Re: [Harp-L] Performance setup - hearing and feedback

["Michael D'Aurizio " <mdaurizio@xxxxxxxx>]

Bravo!!! You hit the nail on the head!! 
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: The Iceman <icemanle@xxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:27:32 
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Performance setup - hearing and feedback

Lots of good advice here.
 
 
 I like to simplify...check out the great blues bands of the 40's, club bands...before the advent of festival stages and concert arenas. Harmonica is always easy to hear because the rest of the band does not play loud. Simply put, without the contemporary monitor mindset, stage volume is determined by the drummer. As long as he doesn't bash or HIT the drums, the guitars, bass, keys, etc can wrap their sound around the drums. As long as the musicians have a sense of groove and confidence, they won't have to substitute LOUD for any lack of getting it over to the crowd. You can hear great guitar tone in the era before guitarists said "Uh, I haveta turn my amp up to 8 in order to get 'that sound'."
 
 
 Of course, it is hard to find 21st century musicians with this sort of insight. They grew up with monitors in front of each and wanting a separate mix for each monitor, leaving the individual stage amp volume open to excess.
 
 
 As long as bands are willing to try the old school method, you will be able to blend in your harmonica through a stage amp without competing for volume. 
 
 
 
 
 
 -----Original Message-----
 From: David Michelsen Tuition <dmharpman@xxxxxxxxx>
 To: John F. Potts <hvyj@xxxxxxx>
 Cc: harp-l harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
 Sent: Thu, Apr 28, 2011 5:56 am
 Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Performance setup - hearing and feedback
 
 
   HI
 Some thoughts I'd like to share.
 Given that the time frame that I'm talking about here is the late 
 1970's. I have a best friend, Rory Caules, who was learning how to be a 
 sound engineer, as I was becoming a blues harp player. The sophisticated 
 on stage fold back systems of today were in their childhood then.
 
 Taking a guitar amp and using it as fold back was becoming a common 
 thing. However for a harp player this mostly didn't work. The reason for 
 this was that amps then, much as now, were designed for direct 
 injection. So they would be designed 'hot' both in the pre-amp & amp and 
 speaker stages over certain frequency slots. This worked fine for  
 everything except mic's. So as a harp player you were best off going 
 through the P.A. and trusting to your engineer to set the sound right.
 
 So the bands that I ran had a simple rule set:
 Above all listen,
 If you cant hear an instrument, then turn down and ask the front of 
 house engineer, what's it's sounding like front of house.
 
 the idea of turning down and not up still holds good.
 
 You can do so much more by inviting your audience to listen, rather than 
 trying to overwhelm them with the weight of sound. The getting of an on 
 stage balance where every one can hear what they need  is tricky and 
 almost never cheap. What a musician needs to hear to play isn't always 
 the same as what the audience needs to hear as an overall sound.
 
 Also a band can do so much to help it's self by running rehearsals at 
 low sound levels. From these rehearsals comes the knowledge that it will 
 all sound all right even if you can't hear all that you would wish to.
 
 I suppose that much of this comes from an inner sense of listening, 
 where one listens to the intent of ones fellow players.
 doing what one can to work to one's best in imperfect situations.
 
 I also don't like the bullet mic but personally prefer a miniature 
 capsule system like Senhierer's red dot system.
 a good tool in the prevention of feedback is a 'noise-gate', which will 
 cut the Mic. when there is no signal. So when you're not playing the 
 thing is off. It isn't the entire answer to unwanted feedback 
 elimination and brings a few problems of it's own but it can be a realy 
 useful tool.
 
 Most of these things are better handled through the main P.A.'s effects 
 rack than through stomp boxes, in my experience.
 
 Yours David
 
 On 28/04/2011 12:44, John F. Potts wrote:
 > There is a well known harp player (I forget who) who has said that if 
 > you can hear yourself when you are comping you are playing too loud. 
 > When playing in an electric/amplified environment you've just got to 
 > accept that there will be occasions when hearing yourself may be a 
 > problem.  Often bands that play too loud get too loud because one of 
 > the musicians can't hear himself well enough, so he turns up, then 
 > another musician turns up, and so on, until the whole band is too damn 
 > loud.
 >
 > I'm not a fan of bullet mics for a number of reasons, one of which is 
 > that many of the more popular commercially available bullets are 
 > feedback prone.  A fairly reliable method for controlling feedback in 
 > a live performance situation is to use a mic with a volume control, 
 > set the amp's volume at the "sweet spot" (which may be pretty high) 
 > and backing off the volume on the mic itself to set performance level 
 > volume.  This reduces the output gain so that the mic is not as hot 
 > and will usually control feedback while allowing the player to get 
 > good tone from the amp.
 >
 > The tone of some mics will degrade if the mic volume is turned down, 
 > but many (like Greg Heumann's Ultimate series mics) sound just fine 
 > used this way.  Some amps are just too high gain for the method I have 
 > described to work well for controlling feedback, in which case the 
 > player needs to swap out preamp tubes.  If your mic doesn't have a VC 
 > another way to accomplish output signal gain reduction is to use an 
 > MXR 10 band EQ pedal which has gain and volume controls and use those 
 > to reduce how "hot" the output signal from the mic is.  Of course, you 
 > can also use the EQ freq sliders to notch out the freqs that are 
 > feeding back.  But the gain and volume sliders are actually more 
 > useful than the EQ adjustments.
 >
 > Personally, I am not a fan of harp specific amps and I don't like what 
 > the Kinder AFB+ does to my tone.  But, depending on what kind of tone 
 > you are after, some bass amps can sound very decent for harp and are 
 > less feedback prone than many guitar amps.  But if you are after a 
 > "crunchy" or distorted Chicago type tone, a bass amp is not going to 
 > give you that.
 >
 > Hope this helps.
 >
 > JP
 >
 
 -- 
 D Priestley AKA Dr Midnight.
 England's first  harmonica Guru.
 
 I hope this info helps, do feel free get in touch.
 Harmonica lessons are currently £25.00 per hour, discounts for bulk booking are 
 available (bulk = 10 for a 20% discount, making study £20.00 a session&  20 
 lessons for a 25% discount = £18.75  a session).
 
    I Teach from 10 till 20:00 all the days of the week. I teach from:
 51 Barkston Gdns, the basement flat&  On-Line, closest Tube Earls Court.
 Email me or call me  on 0207 373 0295 to book lessons or get more info.
 
 E-mail-dmharpman@xxxxxxxxx
 http://www.cognitionarts.com/
 Phone: 0207 373 0295