The recent UK and US tour of “Six the Musical,” first presented by Cambridge University students at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe five years ago that’s since gone on to professional productions in the West End, on Broadway and internationally, employed several Neumann Miniature Clip Mic Systems (MCM) provided by Stage Sound Services.
Paul Gatehouse, a British sound designer and music mixer with more than 20 years of experience working on musical theatre and film productions worldwide, is in charge of delivering the sound design for all productions of “Six the Musical.”
“The premise of the of the show is that the Queens, the six wives of Henry VIII, are competing for who had the worst time during their marriage to Henry, in order to become the lead singer of their band,” explains Gatehouse. “The Queens are backed by an all-female onstage band, known as the ‘Ladies in Waiting’. The show is staged as a pop concert with heavy influence taken from major modern female pop icons, we have a fully silent (electronic) band apart from the acoustic guitar, hi-hat and cymbals, which require discreet but high quality miking.”
With an onstage band of drums, bass, keys, and guitar, accommodating the microphones that would be almost invisible but still pack a punch when it comes to the sound quality was something that Gatehouse says he considered carefully. “We have chosen Neumann’s new MCM mics for the recent UK & US Tours because of the microphone’s natural sound, practicality and reliable mounting,” he continues. “Within the band, anything with an acoustic source uses the MCM, as it has such a wide variety of uses and positions that we can get it into. The mounts and clips have been really well thought out and are further developed and robust than models we’ve seen before.
“Both on the acoustic guitar and hi-hat, crashes and ride cymbals we could get MCM mics exactly where we needed them and they feel very solid for a mic that’s on a gooseneck.”
Gatehouse states that he was impressed the first time he heard MCM: “Right off the bat the tonality was noticeably more open sounding in comparison to the product we had been using.” The band members also noticed the step up in sound quality: “Our guitar player immediately heard the difference in her IEMs, the mic conveyed the beautiful tone of our Taylor acoustic guitar in a very natural way.
The sources that Gatehouse is using MCM with are bright instruments. “But the high end we got from the mic was just like butter. Before, you’d be wanting to smooth things out with dynamic EQ, multi-band comp, etc, but this was no longer required with MCM,” he concludes. “I’ll definitely be using MCMs on anything where miniature instrument mics come into their own, I think they’ll sound great on anything we throw at them. The mics we were using before did their jobs brilliantly well and we had no complaints, but there was a clear improvement with the Neuman Miniature Clip Mic System. The detail and smooth open sound are just incredible.”
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