carne_de_res wrote on Sun, 06 August 2006 12:36 |
i own a small PA (250 w) and have problems micing my acoustic guitar (it doesn't have a jack output) without nasty feedback. i tried different condenser mics (451, 441, Rode Nt1) and i cannot have a decent level without having the guitar feedback. no matter how close i put the mic to the body, no matter the mic angle and position. no matter the eq on the guitar channel and master output. i tried a different guitar with a DI box and the increase in volume was noticeable. a strong signal with no feedback (after all the PA can be pretty loud, i've used it on several rock shows with a good amount of volume). but i'm not enthusiastic about the way a DI'ed guitar sounds, if you know what i mean. i have a show next Saturday and i'm desperate for some advice. what do i do? thanks in advance for your precious help. |
carne_de_res wrote on Sun, 06 August 2006 09:36 |
i own a small PA (250 w) and have problems micing my acoustic guitar (it doesn't have a jack output) without nasty feedback. i tried different condenser mics (451, 441, Rode Nt1) and i cannot have a decent level without having the guitar feedback. no matter how close i put the mic to the body, no matter the mic angle and position. no matter the eq on the guitar channel and master output. |
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i tried a different guitar with a DI box and the increase in volume was noticeable. a strong signal with no feedback (after all the PA can be pretty loud, i've used it on several rock shows with a good amount of volume). but i'm not enthusiastic about the way a DI'ed guitar sounds, if you know what i mean. |
carne_de_res wrote on Tue, 08 August 2006 05:02 |
carne_de_res wrote on Tue, 08 August 2006 02:02 | ||
please, tell me more about those small mics that you can put inside the guiar. any suggestions about models? |
mattrussell wrote on Wed, 09 August 2006 18:44 |
in the context of trying to get the acoustic guitars loud and loud in a mix of a fairly loud band, i can share with you my experience. having spent nearly ten years playing in a fairly loud live band that has an acoustic gtr player, i feel your pain. in my band, the acoustic gtr is the basis for ALL of the songs and needs to be heard at all times. the line up includes drums(me), electric bass, electric gtr, keys (b3 and string pads) and 3 vocals. we play pretty loud and the acoustic has always been a problem until recently. my brother is the acoustic gtr player. he owns several $2500+ instruments and had been playing them with one of those fishman blend set-ups that has individual controls for the piezo and internal mic with a TRS 1/4" that can blend the sound or split it into two outputs. he always split it. at the mixer, he would have our FOH guy create a blend to use in the house and send only the peizo to the monitors. it didn't really ever do the job all that well. he recently did a bunch of research and talked to some notable national players and techs who all told him the same thing which is that if you are playing rock and trying make the instrument loud, you first need to play a cheaper and less "hi-fi" sounding gtr and second, you need commit to using only a piezo while using a soundhole cover. he did it. bought two guitars that seemed to be popular amongst pro's and it works incredibly well. they cut through and feedback is gone. here is what he uses live now: Takamine EAN40C CT-4B Preamp (included) http://www.takamine.com/?fa=detail&mid=124&sid=62 the guitars by themselves sound pretty terrible. he's now exclusively using the piezo through a radial passive DI to the PA and it's not bad at all. i asked him to buy that passive DI as many of the venues have phantom problems (yeah, none at all) and batteries die. i was tracking him at a studio recently using those gtrs, just cutting scratch tracks for me to play along with. later, when i listened to them i was surpised how good it sounded. so good that if i HAD to make it work, i probably could. i won't be doing that, but if i was handed them to mix with no possiblitly of re-cutting them, i could certainly make it work. EDIT: we do carry a countryman DI85 with us and use it when we can (battery not dead or board has working phantom). the radial does sound just fine though. |
Funk-O-Meter wrote on Thu, 17 August 2006 00:00 |
To get a condenser mic hot enough to hear in a monitor on stage in a noisy room you'll need: A good monitor- some thing like a Yorkville Elite or one of those powered Mackies at the minimum. |
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A graphic EQ- You're gonna really need a 1/3 octave (same as 31 band) EQ to pull out the offending frequencies. |
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A good monitor- some thing like a Yorkville Elite or one of those powered Mackies at the minimum. |
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BARE minimum. And the powered Mackie isn't a good choice for monitor wedges because of its horn angle. The Rat/Radian Microwedge is a much better choice. Spendy, though. |
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A graphic EQ- You're gonna really need a 1/3 octave (same as 31 band) EQ to pull out the offending frequencies. |
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A parametric inserted on the guitar channel is the pro's preferred tool. Why? So you don't destroy the tone of the wedge with the cuts you might end up with on a standard 31-bander. |
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Actually, the cool trick when you don't have a separate monitor desk is to split the channel. Use one channel for FOH (perhaps inserting a compressor or whatever) and use the other channel for monitors. Insert the parametric on the monitor channel if necessary. |
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re: ringing out wedges -- yes, very important, although a 12 dB cut is just plain wrong. Don't forget that if you have both the vocal and the guitar in the wedge mix, you end up with two different path lengths and some odd potential feedback combinations. I've seen guys simply hack the graph until there's nothing coming out of the wedges yet the send is clipping. Splitting both vocal and guitar and using the channel strip for each works better than hacking the graph. -a |