Forehead Microphones

KMaxwell
Posts: 469
Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2021 3:42 am

Re: Forehead Microphones

Post by KMaxwell »

This is an edited cut and paste from something I wrote a while ago.

BTW when you are referring to the connectors for Sennheiser transmitters (not receivers) that depends on which ones you are talking about. The EW series uses a locking 3.5mm connector and the higher end series uses a 3 pin special connector.

For theatrical presentations it is more common today to use a head worn mic. Which is usually just a Lav type of mic without the clip. The advantage is that the relationship of the mic to the mouth stays the same. Sometimes the mic is worn thru the hair and it come out on the forehead and sometimes it is an ear worn mic, narrowing down the definitions to exactly where the mic is. Some ear worn mics are very short and only come to just past the ear. Some are long and come down by the mouth. And a lot of those are too long and then you have problems picking up the breath sounds. I don’t understand why they insist on making them so long. I have been lucky in that the directors I work the most with don’t care about the mic being hidden they want the sound to be the best it can be.

As with any other mics the loudest thing wins, as someone already said. This comes to shows with a loud band and if one of the other actors is a lot louder than the others. Especially if there is lot of fast interactive stuff with the actors really close to each other. When I say close I mean they are face to face and sometimes shouting. I did a show recently where one of the actors was going to get shaving cream on their face to simulate getting shaved. So the director wanted him to not have the mic down by his mouth. I tried to tell him if he watched the video of the Broadway production of the show he would have seen that they don’t put shaving cream on that side of his face. So we had the mic up by his ear. The director wasn’t happy with the sound but the main cause wasn’t so much with how the actor himself sounded but all that was going on around him. So the director then said they will fake it with the shaving cream and put the mic like it was on everyone else. And he said if he ever told me to do something like that again to remind him about this show. And this brings up the consistency issue, I want all the mics on the actors to be worn the same way. When you have some hair worn mics and some mics really close to the mouth on other actors it makes for one more complications. I also like the mics to be consistently placed on each actor from performance to performance.

I don’t like to look of the halo method mostly because it is hardly ever done properly and it is prone to slipping down. To do any type of hair worn mics properly you either need really good hair and makeup people or you need trained actors that know how to do it for themselves. And you also need to realize that the mics when used this way on Broadway are considered expendables. They do not have a very long life expectancy. One usually starts with a beige mic and cable and then they use special markers (DO NOT use magic markers, Copic markers are what they use) to color the mic to match the hair color. So even if the mic were to last it is now customized for a particular actor so reusing them is not all that common.

One of the problems that I have noticed is vocal projection it seems to have become a lost art. I recently said that I think the actors aren’t being trained for stage acting but for TV or film where they will most likely go in and rerecord the vocals.
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MJKlein
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Re: Forehead Microphones

Post by MJKlein »

@KMaxwell fascinating stuff! Beside my stabbing a famous actor with a vampire clip, I have virtually no experience with microphones outside of the studio and live music performance.
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KMaxwell
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Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2021 3:42 am

Re: Forehead Microphones

Post by KMaxwell »

I forgot to add that when the actor wears a wig they use a wig cap to hide their real hair and give a good foundation for securing the wig or wigs. The wing cap is a great place to attach the mic to, the only tricky part is getting the mic to stick out far enough to not be under the Wig and keeping it from being too far out so it is too noticeable. I think one of the previous posts about this mentioned using floral wire near the mic capsule, the wire is usually covered with a Hellerman sleeve. This give you the ability to make the mic bend down instead of sticking straight out. The Hellerman sleeves (see link below) are rubber sleeves that you use their tool to stretch them over the wire and then slide them off so it holds the floral wire in place. It is a learned skill to use and will cut or stab you if you aren’t careful, actually it will cut and stab you even if you are careful. It can also be used to make custom ear rigs by putting the sleeves over the mic cable and some stiff (but bendable) thin wire.

https://bodymics.myshopify.com/collecti ... an-sleeves
soundresource
Posts: 40
Joined: Mon Nov 15, 2021 2:42 pm

Re: Forehead Microphones

Post by soundresource »

As noted upthread, these are repurposed lavalier mini-condensers. The technique was pioneered on Broadway with Sennheiser MKE's, but any mini-condenser can work.
henryjac54
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Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2022 7:39 am

Re: Forehead Microphones

Post by henryjac54 »

I am using Shure CVL Centraverse Lavalier Condenser Microphone. I wanted a cheap lapel mic with clear audio, this is it, finding recording audio without background noise has to be in a quiet place, although this is with most Omni lapel, this thin although unidirectional, operate more like Omni. My only gripe is the head could be smaller.
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