B3 replacement

[Scott Martinez]

I have had a heck of a time amplifying all sorts of other things on stage besides voice using these on lead voices, especially ones with high dynamics like Lily in the Secret Garden. I'm wondering if I should just go with all E6's when we purchase new mics, or if you anyone else has some recommendations in the price range. Should I look into directional options for forehead? Thanks for your expertise!

[torontosteve]

You need to duck any mic when the character is not singing/speaking.

Cheers

[page daniel]

Good Morning all,

First an update on Countryman. After a month I received a back order
notice on pigtail earset cables. I thought I might get immediate
shipping as no shop work would be required. Wrong again.

Secondly, I am not ordering any new Countryman lavs or earsets. I still
have some B6 that look great on foreheads and sound pretty good., but I
have found that their life time is limited. The price of good quality
lavs just keeps on climbing. Currently I am purchasing mostly MKE1 and
point source lavs. I have heard some very good things about Shure Lavs.

Of course Sennheiser now only has two choices for connectors and one can
still special order pigtail.

page

[Joel Lord]

I've had quite reasonable luck with B3s over a long time, and now that
Countryman is making them again and responding to repair requests, I
have every intention of continuing to do so. They're great at the price
point.

HOWEVER, they aren't perfect and aren't for everything or everyone.
Having a few E6s or Shure DL4s around, and there are certainly others,
gives you more tools in your toolbox to handle the problem use cases and
I highly recommend that, too.

-Joel

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[Jonathan Woytek]

Can you provide a little more information about the types of groups you work with, venue, audience size and demographics, PA, wireless gear, etc.? 

Some of the issues you mention I would be solving with things other than the microphone. Making any sort of recommendations or offering useful advice would be easier with some additional background. 

I work with voices in a range of maturity levels at the high school and amateur theatre circles. I might typically deal with dynamics control with compression and may just have to ride those faders closely. Ambient pickup is always going to be a problem, but I’ll examine placement to see if a resolution can be found there. I also tend to mix line-by-line or nearly so, which can help me get more gain before feedback. I use a lot of B3’s (though considering options there, given reports of how hard it has been to get service on their gear lately), and am generally able to deal with issues without a mic change. 

What works for me may not for your situation, though, so some more information could help. 

Jonathan

On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 12:23 Scott Martinez <scottm...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have had a heck of a time amplifying all sorts of other things on stage besides voice using these on lead voices, especially ones with high dynamics like Lily in the Secret Garden. I'm wondering if I should just go with all E6's when we purchase new mics, or if you anyone else has some recommendations in the price range. Should I look into directional options for forehead? Thanks for your expertise!

--

Please edit unnecessary quoted text out of your reply.
Take non-theatre-sound topics to private email.
 

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[Simon Eves]

Also community-theater level here, and have used B3s (low-sens with +4 caps) almost exclusively for a long time. We have some that were donated which must be 15+ years old and still going strong. However, we also have some bought maybe 7-8 years ago on which the cables are splitting and falling apart because the sheath has hardened. To be fair, some of that was perhaps due to just lack of use during COVID, although surely that would have affected the older ones too. We've hardly ever had a mechanical failure of the element or critical cabling that couldn't be fixed. I have read about treating the cables with some kind of oil, but never quite worked up the enthusiasm to do so. We almost always do high cheekbone placement with 3M Transpore, with Smith & Nephew Skin Prep first for the sweaty people, and then occasionally IPA or Uni-Solve to clean the gunk off the cables. Wireless Mic Belts pouches and belts. We do also have some old MKE2s which also just keep on truckin', although I have found they are a lot more susceptible to sweat-outs, which hardly ever happens with the B3s.

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[Chet Leonard]

Supporting Countryman with continued patronage is a good move for all of us. They were missed when they stumbled.

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