- NAMPA, BOISE + THE TREASURE VALLEY
MICROPHONE RENTALS
Handheld, lavalier, headset, boundary and digital wireless. Published rates, free pickup in Nampa, and the frequency coordination done before you load in.
- NAMPA, BOISE + THE TREASURE VALLEY
Handheld, lavalier, headset, boundary and digital wireless. Published rates, free pickup in Nampa, and the frequency coordination done before you load in.
The Locker
Renting a microphone is easy. Renting the right microphone is the part that decides whether the back row hears the vows. Here is what is on the shelf, grouped by the job it does, with what it costs overnight and for a weekend. Prices and the full list live in the microphone catalog.
Sennheiser e945 supercardioid, $20 / $36. Sennheiser e 965 switchable condenser, $30 / $54. AKG C5, $22 / $39. And a working 1939 Shure 55 Unidyne, $75 / $135, for the shot you already have in your head.
Shure TwinPlex TL45 lavalier, $35 / $63. TwinPlex TH53 headset, $45 / $81. A school theater lavalier at $15 / $18 when the budget is the budget.
Crown PCC160 phase coherent boundary mic, $27 / $49. Shure ULXD8 wireless gooseneck, $130 / $234. Shure ULXD6/C wireless boundary, $55 / $99.
Shure ULXD handheld and ULXD bodypack systems, $120 / $216 each. Sennheiser XSW-D portable vocal and instrument sets, $40 / $72 and $35 / $63.
Sennheiser e906 for guitar cabs, $20 / $36. Sennheiser e604 for toms, $35 / $63. Shure Beta 52A for kick, $22 / $40. Sennheiser e614 small condenser, $18 / $32.
Shure PSM300 in-ear monitor system, $90 / $162. The one piece of gear that removes a wedge from the stage and takes the feedback risk with it.
Choosing
A dynamic microphone needs nothing but a cable. Almost every handheld you have held is one, they are close to indestructible, and they are the right answer for a loud room. A condenser is more sensitive, hears more detail, and needs 48 volts of phantom power sent up the cable from the mixer. Lavaliers, headsets, boundary mics and most nice vocal mics are condensers. No phantom power, no sound, and nothing on the mixer looks broken while that is happening. Our free Audio 101 guide walks through it with pictures.
A directional mic hears what it is pointed at and mostly ignores what is behind it. The pro word is cardioid, and it is what you want for live sound, because you can point its deaf end at a speaker. An omnidirectional mic hears the same in every direction. It is easy to place and it hears your speakers exactly as well as it hears your talker, so it reaches feedback sooner in a loud room. A supercardioid is tighter still, but it hears a little directly behind itself, which changes where the floor monitor goes.
The 3 to 1 rule is the one most people have never heard and keep breaking. Measure from the talker to the nearest mic. The next nearest mic needs to be at least three times that distance away. Closer than that and both microphones pick up the same voice at similar levels, a few thousandths of a second apart, and the two copies cancel each other in patches across the frequency range. It sounds hollow and thin and no amount of EQ repairs it. Indoors, sound only falls about 4.5 to 5 dB every time you double the distance, so the margin is thinner than instinct suggests.
The practical version: fewer open microphones beats more equalizer, every time. If you are renting six mics for a panel of six people, ask whether four will do it better.
Theater
School and community theater is the hardest microphone job most people will ever attempt, and it is usually handed to a volunteer three weeks before opening. Twelve to thirty bodies, all moving, all sweating, all singing over a pit, with one chance per night and a parent filming from row G.
There are two standard positions, and both of them exist for the same reason: get the capsule closer to the mouth. In the hairline, pointing down, or on the cheek, with the bodypack at the waist. Both sit far closer to the voice than a chest-mounted lav, which means less gain at the board, which means more volume before the system rings. DPA make the point plainly in their own guidance: a headworn mic needs less gain than a lav, and that difference is what lets several microphones be open at once.
The chest position is the one everybody tries first, and it is the one that punishes you. Every time the performer turns their head, the level changes. On a musical where actors turn to each other constantly, that is a mix that never settles.
The industry word is a sweat-out, and it ends a microphone mid-scene. It is why Shure built the TwinPlex with a superhydrophobic coating on the capsule and a 1.1 mm medical-grade cable that takes being taped to a face eight shows a week. Our TL45s are the paintable, low-sensitivity, high-SPL version, which is the one that survives a belted sixteen-year-old at two inches.
The rest of the kit is unglamorous and decides the run: alcohol wipes to take the oil off the skin before taping, 3M Transpore or Tegaderm over it, bobby pins and small wig clips so the cable cannot travel, and cable run up the back of the neck with enough slack that a full head turn does not pull it. Latex covers or a nitrile glove over the bodypack for the heavy sweaters.
