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Shure choir mics

For my choir, I have these Shure microphones -- 3 of them.  These work for all types of choirs, from adults down to elementary age. 
 
 
They are not cheap....around $350 apiece....but they are GREAT microphones.
 
For stage work, I used Carvin wireless receivers with headsets or lavalier microphones. I prefered the headset mics for ability to hear the kids, though the lavalier mics were easier to hide! 
 
 
Donna
on November 21, 2012 6:15am
Yes, this looks like an ideal solution, since even the name suggests that they've kept the needs of choir pickup in mind.  "Cardioid" refers to the sensitivity pattern or "pickup pattern" of the mic, which is basically live on the front and dead on the back--important for avoiding the feedback that can be a problem with omnidirectional mics.  (The pickup pattern is "heart-shaped"--picture a standard Valentine heart and rotate it through 360 degrees--meaning that it's most sensitive directly in front of the mic--the "point" of the heart--slightly less sensitive to the sides--the "lobes" of the heart--and least sensitive in the back.  Many mics designed to be hand-held have a "super cardioid" or "hyper cardioid" pattern making them suitable for use on a very noisy stage, but not very good for large area pickup.

There's a physical, acoustic law that can't be ignored--it's either the "square-cube" law or the "inverse strength" law--that states that the further the sound source is from the mic itself the weaker the signal the mic "hears"--I think the signal falls off as the square of the distance.  Which means that in order to get a stronger signal the mics must be turned up, which in turn means that they become more subject to feedback since they then "hear" EVERYTHING on the stage at a higher level.  So for large area pickup it's important that the mic be designed for it.  I've seen many business people ignore this simple fact, and apparently believe that if there's a mic anywhere in the room it will pick up and amplify their speaking voice beatutifully, but it ain't necessarily so!

For my college show ensemble in the 1980s, because we used a 12-piece Showband located behind the singers' set on stage, we used tight miking rather than area miking:  22 singers in 11 couples on 11 stand mics on the stage set (AKG 535s if I remember correctly, the first condenser mic specifically designed for hand-held use), plus two hand-held wireless solo mics (Sure condenser mics) kept on stands downstage left and right.   All could be hand-held or left on their stands.  We never used mics that required individual body packs, allthough our annual Summer Musical Theater production DOES use those.  But the mics (and the mic cables for the set mics) had to be carefully choreographed so they were always in the right place at the right time, and the audio mixists didn't have to guess who had which mics!!! 
All the best,
John
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