Live Sound & Production

[Tomm Williams]

A comp is another device that if used incorrectly will send you into feedback hell. At this point in your learning curve, I'd pass on it.

[pbone]

Well I'm familiar with running monitors and effects at the venue that I run the monitors for, so I'm not brand new, but just am familiar with running stuff at venues versus just practice spaces.

[stangconv]

This is for jam space? Get a Behringer B212D place at the bottom on of their stand pointing up. $299. A compressor is the wrong tool.

Either sell the other speakers or use them for the people who aren't singing to hear with.

[pbone]

Okay I'm thinking of just doing a complete over haul here. Here's what I'm thinking. Replace the tower speakers as is with Carvin 832s, which are 400w 115s. I can bridge my PA to provide 300w in mono, which might be kinda nice. Then I'll just go ahead and buy a KC-300 and use that for the Moog and DSI, leaving me to mic just the vocals and bass drums. Good solution? Then hopefully everyone gets to hear me and i can hear myself too.

[Tomm Williams]

I assume you're still talking about rehearsal sound right?  I don't see any reason to mic the bass/kick drum for rehearsal. I owned a set of those Carvin 832's a few years back and I could swear they were a 1-12" x 300 watts, not a 1-15". By bridging your amp, you're still only getting half the power per speaker, so if you connect two speakers in bridged mode, you probably have not gained anything over stereo with one speaker per channel. For practice purposes, a waste of time IMO. More power does nothing to increase GBF, you need to continue experimenting with your speaker location or mic selection or how your board eq's are being used. I think your problem can be fixed without buying anything.

[pbone]

I guess I've just been getting a lot of different information here and a previous poster recommended micing the kick. Here's the manual for the 832: http://www.manualslib.com/manual/395287/Carvin-832.html

My amp is the American VLP-300 if that makes any difference. The manual for that lists the output power in bridge mono mode as 300w, how would that work with half the power? I guess you're right though, it doesn't really do anything as far as GBF, but the issue moreover that I think I'm looking at is that the Carvins will be much easier to wedge than the towers that I currently have. But even still, I have that powered monitor I just bought, so that may solve the problem altogether--I'll see how it works tomorrow.

So I agree that speaker placement is a big factor. But I may just be getting ahead of myself here as well, in terms of purchasing more shit than necessary. haha.

[Tomm Williams]

What I meant by half the power is if you bridge an amp and get (say) 300watts, and then connect two speakers to that bridged channel, each speaker only receives 150 watts. In stereo, your amp probably already puts out 150 watts per channel so you've gained nothing by bridging. Bridging is most commonly used to power a single sub per single amp. Now if you are only connecting one speaker (your monitor) to this bridged amp, then yes, you'll get more power. However if your issue is not power but GBF, you're not fixing the problem. You can hook a Powerlight 6.0 up and still have GBF issues. I now understand the use of the Carvins as monitors. In terms of "What do I mic?" You mic what cannot be heard. In a practice setting, the kick shouldn't be an issue.

[stangconv]

Can you draw out your rehearsal space? Sounds weird

[pbone]

Okay word. Thanks for your help, Tomm. Let's solve this out!

So just to summarize, the way that it is working out now just is fine for everyone but me. Everyone else can hear their mix great, but my singing doesn't come across in the monitors to me. I'll get to test out the powered monitor I bought on Monday and see how that works.

Tom, would you say that the best thing here potentially would just be to forget swapping out any PA nonsense and just focus on correct placement? The way I'm thinking now is that I'll just go ahead and place those speakers on either side of me now facing outwards and only use my monitor to face me. Right?

[pbone]

---

stangconv wrote:
Can you draw out your rehearsal space? Sounds weird

---

yeah lemme whip something up real quick.

[Tomm Williams]

---

pbone wrote:
Okay word. Thanks for your help, Tomm. Let's solve this out!

So just to summarize, the way that it is working out now just is fine for everyone but me. Everyone else can hear their mix great, but my singing doesn't come across in the monitors to me. I'll get to test out the powered monitor I bought on Monday and see how that works.

Tom, would you say that the best thing here potentially would just be to forget swapping out any PA nonsense and just focus on correct placement? The way I'm thinking now is that I'll just go ahead and place those speakers on either side of me now facing outwards and only use my monitor to face me. Right?

---

Something I'm not clear on, are your vocals coming out of the mains but just not loud enough to be heard over the band, or is there an issue with the vocals being heard at all? Are you still attempting to use the FX pedal on your vocals? try taking it out and run straight to a board channel. Try out your powered monitor placed right in front of you, might cure the whole problem Are you running any other reverbs, etc... in the mix? take them out and see if things improve (I bet they will) 

[pbone]

---

Tomm Williams wrote:

Something I'm not clear on, are your vocals coming out of the mains but just not loud enough to be heard over the band, or is there an issue with the vocals being heard at all? Are you still attempting to use the FX pedal on your vocals? try taking it out and run straight to a board channel. Try out your powered monitor placed right in front of you, might cure the whole problem Are you running any other reverbs, etc... in the mix? take them out and see if things improve (I bet they will) 

---

Yeah that's right. The vocal as they are now do not reach a loud enough level. I can hear the keyboards just fine but vocals are getting buried. I returned the reverb. No other effects.

