homemade personal monitors that turned in nightmare !

[bsinda]

Hi, 1st of all I assume I am a total noob reading this forum, and understanding some of you are so experimented, but hey, that's why I need some help!

 

SO, I got a pop/rock band with drums, bass on its amp, 2 electric guitars on amps, 1 keyboard and 3 vocals on Joemeek three Q preamp and/or on Berhinger eurorack1832 mix table.

The problem I got and I think a lot of bands have the same is montoring ourselves when playing live.

So I had an idea last week. I decided to use the second ouput of my preamp + alternate ouput of a ALesis MultiFX mixer to get nice monitoring.

 

here was the idea

I Got a sm58 inside a the JoeMeek ThreeQ 1 ouput to the Behringer Mixer, and the other one to the Alesis Mixer.

Then 2 sm58 Inside the ALesis mixer then to Berhinger mixer through paned (left for voice 2 right for voice 3) alternate outputs

To the main monitors of the ALesis I had an headphone amp and 3 earphones (IPod like)

 

WHy did'nt I assign the vocals to the monitors out of the berhinger ?because this thing is so complicated for me than I wasn't able to assign only vocals to the monitors, each time I tried I had the huge sound of the keyboard too...

 

So We tried and were really please BEFORE the drummer strated to play, then It was a living hell... All the sound of the cymbals or drum snare seemed to get over our vocals through the ears ...

My idea was [as we don't have wedges to monitor ourselves (too heavy to carry, not enough space in the bar we played, no money..., to use ears to get less volume on the stage and the main speackers far away near the audience to eliminate feedback...

SO it works really great no feedback, we weren't able to hear the speakers on stage when the band was playing, so NO FEEDBACK.

But as we weren't able to use the ears, we didn't ear nothing about the vocals, we played in a blind way if you get what I mean !

horrible night it was !

 

So I got some questions...

Assuming it was an homemade solution, it didn't work but why ?

How can people use ear monitors system ? Don't they have the drums getting inside the mics ?

Maybe the mics need less gain ?

 

Do you have any suggestions ?

 

thanks for your help

[agedhorse]

Suggestion...

 

Ditch the outboard preamps and all the hassles (and in all probabliity reduced performance) and just use the mixer's inboard preamps, use the pre-fader aux bus(es) and generate your monitor mixes that way.

 

You say you are new to this... why would you screw around with mic pres? By chance do you hand with the recording crowd and read all those magazine ads about how you are nothing without spending your money on mic pres? Outboard mic pres, especially for live audio at ANY reasonable gigging configuration under the top 10 national touring, are a complete waste of time, effort and money IMO. You would be surprised at how similar all these budget mic pre's really are inside... many are virtually identical to the themic pre's in your mixer!!!

[Craig Vecchione]

The trouble you had was mic bleed. The drums are being picked up by the vocal mics. You would have the same problem with guitar and bass amps, and with a keyboard amp. An acrylic drum shield can help a lot, and electronic drums would eliminate the problem entirely. Some improvement may happen if you can get the mics further from the drums or not pointing at them. Also, a strong singer can help by not needing so much gain, and by his voice being a much stronger signal than the drum bleed.

 

Agedhorse is right....there's absolutely no need for preamps. The mixer's got 'em, and they are just as good.

[bsinda]

1st thanks for your answers.

About preamps, the sound I got with my preamp at home was so nice, I deicide to try it live ... This preamp give me a more powerfull sound (I don't have ato push my voice and it's a nice thing when you got a 2h30 show ) and it and has a nice compressor and we don't have any comp to plug into the Aux send/return inputs of the behringer mix table. the comp helps a lot for my singing (I admit I am not a great singer too

the "stronger" voice is the key, but neither the female singer nor I have a strong voice so the preamp made the difference. It's worst with the female singer , I always have to push up the gain knob so the feedback occures a lot when you got a speaker around.

During the concert I tried to point the mic off the drums or any amp but I think the gain was so high that made no enough difference.

