How much money would two microphones be with stands?

Microphones for vocals can be purchased for from $30.00 to $600.00 - You can get a decent vocal mike for about $35.00 at any good music store. Good brands are Shure, ElectroVoice, Audio Technica, and AKG. Vocal mikes are what is called Cardioid (or heart shaped) this means the pattern of sound they pick up is directed toward you, and rejects sounds from behind the mike, so your stage monitors do not feed-back. (Feedback is when the sound from the monitor is picked up by the mike, then ampliified and sent to the monitor again, over and over until you hear that piercing squeal!!!) Vocal mike stands are around $20.00 to 75.00 and a good brand is Atlas. There are two basic types: a straight stand, with a clip on the top to affix the mike. This is fine for the vocalist, who will remove the mike and hold it anyway during a performance. The other type is a boom stand, it has a horizontal extension, with a counterweight on one end and a mike clip on the other. Thisis preferred by guitar players, so you can sing, and not have the guitar hit the mike stand. Both types are adjustable for hight, and the boom type is adjustable for the length of the boom. They are slightly more expensive, but are a must if you are playing an instrument and singing at the same time. The third option is wireless mikes, which are available in normal configuration, or as a headset, with mike (like cell phone mikes) and enable you to move around the stage without any wires. They are more expensive, of course. For mikes, you need a mixer-amplifier, or a mixer and amplifier. The mixer allows you to set individual volume and tone characteristics for each singer, and the amplifier sends the signal to the main monitors (for the audience) and to the stage monitors (so you can hear yourself) Trust me on this one…YOU WILL NEED STAGE MONITORS!! You cannot sing on pitch if you cannot hear your own voice! Without stage monitors, which are typically wedge shaped and sit directly in front of you, and by your feet, you won’t hear yourself at all, due to the guitars, keyboards, drums etc. In the studio it is easier…you have on a set of headphones that allw you to hear either yourself, or a mix of you and the rest of the instruments.

Why mix? Bands make sound, you hear sound, why put all these microphones, desks and amplifiers in the way? Well there are a number of reasons:

* Volume: you just can’t hear someone singing if you’re in a large crowd without some form of amplification.
* Physics: some instruments don’t actually make sounds (eg. keyboards) whilst people listening on the radio won’t hear you unless you’ve got a microphone, amplifier and transmitter.
* Quality: A drum is loud, a person is quiet. Without reconciling such problems, you’ll hear a very uneven sound that’s dominated by the loudest instrument.

But what it really comes down to is that your aim is make the event sound as good as possible. Not loud, better!

What’s it all do? The way a sound system is set up varies tremendously and usually depends on the venue, performance and budget. Most systems however can be broken into a few parts: General sound setup

* Source: the thing that collects the sound and translates it (if needed) into an electrical signal. This is usually a microphone but could also be an output of a keyboard or minidisc player.
* Front of house (FoH): this section uses all the source signals and allows you to mix then together and output to the main speakers. FoH controls what the audience hears.
* Monitors: this section also uses the source signals but, unlike FoH, they are mixed together and outputted at the stage, controlling what the performers hear.

Why use monitors? Imagine you are a singer in a band, standing close to the drum kit and next to the lead guitarist. Surrounded by all these other sounds, you try to sing, but because you can’t hear yourself, you can’t tell if you’re in tune. Not only that, but because you can’t hear the keyboard, you can’t even be sure that you’re singing at the right time.

Performers need to be able to hear themselves and each other in order to achieve decent results. In order to achieve this, we set up speakers on stage, pointing towards the performers and send a different mix to that which the audience is hearing. In large set-ups, there may be over a dozen monitor mixes sent to different speakers for different performers.

Typical set-up The layout of a typical Venue setup (see image)

As you can see, the sources (eg. microphone signals) on stage are split up, one set sent to front-of-house, the other to the monitor desk.

At front of house, the mixing desk allows these signals to be altered and combined into a left speaker signal and a right speaker signal. These are sent to the FoH amplifiers which increase the level of the signal. This is then passed to the speakers which produce the sound.

At the monitor desk, the original source signals are mixed into several ‘mixes’, one for each speaker. Each separate mix is then sent via a graphic equaliser to an amplifier which powers the relevant monitor speaker.

So now we know the individual parts, lets break down a bit further:

* Sources and cable
      o Microphones
      o Cables and signal level
      o Balanced and unbalanced signals (part of BTS sound guide)
      o Connectors (part of BTS sound guide)
* The FoH desk
      o Intro
      o Gain
      o EQ
      o Auxiliaries
      o Fader
* Monitor mixing

Credits: The Backstage Sound Guide was written by Colin Hodges and is © BTS 2002. No reproduction in whole or in part in any means whatsoever is permitted without written consent.

© BTS 2008 Backstage Technical Services, University of Bath Students’ Union, Claverton Down, BATH, BA2 7AY