Countryman Earclip & E6 Earset mic together

At SSCC we have been using & loving our E6(i) earsets for years now. We bought our first one 8 years ago I think (I was the youth pastor then). However, we have recently been hampered by them not wanting to sit still on people’s heads. I think this is mainly a result of multiple people using the headsets and having to reshape them, the earpiece especially, every time. (I know that keeping them seperate for different communicators would help this but it is not an option overall for us. We have 18 earsets and 30 or so people that use them.) I saw an earclip accessory in a magazine a couple of weeks ago and ran it by our pastor and we decided we needed to check one out. We used it this Sunday morning and loved almost everything about it.

Here are the positives:

1. Assembly, if you can even call it that, was easy. It was pretty straight forward from the pictures even before reading the simple instructions. It clips on the base of the existing earset and hooks over your other ear. It has a single, very thin, telescoping wire that allows it to be a custom fit. (WARNING: if you pull, the extension will come out of the tube, but it goes right back in and would not be a problem while worn.) It comes with two cable connectors (one for each thickness of E6 cable) that run the cable behind your ear to the middle of the back of the head.

2. Fitting was also easy. Even for the first time use I really spent no more time getting this set on David’s ear then I would making sure the E6 is snug and pointed correctly any other week. I simply expanded the now-headset to easily fit his head and he slid it onto his ears and I tightened it up in the back. Quick and simple.

3. Stability was improved instantly. We always use the shirt/cable clips but before I put that on and before I used the headset/cable clip it was more stable than ever before. After clipping the cable to the back wire and then to his shirt collar I had total confidence that the mic was not moving without direct contact. David moved his head and talked for a second and could also tell it was more secure.

4. Positioning was much easier. I grabbed the mic at his ear and positioned the capsule where I wanted it and there it stayed. After our first service I spoke with him and could see that it was in the same place I had left it. A few minutes into the message and we had forgotten about the mic entirely. (Which is a good thing.) I had been keeping the speaker’s EQs selected on our console recently so I could make adjustments and proximity changed throughout a message. There was no need this morning. The sound was very consistent.

Here are the negatives:

1. Limited to one ear. While the E6s are able to be shaped for either ear, the earclips are not. You must specify ECLT or ECRT which refers to which ear the actual mic is worn on. This isn’t a big deal for us because I always place them on left ears but it does limit flexibility in some situations different from ours.

2. Size of the ear padding is a bit big. To be clear, earclip is small overall, but the silicone padding over the non-mic ear seemed a bit thick and I am not sure how comfortable it would be for someone wearing glasses. David mentioned that he hoped everyone couldn’t see the “thing behind his ear.” However, once we put it on, his hair hid pretty much everything. With short/no hair on the sides of someone’s head, it MIGHT be noticeable. But then again, it is a microphone and we aren’t trying to tric the audience into thinking our pastors just project their voices really well. I would still say that from more than about 20 feet away it is unnoticeable, and with IMAG it would be less noticeable than the mic itself.

3. Larger overall. This is only an issue for us because now our pastor can’t slip the headset off between services and let it hang over his shoulder like he could with the earset. We have about 50 minutes between our two services and he usually hangs out in our atrium visiting with people. He will just have to keep the mic on his head now.

Overall:

I would highly recommended this to anyone already using countryman headsets. It is an added layer of security at least and, likely, an improvement in sermon clarity for all. A brief search led me to one for $50 from a large retailer. This is far cheaper than swapping our E6s for headset counterparts entirely, which is something we were pondering. If you don’t already have E6 mics, I’d strongly consider getting them and the earclips now. I’ve had some hesitation with recommending the E6s over other headset mics but this makes it all better. The sound quality from the Countryman mics sounds so great that now that they have the earclip accessory it makes it unbeatable in its market.

… or ears in this situation. Some discussions I’ve been in and around over the past few weeks have been dealing with “less than ideal” results in a few of our live environments, including the one I oversee primarily. This is in no way a “shot” at anyone who is working in those environments any more than it is taking one at myself. Disclaimer aside…

How often do you have someone else with trustworthy ears come into your worship service and evaluate how it sounds and is mixed? How well do you take criticism from that person/those people? I know sometimes it isn’t packaged well and you have to sift through the arrows and find the nuggets of truth, but how well do you take it?