 

 

But what do you think of my idea ? this should work If I can find a way to reduce the drums sound into the mics , don't you think so ?

Witht the ears I have a nice noice reduction (guitars amps, etc...) so it will be a healthy solution.

The problem is I think I am not enough experimented, I need help too. i don't think I can't sing, play guitar, managing the band and doing all the necessary things about the sound check before a concert !

 

any suggestions about manging monitoring will be appreciated,

regards,

[Craig Vecchione]

Okay, here's what I see so far:

 

Again, ditch the preamp/compressor. Compression reduced gain before feedback the the extent of gain reduction/makeup you employ. That means that whatever amount in decibels you've got for compression, that's how much gain you'll also lose before feedback occurs. Compression on vocals should only be to take the top off bad mic technique. If you're up close to the mic consistently, and sing as strong as possible consistently, you don't need a comproessor and it's associated problems. I'm not saying commpression is bad, but that right now it's bad for you.

 

Again, the redundant preamps are redundant. Whatever gain you can achieve with the preamp, you can also achieve with a mixer's preamp. You could sell the Behringer, and the Joe Meek, and the Alesis, and get one decent mixer that has auxiliary sends you can use for monitors. Adding gain stages (multiple preamps) doesn't fatten your sound. It adds complexity to the system, usually lowers signal/noise ratio, reduces dynamic range...all of which contribute to feedback problems.

 

As weak singers you're in a bad position. You have to increase gain at the vox mics to compensate for your low vocal output. This increases the chances of feedback dramatically. Get voice lessons and have a coach determine if you can strengthen your voice. Comps and pre's are NOT the solution here.

 

Your system should be very simple...mic into mixer, Pre-fader aux send to a monitor system, FOH main mix to the FOH speakers. Adjust channel gains to register +3db peaks on the loudest passages, adjust faders and outputs to give the desired volume, go play your gig.

[agedhorse]

Compressors can be tried AFTER getting adequate basic performance. Compressors, as Craig pointed out, will make things worse (always) in GBF problems.

[ear_saver]

You used a non isolating earphone. You MUST isolate yourself from the outside noise for hearing safety and for sound quality. I am assuming the std ipod ears that come with? And are there limiters here? I didnt see a belt pack in your description.

If you need to cut corners for the ears, may I suggest a PSM 200 transmitter and beltpack with isolating earphones. Buy it ala cart or all together. You dont need to spend hundreds of dollars on earphones..just make sure the fit snug and deep in you ears. Sony even makes some. Now you get what you pay for soundwise IMHO, but its the isolation that will let you not hears the drums through the bleed in.

[bsinda]

@ "ear_saver" the non siloating was not the problem. the ears were able to provide a nice noice reduction (were really confortable ) the problem is the mics get the sound of the drums (cymbals and snare mostly) so each hit of them was really painfull in the ears.

About the limiter, I had a headphone amp. the sound getting isnide from the mix desk were controled by a halfway knoob AND the volume of each ears was controled too. No risk there to hurt ourselves.

 

@Craigh : i really appreciate your help. I know what you mean : try to master the tools you already have before complicating the thing with preamp, compressors....and waste money. the joemeek was primary used in my homestudio because I like the colour of the sound with it.

I tried today at home with my priceless Alesis and turn on the gain trim until I was confortably able to have a +3B on the level meter . No amps around, no drums, on my my monitors or with my earphones, this sound really good (with a bit a reverb, it's even better).

So What ? I think this is only a matter or earing yourself, so it goes at the beginning of this "monitoring ourselves."

Thinking about it I must end with this

) wheter we play too loud so it's a run of volume (and/or gain with the mics) ...and we don't ear ourself (no monitors or bad set up ) especially when you play too loud.

 

Now about the preamp thing, I like the "colour " of the sound, I know the redundance argument, ...But I try and try ? I can't have the same coulour with each mix table I tried

 

"Drum Shield ?" not the space, not the money, you know on some bars, you even don't have the place for the musicans to move their big toe