SFL Group<\/a>,\u00a0replies:<\/p>\nThe challenge with a \u201cgeneral mic\u201d is that you only pick up \u201cgeneral sound\u201d. As soon as you start to amplify this mic in the PA, you will get feedback.<\/p>\n
The principle is this: every time you half the distance between mic and performer, you double the effective volume.<\/p>\n
With this in mind, if you were to close mic someone (i.e. 2\u201d from their mouth) you will get, let\u2019s say 100% volume. As you move away to 4\u201d you are at 50% volume. By the time you are 1-ft away, you are now at around 15% volume.<\/p>\n
If you were to put the mic in the centre of your stage, you would be about 17-ft away from everyone. This is probably equal to a 1% volume capability\u2026!<\/p>\n
Of course, you could use a handful of mics spread out along the stage, but you would only achieve about 10% volume potential. Even if you were to use shotgun mics which are highly directional, you might only be able to increase this volume capability by a small amount more than this.<\/p>\n
Encouraging the kids to \u201cperform\u201d and project their voices as best they can would get you off to a good start, but really without individual close mic\u2019ing you will not be able to make a mouse shout\u2026<\/p>\n
The main use for these \u201cgeneral mics\u201d is for recording or broadcast; basically to amplify anywhere except the room in which the mics \/ performance is being held.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry that there is no easy answer to this question!<\/p>\n
Tim<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tim Thompson emailed a question regarding microphones for a school play. “We don’t have the ability to mic every kid in the play and would love to have just a general mic on the stage that would pic up the kids as they speak. The stage is about 35 ft wide. What kind of mic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":8688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,676],"tags":[1219,1265],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Ask the Expert - Recommended microphones for school play<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We don't have the ability to mic every kid and would love to have just a general mic on the stage that would pic up the kids as they speak. What kind of mic?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ask the Expert - Recommended microphones for school play\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We don't have the ability to mic every kid and would love to have just a general mic on the stage that would pic up the kids as they speak. What kind of mic?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Musicademy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Musicademy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-10T15:53:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-07-31T09:07:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/drc0fhsrp02et.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/08122729\/microphones.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"351\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Marie@Musicademy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@musicademy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@musicademy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Marie@Musicademy\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/\",\"name\":\"Ask the Expert - Recommended microphones for school play\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-10T15:53:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-07-31T09:07:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f250bacb3de5aa97fa822e06e84a706c\"},\"description\":\"We don't have the ability to mic every kid and would love to have just a general mic on the stage that would pic up the kids as they speak. What kind of mic?\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Musicademy\",\"description\":\"Award-winning training resources for church based musicians\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f250bacb3de5aa97fa822e06e84a706c\",\"name\":\"Marie@Musicademy\",\"description\":\"Marie is a Director of Musicademy and works as the Business Manager and E-Commerce specialist. Prior to setting up Musicademy with Andy, Marie worked as a marketing consultant. She is also a qualified teacher and continues to lecture in Business and Marketing for various professional organisations and universities. Marie co-leads an \\\"emerging\\\" church\/housegroup and is married with two teenage children. She takes great delight in answering Musicademy emails at all times of the day and night \u2013 some people would suggest that she needs to get a life.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/musicademy.com\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ask the Expert - Recommended microphones for school play","description":"We don't have the ability to mic every kid and would love to have just a general mic on the stage that would pic up the kids as they speak. What kind of mic?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ask the Expert - Recommended microphones for school play","og_description":"We don't have the ability to mic every kid and would love to have just a general mic on the stage that would pic up the kids as they speak. What kind of mic?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/","og_site_name":"Musicademy","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Musicademy","article_published_time":"2012-06-10T15:53:59+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-07-31T09:07:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":"640","height":"351","url":"https:\/\/drc0fhsrp02et.cloudfront.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/08122729\/microphones.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Marie@Musicademy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@musicademy","twitter_site":"@musicademy","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Marie@Musicademy","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/","url":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/","name":"Ask the Expert - Recommended microphones for school play","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-06-10T15:53:59+00:00","dateModified":"2019-07-31T09:07:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f250bacb3de5aa97fa822e06e84a706c"},"description":"We don't have the ability to mic every kid and would love to have just a general mic on the stage that would pic up the kids as they speak. What kind of mic?","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/ask-the-expert-mic-use-for-school-play\/"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/","name":"Musicademy","description":"Award-winning training resources for church based musicians","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/f250bacb3de5aa97fa822e06e84a706c","name":"Marie@Musicademy","description":"Marie is a Director of Musicademy and works as the Business Manager and E-Commerce specialist. Prior to setting up Musicademy with Andy, Marie worked as a marketing consultant. She is also a qualified teacher and continues to lecture in Business and Marketing for various professional organisations and universities. Marie co-leads an \"emerging\" church\/housegroup and is married with two teenage children. She takes great delight in answering Musicademy emails at all times of the day and night \u2013 some people would suggest that she needs to get a life.","sameAs":["http:\/\/musicademy.com"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8687"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22124,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8687\/revisions\/22124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicademy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}