This is really important because there will be one microphone for each singer. During the soundcheck, the sound engineer will adjust the microphone settings to suit each singer (eg. the settings for the beatboxer will be quite different from that of the soprano). The last thing you want to do is to grab the wrong microphone and mess up the actual performance.
You also don’t want to waste precious time during the soundcheck, and neither do you want to confuse the sound engineers.
So, a very simple way to do it is to create a table, number each microphone, and assign mics beforehand.
Assume that you have a group of 5 people (sop, alto, tenor, bass, beats). Starting from the highest part (sop), assign one mic to each singer. Also notate who the lead singer of that song is (the sound engineers may need to turn the volume up / down accordingly).
Here’s an example below. I’ve added in some made-up names to make it less confusing.
| Microphone | Singers |
| 1 (Sop) | Amanda |
| 2 (Alto) | Bella (Lead) |
| 3 (Tenor) | Chris |
| 4 (Bass) | Daniel |
| 5 (Beats) | Eddie |
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MedLee is a bit unusual compared to other acapella groups in that we have more people (not just one person per part), and we don’t sing in fixed groups. Because of this, not all our arrangements will have the same number of parts, and some of the singers may change between different songs.
I personally prefer to assign bass and beats to the last two mics, especially if the total number of singers varies between each song. This is because the sound settings for these are the most different compared to everything else, and so you really can’t afford to mix those up.
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It can be a bit confusing to discuss all this in theory, so let me illustrate with an example.
Imagine that MedLee is performing for an event. We’ll be singing two songs: first song will have 5 singers (sop 1, alto, tenor, bass and beats), and the second song will have 6 singers (sop 1, sop 2, alto, tenor, bass and beats). Since we want to give more people the chance to perform, imagine that in between the two songs, all the singers will change EXCEPT for the bass and Beats. Let’s use the same singers as the previous example.
| Microphone | Song 1 | Song 2 |
| 1 (Sop 1) | Amanda | Fiona |
| 2 (Sop 2) | – | Gina (Lead) |
| 3 (Alto) | Bella (Lead) | Hannah |
| 4 (Tenor) | Chris | Ian |
| 5 (Bass) | Daniel | Daniel |
| 6 (Beats) | Eddie | Eddie |
This means that after the first song:
- Amanda, Bella, Chris will go offstage, while Daniel and Eddie stay on
- The singers for song 2 will come onstage
- Amanda, Bella and Chris pass their microphones to Fiona, Hannah and Ian respectively
- Gina gets her mic from backstage
- The sound engineers lower the volume for Mic 3 and raise it for Mic 2
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Now the only 2 things left to do.
Firstly, make sure your singers know who/where to get their mics from. It helps to do a little 5 minute practice run where everyone simulates changing between the different songs in your set!
Secondly, pass a copy of this table to the sound engineers. This will save a LOT of time during soundcheck (and they will be very pleased with you)!
I hope that this system is a useful and practical one that will serve you well! Remember that it’s important to prepare these allocations before the soundcheck, so that nobody will waste time on looking for their microphones, etc.
All the best and enjoy your performances! (:
~ Sin Yee
Approach To Acapella 