Wedge for Talking Head?

Frank Koenig

Frank Koenig

Sophomore
Mar 7, 2011
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Palo Alto, CA USA
www.dunmovin.com
Next week I'll be providing for a couple of distinguished lecturers in a roughly 40 by 80 ft., fairly reverberant room. The house will get a 60 by 40 deg. trap on stick and tilter in each corner of the front wall -- nothing too exciting about that. I expect the volume to be low and the audience well behaved. The speakers will use a fixed mic, although I suppose they could remove it from the stand and start wandering around (oh no 8O~8-O~:shock:).

My question is, should I provide a wedge monitor adjacent to the lectern? I'm sure these guys have given hundreds of talks without that luxury but they are somewhat elderly and I'm trying to provide the best experience for everyone. But if it's totally unnecessary I'd be happy to leave that gear at home. Thanks.

--Frank
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

Frank Koenig said:
Next week I'll be providing for a couple of distinguished lecturers in a roughly 40 by 80 ft., fairly reverberant room. The house will get a 60 by 40 deg. trap on stick and tilter in each corner of the front wall -- nothing too exciting about that. I expect the volume to be low and the audience well behaved. The speakers will use a fixed mic, although I suppose they could remove it from the stand and start wandering around (oh no 8O~8-O~:shock:).

My question is, should I provide a wedge monitor adjacent to the lectern? I'm sure these guys have given hundreds of talks without that luxury but they are somewhat elderly and I'm trying to provide the best experience for everyone. But if it's totally unnecessary I'd be happy to leave that gear at home. Thanks.

--Frank
Click to expand...

The only way to know for sure is to call them and ask them. If they don't want it, then you don't have to bring it.

However, the safest thing to do is to take it along and set it up, then ask them if they want to use it.

As you know, some people are freaked when their hear their own voice and speak ever more softly. These people should NEVER use wedges.

Then, on the other hand, you have people who absolutely require massive wedge level to feel comfortable. These people always require wedges.

Good luck and have fun! I always enjoy doing talking head type gigs. I usually learn something interesting during the talk.
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

Frank Koenig said:
Next week I'll be providing for a couple of distinguished lecturers in a roughly 40 by 80 ft., fairly reverberant room. The house will get a 60 by 40 deg. trap on stick and tilter in each corner of the front wall -- nothing too exciting about that. I expect the volume to be low and the audience well behaved. The speakers will use a fixed mic, although I suppose they could remove it from the stand and start wandering around (oh no 8O~8-O~:shock:).

My question is, should I provide a wedge monitor adjacent to the lectern? I'm sure these guys have given hundreds of talks without that luxury but they are somewhat elderly and I'm trying to provide the best experience for everyone. But if it's totally unnecessary I'd be happy to leave that gear at home. Thanks.

--Frank
Click to expand...

I have found that since the person using the mic is just hearing the back of the mains (and any slap back) if there is no monitor it can be a good idea to have a small monitor or 2 with a wide dispersion. But you just want to turn it up a little to get the high end a little bit clearer on stage. This can even work with lavs or headset mics if you really know how to tune the system.

Do you have SMAART? My trick for the house/main speakers is, after tuning the system for linearity I insert an EQ (and compressor) for the mic on a sub group and EQ it using the mic itself as the measurement mic. And then for the monitor aim the mic at the monitor from the standard talking distance (don’t turn the mic on thru the speaker) and use it as the measurement mic again and tweak the EQ on the monitors. This should give you the best gain before feedback in the monitors for that mic. Don’t forget to keep the level as low as you can on that mic in the monitors.

I hope this helps you.
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

In my world the general reason for a foldback monitor with a talking head gig is to give the talent a feed from audience question and answer mics so they can hear the questions clearly on stage (where the sound system is purposely not pointing) and sometimes to feed walk on music or the sound from videos that might be played while they are on stage. But, if you have a room with a particularly disturbing slap back or some other acoustical anomaly, then some foldback of a mic might help. That said, with amateur speakers the "mic fright" issue is one of my big concerns.
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

Kevin Maxwell said:
Do you have SMAART? My trick for the house/main speakers is, after tuning the system for linearity I insert an EQ (and compressor) for the mic on a sub group and EQ it using the mic itself as the measurement mic. And then for the monitor aim the mic at the monitor from the standard talking distance (don’t turn the mic on thru the speaker) and use it as the measurement mic again and tweak the EQ on the monitors. This should give you the best gain before feedback in the monitors for that mic. Don’t forget to keep the level as low as you can on that mic in the monitors.
Click to expand...