Our worship director at SSCC is now trying to schedule himself off stage about once a month. He will mix maybe once every 2-3 months and just be in the room for the services on other weeks. It gives him a fresh perspective of what happens in the room and what it sounds like. I HAVE to listen to him for instance because it is a “production” that he orchestrates normally, but regardless, I WANT to hear his thoughts. There are also two other tech guys on staff with me and I always like to hear what they liked or disliked about a mix. Some times the insight is more preference than right/wrong but much of the time I get great insight. Often times I ask myself “why didn’t I hear that or think of that?” Sometimes they tweak a knob that I’m somewhat embarrassed to have missed. It is part of the gig.

So, get some fresh ears on your mix and in your room. If you don’t have those extra ears in your church, get some from another church or venue for a rehearsal and do the same for them in return. I think the more challenging of a mix situation you engineer in, the more important this might be. Our ears are super-adaptable devices and this is both a blessing and sometimes a hindrance to mixing. Let someone else come in without any preconceived notions about the challenges of your mixing situation. They may hear things that your ears have grown accustomed to. (Be ready for some suggestions that you will take too personally. Think about how opinionated you are about a mix and know that they are too.) Make notes and try the changes.

Constantly find ways to get fresh eyes on your mixing. You will get better and your audience will hear better.

Win – win.

What about you, whether you are on stage or in the booth what things keep your ears fresh? If audio is not your thing, what about video or your designs?

So we are one week away from “launching” our new facility. We will have a worship service for our body next Friday night, the 29th, and then our first services in our new home on Sunday the 2nd. On my end of things we have been working with mainly 2 companies, Baker Audio (who also is doing our video systems) and Mainstage Theatrical Supply. I was reading through our bid package with Baker to check and see if we had in fact gotten everything we paid for. I stumbled across an astonishing number (besides the price). In our facility in just the A/V systems (not power or house/theatrical lighting) we have run approximately 40,500 feet of cable. This is made up of speaker cable (Speak-on for the nerds out there), Cat5e network cable, and mostly mic cable. There is 7.56 MILES of signal cable in the floor of our three main rooms. Holy cow. Like I said, does anyone have money invested in copper?

We have had two rehearsals now in the new sanctuary and a partial rehearsal in our children’s ministry’s Clubhouse Theater. Rehearsals in the youth’s Rooftop will ramp up next week. I have to say I am pleased with the outcome. We have three very clear and clean sounding rooms. Two of them are very tight acoustically with almost no natural reverberation and one room definitely has some reverb but nothing abnormal or unfavorable. I posted a while back about getting our new soundboard in hand for training purposes and how much of a difference it had made acoustically the moment we plugged it in. Well, we hadn’t seen anything yet. When we patched into our Meyer line arrays, subs and front fills it was a beautiful thing. Once again we were hearing things that we hadn’t heard before with the same people and instruments passing through. (I want to stress that while I AM an audiophile and LOVE great sound, that is not the drive of these systems. It is our desire to create a space where the Word of God and the Worship of God can go forth clearly and warmly. We want to make people long to come back again to worship Him.)

We also have gone to wireless in-ear monitoring systems for up to 11 people on stage. We have 8 transmitters and 11 receivers. Our plan for now is to have vocalists share mixes. It DID seem like a little bit better plan that it actually is but it still works well. We have one male and one female vocalist sharing a mix with the vocals panned left and right in their ears. I thought this would be a perfect solution but it seems when your voice is in your head and your ears are plugged at -26 dB, you tend to hear the OTHER voice in your ears more than your own. I am confident with some level and balance adjustments we can make nice though. The HUGE plus of the in-ears far out weighs those hiccups though. We are able to get very clean & crisp mixes because there is very low stage volume with no monitor wedges firing at any of our sources. Also, the stage doesn’t look like a disorganized warehouse with boxes strewn about everywhere.

One other big factor in our clean sound is the drum shield we built. I got an idea for it at another church and did some research myself. I’ll post on it separately later because I really think it will be helpful to other churches and theaters trying to control stage volume and not look wrapped in plastic.

Well, thats all for now, kind of a tech update on the new facility for the four of you that care (my parents, my in-laws). Actually, I don’t think they care THAT much, its more of, hey, where have you been the past 3 months and what have you been doing… update.

-Travis