Re: [Harp-L] Re: Mic's on multi speaker amplifiers

[Grant Walters <grant@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In defense of the sound man:

At Blues gigs..
too often, the depth of the stage is not adequate to prevent the amp from speaking to the vocal mic
(to borrow from the previous note)
or too narrow and the amp is on top of the drums thus bleeding into your mic at the speaker cone.

I guess I am curious how a sound pro adjust for this...
Our "pro" put a ugly piece of plywood in front of my super to "cut the bleed".
from the oversized amp on the undersized stage....looked like hell but seemed to work somewhat.
You do have to realize if you are standing on top of your amp...it is going into your vocal mic...to some degree.
And mic the amp...sure...but not on the side right next to the drums...
Man this stuff is hard.
I hesitate to even give the drummer a vocal mic for this reason.

Honestly, after doing most of this myself for a couple of decades...
this is my biggest area of failure... just getting the harp right in the mix...( you can't control the other guys)
People always wait until three days later and tell you they could not hear you...
Your wife says you need to turn up and the guitar player's wife says...your too loud.....
You hear a recording later..and it is a mess.....

Nothing like an honest friend with a good set of ears...buy him a beer.

Grant
 



On Mar 3, 2010, at 12:49 PM, BluzeHarp@xxxxxxx wrote:

> Hmmm, no sound engineer worth his or her salt would point a mic at the  
> baffle board instead of a speaker,  but that seems to have  already been 
> covered.  The other thing to remember with multi-speaker  amps is that sometimes 
> the speakers are of different types and/or sizes.   There's no "one size 
> fit's all" rule here, work with each speaker  type until you find your sweet 
> spot.  I've even seen 2 mic's  on the same amp so more of the overall tone is 
> captured, probably a hard  sell if your band isn't running the board and only 
> useful  with amps that have more than one type of speaker.  
> 
> Here's a tip for micing any amp with multiple speakers:  Mic the  speaker 
> cone towards the inside of the cabinet next to another  speaker.  This will 
> let the mic pick up more of the adjacent speaker  instead of other sounds 
> from the stage.  It will be a more accurate  capture of just your playing (less 
> mud) & may even tend  to feed back less.  
> 
> Position your amp so it is not directly in line with any of the  monitors. 
> Tipping it back is sometimes of benefit.  The less the amp  speakers & 
> monitor speakers 'see' each other the better.
> 
> Seeing it hasn't been mentioned.  Avoid using omni directional  mic's in 
> live settings, and never use one to mic a stage amp.  An  exception might be 
> if you need to capture something like a trio  of horns or multiple vocalists 
> with a single microphone.
> 
> Christopher Richards  -  Twin Tone Harmonica  Microphones
>