Tap Shoe Microphones

Nathan Makowski

Summary:

Hope College 's Dance Department does not currently have a good way to mic tap shoes that is not expensive. The goal of this project is to devise a way to do this. This system must be durable, have good sound quality, and not be very visible.

The possibilities considered were a secondary stage with microphones inset in the floor, a secondary stage which works as a reverberation chamber due to microphones inside of it, microphones hanging from a frame around the stage, microphones on the shoes with transmitters in the heel, and some sort of electromagnetic transmission of the taps directly from the shoe.

The ‘microphones inset on floor' level design was chosen because it provided the best sound quality. With the microphones in the floor, some of the high frequency sounds were lost. This design gives very good sound quality unless someone taps directly on a microphone. The microphones are not attached to the dancers and are set in the floor with wires running through the frame, which means that it is much more durable. The microphones and wires are not even connected to the dancers; which means that they are not seen by the audience and there is no concern about attaching them to dancers costumes.

The design consists of a four foot by eight foot frame that has a ¾ inch sheet of plywood and a ½ inch sheet of plywood separated by eight pieces of two by four that are about 27 5/8 inches long. The two by fours are set to make two X's with each three inches from a corner and with six inches between it and the two by four directly across from it. In the center of these X's there are microphones. The microphones are two feet over from the side and one is two ft. down from the top and the other is 6 ft down from the top. The microphones sit in a hole that is 3/8 of an inch in diameter and deep enough so that the microphone can be just below the masonite. There is a hole below the 3/8 of an inch deep hole that is 15/64 of an inch in diameter allowing the wires for the microphones to go through. Speaker cable and wire are connected to the microphones which run through the frame. Currently the wires are run to power sources and the speaker cable ends with an RCA plug which is plugged into a sound system.

This system works by someone tapping on the board. The sound waves are picked up by the microphones which send the signal to the sound system. The sound system amplifies and sends out the sound again.

The key features of this system are that microphone elements are used which are cheaper and cover a smaller area as well as the secondary stage which can hold the microphones and provides a nicer surface to dance on.

The sound quality for this design is good and it provides a way to have nothing attached to the dancers. This means that there is nothing that needs to be accessed on them and there is nothing aesthetically unpleasing for technical reasons. The cost of a four foot by eight foot section is approximately $80 which is considerably more acceptable than a microphone that costs $200 to mic one dancer. The one downside is that the dancers can not dance directly on a microphone because this creates a loud boom sound.