receivers across both stage left and stage right
• Using both DL-16 stage modules to plug them in, and only using the top row
• Having the snakes going to the DL-16s clearly labeled so that I could easily plug them back in
• Configuring a single page on the board for all the mics I needed

What I found out (the hard way)

• DCAs are frenemies! I tried to use 5 DCAs to separate out the ensemble actors from the leads. This was a horrible idea as the DCAs conflicted with each other. If mic 9, for example, was in multiple DCAs, every DCA had to be unmuted. Which defeated the purpose and destroyed my good intentions.
  
  • ​Solution: since this was discovered during dress rehearsal, I removed all DCAs (except "All Mics").
• Scenes are no good if you don't have the channels configured, leveled, and EQd first. I tried to pre-configure a bunch of scenes to follow along with the script, including all the mute settings. 
  
  • ​Solution: I started over from the top, re-saving each scene. So much for my pre-work. At least I learned something!
• Using scenes just for mute/un-mute is foolish. It's kinda an atomic option for something better served by snippets. 
  
  • ​Solution: I kept using scenes as this was by far easier after having the mics configured and EQd well on the first go around. Didn't have time to go for snippets.
• Too many mute options is wonky. Having a combination of mute group, DCA, and individual channels coming in and out of mute as part of my scenes was way too many levels of complexity. At one point, I ditched all muting except at the individual channel level. 
  
  • ​What I learned: keep it simple, stupid!
• A channel's config may, by default, not even have that channel patched to the main L/R output. 
  
  • What I learned: don't assume anything. Use the config screen. Compare to channels that do work.
• Snippets don't capture everything. I hoped to recover from my pre-configured scene error by using a snippet across all mics but it failed to capture/override some of the basics. 
  
  • ​What I learned: there's a time to learn and a time to execute. Since this didn't work once I gave up and reverted to scenes. More to learn!

Team - I've been listening to this again. Highly recommend you put on some headphones/earphones and take a listen to the examples James runs through. This will really help our primary mixing goal: vocal clarity.

I really appreciate these basics:

• Roll off rumble (low cut)
• Avoid proximity effect (200-250 hz)
• Reduce mid-range resonance (cut some 500 hz)
• Play safety (narrow cut usually around 2k to 4k - avoid the harsh, piercing)

At the 5:10 mark he gives the payoff - a listen to the mix without EQ and then with the above techniques applied to each vocalist (they are all tonally different, so the EQ slightly varies.)

Check out the video and experiment with these techniques next time you produce a rehearsal!

A big thanks to Eric for sharing these EQ hints below. I find these cheat sheets really helpful for addressing any obvious challenges you might be facing.

I was fortunate to join Nate, Eric, and Paul in an event storming session. We took a look at all the activities that go into producing an event at 2Rivers. In my mind, these activities always center around the preparation and the event itself. It was a blessing to partner up identifying what things we do now and talking about what we can do better.

Together we identified the following areas that we can improve:
PRIORITY 1: EQ strategy and philosophy
PRIORITY 2: Real-time communication between audio production team

Other areas to be prioritized:

• Aligning vocalists (stage right-to-left) to the way they are positioned on the sound board
• Identifying what triggers saving to the default scene
  
• Identifying what triggers saving a new or updated preset
  
• Learning how to make sure drums are always present in the mix
  
• Learning what countdown songs work well and when to start them 
• Experimenting with saving individual ear mix presets
• Training on how to use Spotify
  
• Learning the mindset behind creating customized Spotify playlists for specific events/themes

Below are all the activities we identified as part of each stage in live audio production. Comment below if you can think of additional ones.