This is a great technique that I use whenever I need maximum gain before feedback. You may need to look a little closer then 1/6 or 1/12 smoothing to find hidden bumps, and take a look at more then one mic position as well to make sure nasty reflections dont pop up.
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

Thanks for the great replies, especially with respect to max GBF alignment and the value of foldback for the speaker hearing audience questions. There will be a roving wireless mic for audience questions so, for that reason alone, I'll set up a monitor.

There's a saying in aviation about go no-go decisions that it's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than the other way around. Our version is that it's better to have the gear at the gig wishing you'd left it in the shop than the other way around. I really appreciate the help.

--Frank
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

David Morison said:
There's also this which functions very much as a corollary: "Every take-off is optional. Every landing, mandatory."
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A friend was being taught about forced landings at night. "Landing lights on. Maintain stall speed plus ten knots. 1000 feet out make the decision: if you like what you see, proceed. If you don't like what you see, turn your landing lights off." :-)
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

I've had both extremes on the same event, sometimes with sequential presenters. One wants a confidence monitor, and he is explicit that what he hears is what the audience hears. Uh... fine, we can do that. Mostly. Another wants to be impressed with the sound of her own voice (on a lav) regardless of what it does to the house audio. Another wants no monitor at all, because if he hears himself he talks quieter.

The most common request is for the Invisible Q&A Monitor. Funny, but you can have the powerpoint video monitors in the most obtrusive places, but heaven forbid we should see a tiny loudspeaker...

I always plan for a foldback send for Q&A, though. Lately there has been a trend to using Twitter to send questions, they appear on the VDO confidence monitors and on the IMAG screens after selection by whoever vets the questions.
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

Frank Koenig said:
Next week I'll be providing for a couple of distinguished lecturers in a roughly 40 by 80 ft., fairly reverberant room. The house will get a 60 by 40 deg. trap on stick and tilter in each corner of the front wall -- nothing too exciting about that. I expect the volume to be low and the audience well behaved. The speakers will use a fixed mic, although I suppose they could remove it from the stand and start wandering around (oh no 8O~8-O~:shock:).

My question is, should I provide a wedge monitor adjacent to the lectern? I'm sure these guys have given hundreds of talks without that luxury but they are somewhat elderly and I'm trying to provide the best experience for everyone. But if it's totally unnecessary I'd be happy to leave that gear at home. Thanks.

--Frank
Click to expand...

Regarding the monitor on stage.

If there is Q&A or video, a little monitor is nice.

Regarding "hearing themselves". No reason to use the monitors like one thinks of monitors in a band setting. If I put the presenter in the stage monitoring it's just to make the monitors smooth over the "back of the PA"-sound a little. Not to make the presenter louder, just a little more natural-sounding.
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

Tim McCulloch said:
Lately there has been a trend to using Twitter to send questions, they appear on the VDO confidence monitors and on the IMAG screens after selection by whoever vets the questions.
Click to expand...

I too have seen a lot of twitter feed stuff lately but so far it's been unmoderated. We just throw a computer to the twitter feed page and pop it up on the screens during the portions they want it. I'm curious where that will go. Thus far I haven't experienced anybody playing games with the scenario, so to speak. In these cases it's supposed to help add to the "buzz". And I've overheard meeting planners who try to gauge the success of the event in real time by watching a twitter feed for the event, even if it isn't part of the "show".

As far as the confidence (video) monitors and where they're placed... I think it arrives as a more practical concern before the meeting starts. Every presenter wants/needs to see their slides/notes while presenting and they check that out ahead of time. (and the meeting planners don't question what a presenter wants) The presence of a foldback speaker isn't usually anyone's concern until the presenter can't hear what's going on and it creates an embarrassing situation. Nobody at a talking head meeting seems to think they need a mic (or speaker) until the moment it's clear that they actually do.
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

Out of the countless (many 100's by now) talking heads gigs I've done, there have been probably less than 10 that asked for their own mic in a monitor. Most speech givers are used to hearing the house and thats it. In fact the more they hear themselves the quieter they get.

The audience Q&A however should be in the foldback....
 
Re: Wedge for Talking Head?

Tim Weaver said:
Out of the countless (many 100's by now) talking heads gigs I've done, there have been probably less than 10 that asked for their own mic in a monitor. Most speech givers are used to hearing the house and thats it. In fact the more they hear themselves the quieter they get.

The audience Q&A however should be in the foldback....
Click to expand...

Sometimes is also depends if there are other people on stage. Think of those graduations with a bunch of deans sitting behind the podium (you know the ones trying their hardest not to fall asleep when there are still 1000 names left to be read). Try to point the monitors more towards them, and away from the podium.
 
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