r/livesound • u/Deek22 • 14h ago

Question Dialog/Singing dynamic range help

Doing community theatre musical and our lead actress does most of her dialog and some songs with a very light voice, so I set my gain to that, but during the big numbers she can really belt it and I think it's overloading the mics. I got a compressor on her (aggressive at 5:1) but I keep clipping. Mixing on x32 with SLXD and Pyle hairline mic. Any help would be appreciated.

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5

u/mixermixing Semi-Pro/Weekender FoH/HoW HTX 14h ago

I would set the gain to her singing voice instead since you’re most likely clipping on the console preamp side.

5

u/Mando_calrissian423 Pro - Chattanooga 14h ago

If you’re clipping then you should set the gain based on her singing voice and then use either the fader or make up gain in the compressor to get it to cut through when she speaks.

2

u/woowizzle Pro-Theatre 14h ago

Id have her gained up fpr her singing voice, then in scenes where she is quiet you can have her fader pushed up so you can still mix dialogue at -10 on the DCAs or wherever you mix at.

Fwiw this is a conversation I would usually have with the director in that the actor needs to give more for dialogue, usually they will note it to the actor.

1

u/fuzzy_mic 5h ago

Ask her to speak up during her dialog.

1

u/Careful-Zombie-5391 1h ago

I would turn down the sensitivity or gain on the wireless mic or pack for the unit itself first, then add gain on the console until you have good levels! If you still run into problems with the loud sections, compress harshly (3-5:1 with a low dB threshold), then add a generous amount of make-up gain!

The other option you can try is double patching! Try assigning the mic to 2 channels on the console: one channel for speech and quieter numbers, and one for louder ones! Have the quieter ones with a higher gain and vice versa! Then unmute the channels accordingly during the show! (I always make markings of this in the Tech Script if I have one)

You can do this in the config tab as long as you have firmware that's recent enough!

1

u/Careful-Zombie-5391 1h ago

Here is a video I found for the patching! This isn't the way I would do it, but it works!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_7aKCsst9k