Photograph every performer's mic placement on opening night and have them check that photo before every show. It removes the nightly argument about where it goes and it keeps the sound consistent from night to night.
And practice the hot swap before you need it. When a mic dies mid-show you are replacing either the transmitter or the element, not both, and knowing which in eight seconds is the difference between a beat and a scene.
TwinPlex TL45 lavaliers or TH53 headsets on Shure ULXD bodypacks, one or two PCC160 boundary mics along the stage lip to catch what the body mics miss and to hold the show together when one drops, spare elements and tape, and the frequencies coordinated before load-in. That last part is not an upsell, it is the thing that stops eighteen transmitters from eating each other. Tell us the show and the cast size and you will get a list, not a catalog.
RF
Wireless microphones fail for four reasons: a dead battery, another signal on the same channel, too much distance or too much in the way, and gear that is no longer legal to operate. The first one is on you. The other three are what coordination is for.
The FCC auctioned the 600 MHz band to mobile carriers and wireless microphones had to be out of it by July 13, 2020. If your receiver tunes anywhere between 617 and 652 MHz, or between 663 and 698 MHz, it is not merely unreliable, it is illegal to operate, and it is also losing a fight with a cell tower it cannot win. Two narrow slivers survived in that neighborhood: the guard band at 614 to 616 MHz and the duplex gap at 653 to 663 MHz. Everything below 608 MHz, the old TV channels, is still the main room.
Most microphone systems run unlicensed at 50 milliwatts or less. A Part 74 license, which buys you protected status, is only available to broadcasters, cable networks and television and film producers, so for almost every church, school and wedding this is a question of picking clean frequencies rather than filing paperwork.
Four receivers stacked in a rack, each with its own pair of whip antennas an inch apart, is not four times the reception. It is eight antennas interfering with each other inside a metal box, usually behind a closed door, usually at the back of the room. Four receivers should share one pair of antennas through a distributor, placed out where they can see the stage. Beyond four, distributors cascade, and sixteen channels is a normal day.
The placement rules are short and they are not negotiable. Keep antennas at least 16 feet from the transmitters, or the receiver front end overloads. Keep line of sight between antenna and performer, because a crowd of bodies is a wall as far as UHF is concerned. Keep them off large metal and away from power gear. If the antenna needs to be far from the rack, run a longer audio cable, not a longer antenna cable.
If that reads like a lot to get right on a Friday afternoon, that is the honest reason SwissMixx exists. Rent the systems and have the coordination done for you, or hire the whole rig with an engineer on it.
How It Works
How many people need to be heard, whether they are standing still, and whether it is inside. That is usually enough to pick the mics. Start here.
Pickup is free in Nampa. Delivery and setup run across the Treasure Valley and into Utah. Everything goes out tested, labeled and with fresh batteries.
For a show with many wireless channels, an engineer on site usually costs less than the hours of guessing it replaces. See live event sound.
Common Questions
Individual microphones start at $15 overnight. A Sennheiser e945 handheld is $20 overnight and $36 for the weekend, a Shure TwinPlex TL45 lavalier is $35 and $63, and a full Shure ULXD digital wireless system is $120 and $216. Every rate is published on the rentals page, no quote required to see a price.
Both. The wireless locker runs from a Sennheiser XSW-D portable vocal set at $40 overnight up to Shure ULXD digital systems in handheld, bodypack and gooseneck at $120 to $130. ULXD carries AES-256 encryption and runs up to nine hours on a charge, which is why it is what goes out on jobs where a dropout is not survivable.
Body mics, and more spares than feels reasonable. The working package is Shure TwinPlex TL45 lavaliers or TH53 headsets on ULXD bodypacks, a PCC160 boundary microphone or two along the front of the stage to catch what the body mics miss, and tape, batteries and a spare element for every principal. SwissMixx rents the whole package and will coordinate the frequencies before load-in.
Check the frequency range printed on the back of the receiver. Anything that tunes between 617 and 652 MHz, or between 663 and 698 MHz, has been illegal to operate in the United States since July 13, 2020, when the FCC finished clearing the 600 MHz band for mobile carriers. It still powers on, which is exactly why so much of it is still sitting in church closets and school equipment carts.
More than most people expect, but only with coordination. The limit is not the number of receivers, it is whether the frequencies are chosen to avoid each other and the local TV stations. Four receivers should share one pair of antennas through a distributor rather than each carrying its own whip antennas in the rack. SwissMixx coordinates the frequencies as part of the rental.
Pickup is free in Nampa. Delivery and setup are available across the Treasure Valley and into Utah. For anything involving more than a few wireless channels, having SwissMixx set it up is usually the cheaper choice once you count the hours of guessing it replaces.
Tell Mark the event and the cast size. You will get a list and a price, not a catalog.