Here's an incredibly shitty mock-up

http://i.imgur.com/jvlzATp.png

[Tomm Williams]

Is it possible you have an issue with whatever channel your mic is plugged into?, have you tried a different mic? Is there a pad activated on the board?

[whataracket]

I think everyone may have missed a really basic issue because we all love to "gear chat." 

If I understood correctly, you said that right now you are using a simple stereo PA and using the mains as your monitors for practice, with no dedicated monitor for vocals fed from an aux output.  You also said you are running keyboards through your PA, which means that you, the vocalist, have the keyboards in your vocal monitor at the same level that the keyboard player needs the level to hear himself.  If this is true, then I suspect that's your problem right there.  You need a dedicated vocal monitor, and the keyboard player needs his own keyboard monitor.  (I'm assuming you are not the keyboard player.) 

You can probably most easily accomplish this for practice with your existing equipment by panning the keyboards full left or right and panning your vocal to the opposite side.  Point the speaker with the vocals at yourself from the front, and make sure the speaker with the keyboards is pointed at the keyboardist and not at you.  Get the guitar amps also pointed at the players' heads and not at you, and you should be good. 

When you decide to buy a vocal monitor for performing, you'll run it off of an aux output on the mixer and route only your vocal mic to it and nothing else (except maybe an acoustic guitar if you are playing one).  You'll go back to running the keyboards in stereo to FOH in that setup.

[Tomm Williams]

---

whataracket wrote:

I think everyone may have missed a really basic issue because we all love to "gear chat." 

If I understood correctly, you said that right now you are using a simple stereo PA and using the mains as your monitors for practice, with no dedicated monitor for vocals fed from an aux output.  You also said you are running keyboards through your PA, which means that you, the vocalist, have the keyboards in your vocal monitor at the same level that the keyboard player needs the level to hear himself.  If this is true, then I suspect that's your problem right there.  You need a dedicated vocal monitor, and the keyboard player needs his own keyboard monitor.  (I'm assuming you are not the keyboard player.) 

You can probably most easily accomplish this for practice with your existing equipment by panning the keyboards full left or right and panning your vocal to the opposite side.  Point the speaker with the vocals at yourself from the front, and make sure the speaker with the keyboards is pointed at the keyboardist and not at you.  Get the guitar amps also pointed at the players' heads and not at you, and you should be good. 

When you decide to buy a vocal monitor for performing, you'll run it off of an aux output on the mixer and route only your vocal mic to it and nothing else (except maybe an acoustic guitar if you are playing one).  You'll go back to running the keyboards in stereo to FOH in that setup.

---

Not a bad idea at all, certainly worth a try. 

[stangconv]

Where are your speakers?

[pbone]

---

whataracket wrote:

I think everyone may have missed a really basic issue because we all love to "gear chat." 

If I understood correctly, you said that right now you are using a simple stereo PA and using the mains as your monitors for practice, with no dedicated monitor for vocals fed from an aux output.  You also said you are running keyboards through your PA, which means that you, the vocalist, have the keyboards in your vocal monitor at the same level that the keyboard player needs the level to hear himself.  If this is true, then I suspect that's your problem right there.  You need a dedicated vocal monitor, and the keyboard player needs his own keyboard monitor.  (I'm assuming you are not the keyboard player.) 

You can probably most easily accomplish this for practice with your existing equipment by panning the keyboards full left or right and panning your vocal to the opposite side.  Point the speaker with the vocals at yourself from the front, and make sure the speaker with the keyboards is pointed at the keyboardist and not at you.  Get the guitar amps also pointed at the players' heads and not at you, and you should be good. 

When you decide to buy a vocal monitor for performing, you'll run it off of an aux output on the mixer and route only your vocal mic to it and nothing else (except maybe an acoustic guitar if you are playing one).  You'll go back to running the keyboards in stereo to FOH in that setup.

---

You are 50% right. I am both the keyboard player and singer. I forgot to add in my powered monitor to the little graphic there, but I recently purchased one but haven't gotten the chance to try it out yet. So I'll need both sounds into that monitor, and, yes, I will be feeding that via an aux output from the mixer. The only thing that is being sent to the PA is my keys and my vox: the problem lies within the fact that I need to simultaneously amplify my vox and keys while being able to monitor myself. The amplification part is fine, everybody can hear me; but I can't hear myself through the PA. Hence the purchase of the powered monitor, which I think should clear up some of these problems. I was getting a little wrapped up in the gear chat, you're right.

So I guess now I'm wondering if all I need to do is just position those speakers next to me, facing outwards towards everybody else or what. 

[pbone]

---

stangconv wrote:
Where are your speakers?

---

Speakers are set right next to the drum set, on either side, facing me.

[stangconv]

And which way are you looking? Like you're on stage with back to drums? Or looking in towards the drummer?

[pbone]

Looking in at the drummer, and you can imagine the consequential mic positioning.