First presented by Cambridge University students at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe five years ago, Six the Musical has gone on to professional productions in the West End, on Broadway and internationally, as well as collecting an impressive selection of awards. Now on UK and US Tours, Stage Sound Services has supplied Neumann’s Miniature Clip Mic System (MCM) to achieve t ‘discreet but high-quality miking’ for the band on stage.
British sound designer and music mixer Paul Gatehouse counts more than 20 years working on first-class musical theatre and film productions world-wide, and handled 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,’ he explains. ‘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 miking.’
With an onstage band of drums, bass, keys and guitar, seleting microphones that would be almost invisible but still pack a punch was a major consideration. ‘We chose Neumann’s new MCM mics for the tours because of the microphone’s natural sound, practicality and reliable mounting,’ Gatehouse says. ‘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 well thought-out, and are further developed and robust than before.’
When it comes to ease of use of the MCM microphone, Gatehouse is in no doubt: ‘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,’ he says.
Recalling the first time he heard the MCM System, Gatehouse notes the smooth character and open sound of the microphone: ‘Right off the bat, the tonality was noticeably more open sounding in comparison to the product we had been using.’ he reports. Previously, Gatehouse felt he had to work harder to shape the sound due to microphone’s position, with MCM, he could save time during setup and EQ tuning especially ‘the EQ previously in place on those channels was removed, apart from a high-pass filter’.
Equal to Gatehouse’s reaction, 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,’ Gatehouse says.
The sources that Gatehouse is using the MCM System on 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.’
After moving through various London venues, the chart-topping musical found its ‘forever home’ in the Vaudeville Theatre in September 2021, where it is currently running until April 2023. After using the MCM System on the most recent productions of the Six the Musical, Gatehouse is convinced he will be using the microphone again on future theatre shows.
‘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,’ he concludes. ‘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 MCM System. The detail and smooth, open sound are just incredible.’
