Adam Savage here from tested standing in the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco
where Hamilton is enjoying a nice long run and I've done a video here about
Kevin McCoy and his sound mixing but I'm here to cover another aspect of sound
today and that is the customization of the sound equipment to each actor every
actor has a different size head different shaped ears different needs
and different performance requirements and all of that customization falls
under the purview of Adriana Brannon we're gonna go down into her workshop in
the basement of this theatre and see just how she customizes each microphone
to each actor and each performance Adriana this is your domain and we've
been covering how the sound gets mixed during this show but you're the
business-end these are the actual microphones and you're not just buying
microphones off the shelf and putting them on the actors are you walk me
through what your what you have to do here I mean I'm noticing like all these
different skintone colors because of all the different colors of skin of the
performers in the show of the show yeah so if they have a broken mic we don't
really have time for them to come off like during a song that they're not in
to change the mic because they're in most of the songs so we put two mics on
them so you can see right here Hamilton has this mic right and then this mic and
then one of them is a backup one so this one room one right here is the main one
and then this is the backup but on the console so if Kevin is mixing on
backstage and I radio like hey Hamilton's a mic is going out it's bad
you can hit a button and it goes to the backup immediately
Wow same with fur so and the Bur mic is a little bit different so with the
Hamilton Mike he wears it right on his hairline and I will clip in all of his
clips here but with the fur Mike it is actually worn over the ear and so these
mics we fit to every person's ear so that way no one else can wear that my
dad so I've worn these kind of mics and I find them
the retail version to be very difficult to get to the right shape so tell me how
you get the alchemy of getting this we I take like a pretty like flexible wire
first and I just get the shape there dear okay and then I take a this is
called music wire a piano wire and so then we bend this to the shape of the
flexible wire that I got of their mold and so this can take you know a hit but
it'll still keep its shape spring raised that I call yeah but once
you put force behind it then you can like get this to stay am I looking that
that's the primary and that's the back up exactly fascinating I've never
occurred to me that there just be right there in line so the same thing with too
Mike if this goes out then there's a button on the console that goes to the
Burpee Mike with just this backup so then we have this but it still means
that if we do have to go to this we should try to change the entire rig as
soon as we can right this is you know our last leg it's
slightly less it's less awesome sound totally okay and those are the only two
actors that have a redundant exactly yep so our ladies are all my ladies so
they're all in wigs so they can just wear these much like Hamilton but under
their wig kimono doesn't have a wig but they have hair so this just you know so
it's right here much like Rick as well so and we call that a hairline Mike do
you find it funny every year when the Tonys shows some camera shots of a
Broadway show that people type online I hate seeing the microphones like how
else do you think you're gonna hear this
but and each of these rigs your custom making each of the actors yeah and also
matching skin tone or matching hair color sometimes we have sweaty or actors
which you know it's a common thing they're dancing and singing or they get
very sweaty but we'll add some like reinforcements so this is an O ring
that's just glued on to the cap okay and it just acts as like a dropper for water
Oh what protects the cap of it oh fascinating so that like if water is
slipping down the Mike it's not getting in
the element exactly yep so that protects that which also too helps me during the
show because if it does get waterlogged we call it a sweat out things like this
sounds pretty terrible so that means that I would have to go up and try to
get them as soon as possible so this helps you know all of that not from not
happen so now I seem to have a memory I think in one of the productions of
Hamilton I saw some Mike went out and it was dry during a or after the rap battle
and so someone grabbed a hand mic like to finish a song I mean if it works
whatever it takes to get across the line yeah that's lucky right iteration for
that part you know so can some of these break in performance sometimes the music
wire can just be so long abuse fragile they're so flexible and flexible they're
still fragile I mean you know this right right this is also like the connection
is where most other breaks happen and also too you know so we wear these on
our back so they're sitting like sometimes that can like you know cause
damage to the connection and yeah you see you've already done a lot of strange
leaf there just try and run that off and also something else that I do is I when
I start to build these I break away the connection just a little bit when I put
superglue under it and I put it back on and then I put heat shrink over it as
well so that really helps to you know keep it a little more stable and I know
that the low profile is really key but I have a suggestion
dude have you ever considered 3d printing a little thing that that would
go over these two and just provide a little extra strain relief but not
inhibit necessarily the form factor but I would like to know more its try strain
relief is a bugbear for me it's it's it's a constant problem item at it's
also was super annoying because when the connector goes there's no repairing it
and it's broken exactly exactly how many microphones are
you're managing all this full number is like 20-plus mics everything so 20 well
so every single night yes this is 24:28 something like that
I always forget yeah so you know per show yes but also we have so many swings
and understudies we have so many people who cover different roles so like our
man 5 he covers him Alton he cubs covers bird he covers George Washington he
covers her son's old Sons of Liberty so that's let me think it's step into any
of those roles exactly yeah and so and also he covers his own role which is Man
5 and so he has I think like 14 mics for himself so like cuz and every it's also
too you know like Julius who's our main Hamilton he has this rig and there's a
backup rig in my lovely cubbies so that way I have something to ready to go but
so with our man 5 vents he's got 14 mics ready to go oh my god yeah
so I think we kinda DUP recently and I think it's like 116 mics that we have
just like at the ready hum what is an average show night for you like do you
have many disasters to take care of the general it's really pretty yeah it's I
like to say it's really quiet and if it's not quiet there's something going
wrong right you know so it's lots of boredom phone
followed by moments of abject terror yeah any but I have time to like you
know fix any notes that I have piling up or like read or Facebook no I see you've
got a dremel vise going on here and I'm just here and Vice I'm curious so can
you walk me through some of your the maker stuff that you do here oh yes I
just found one of these this little stretcher for those torture devices well
this is like I found it I think the one I found was for banding birds oh yeah to
put a little number ban on their foot so this is reciprocal it's a pair of pliers
with three things that stretch out a rubber band
well this the Hellerman tool and then these little sleeves yeah these are
called Hellerman sleeves and they come in different sizes as well and probably
different colors and actually they only come in black and pink and
there's a black that turns into a brown but on purpose
no okay so here's an earpiece that is you know kind of blank right now so
you've bent this to the actors shape and this is a little bit to help its have
some fiction like a little bit of cushion as well sure and then this is
measured kind of up to her mouth but also it takes away from the length of
the mic because it will tie it there okay yeah so now I'm guessing that this
Hellerman sleeve helps hold the mic on that yeah so the Hellerman sleeve
actually helps me tie it on because I can't tie it without it actually being
you know attached and then I'll later I'll put a Hillerman sleeve here to keep
it oh that is so cool-looking so alright so then this so we are basically using a
fly-fishing rod I'm told the whip finisher I'm not a fly fisher fly
fisherman five footer one but i know how to do this put to you well so and this
is the thinnest piece of material that they have this is like that is Cle yeah
yeah so you can like I mean you can actually so what I do first so I just
make a holding not mm-hmm at the very top
so that first Hillerman sleeve is just really like a little bit of an extra
pair of hands exactly and later I can I will cut that off because I don't need
it anymore oh wow so this is just a few wraps and then the dead and so now this
I can walk away I can go use the bathroom if I'm doing
this during a show to like then I can go take care of an emergency but if you're
doing this during a show it's also potentially an emergency yes all right
just like I got you know oh you're just taking care of some other ok yeah so now
we'll do the whip finisher so this is called the whip finisher tool really yep
and it's kind of cool so like this is a little like free-form from the tool
itself and then these balls help like if you hold it and the acid line so you can
kind of it spins by itself or you can grab that and get to oh I think I see
what's happening here this is really cool this is something that you had to
make or this is something okay which and I especially this one like like this one
I really like I'm never gonna lose this tool this one works for me alright so
you hook it and then it goes under this little elbow piece you kind of make like
a little triangle and so basically what we're doing is we're wrapping the old
line around the new line so you can see the old line is up here and then the new
line is down here and that's going into the spool so wrap Wow
this is totally changing my whole reality that is super neat and then oh
and you can use it to tie a knot so like if I were to cut this yeah
exactly yep and I mean do you then like it can there's still potential for
movement up in here is there securing yeah so I do put I'll put some superglue
I only put superglue here and then at the end so I'll do another what finisher
and I kind of would finish up until like this point and I just
but and then I finished with it with another book finisher so I have to take
a picture of this is super super crazy cool so then a finished one that looks
like this so you can see it the whip finisher and
then wrap wrap wrap wrap wrap and it wraps all the way down and so I mean
when these are on them they're very low-profile or you don't see like you
know you don't see a Holliman sleeve all the way down the mic no no it's very and
this sauce it - like this is behind the ear right this little I just don't see
it yeah exactly yep so I'm a big fan favorite thing to
me this is I mean I imagine it's very relaxing yeah yeah once you get the hang
of it when you first start doing it it is incredibly frustrating because you're
working with invisible line can't literally can't see that yeah when I
first started doing this I was like but once you get it down it's just like it's
very zen that is I had no idea that that the construction was so delicate and
then you get into like you know people have different ears like I have an
attached lobe so like this doesn't work very well for me so you have to make you
know the earpiece just a little bit bigger right um yeah so you get until I
carry like weird intricacies with like you know just help people's like faces
are shaped now I know that King George where's my his mic is in his crown so
that's a totally different kind of construct yes and also like this one is
much easier than that so the mic packs all in there yep so
we're at the keeper of the crown and strands enough people don't know this
but the whole thing is edible is that right yes total I yeah so we keep the
the mic packs of the transmitter inside the crown it's actually just fell prey
to this bit to the last I'm holding the line and this mic cable is only 18
inches long so we don't have a lot of like most of my cables come I think they
come in six feet sizes so this one is nice and we've had a custom-made
- we ordered it right yeah but exactly I see the microphones disguised as a spot
of your mind exactly yeah so that way I mean this is the perfect
position for a mic when it's on him and you know what's the flip side of this is
when he wears the crown the mic under his wig so you know we love the mic
crown yeah exactly yeah yeah I'll go grab a hand mic off stage oh all right
that's also have you come down here to get this put on every night we send it
out it's because with all the accoutrement that I have oh yeah you're
not bouncing around yeah man hold it it's a okay it's a little lighter than I
thought but still this is wait there's a way to it the reason I said edibles
because this look like candy canes to me is beautiful I mean that's there's a
whole character right here isn't it oh absolutely and I have a nice I know that
that's my my comfy spot right there and I have to get it over the hump of this
little hump of the ponytail okay and then bring it forward and then it's it
settles right in right in now I'm really in character it's beautiful yeah and
it's funny cuz if you if you tilt your head there is some way don't thank you
momentum grab him gravity's working on you with Adrianna thank you so much
you