| Author |
Topic: Help: True or false |
Dayna Wills
From:
Sacramento, CA (deceased)
|
Posted 11 Jan 2009 11:10 pm |
|
When setting the volume level on the mics, do you set them all at the same place, or do you set the level for the projection of the singer? Some folks are louder than others. And, does the type of mic make a difference?
Thanks, |
|
|
 |
Dave Harmonson
From:
Seattle, Wa
|
Posted 11 Jan 2009 11:16 pm
|
|
| Yes and yes. Different voices are louder or softer and mikes definitely vary in response. Sometimes different channels vary a bit on the same mixer as well. |
|
|
|
Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
|
Posted 12 Jan 2009 12:04 am
|
|
Yes, voices and instruments project differently, and yes, mics can make a significant difference. Assuming you have a decent PA head with a trim pot and a fader for each channel, then there are at least two preamp levels you need to deal with.
First - the trim level should be set to keep each singer's voice/microphone combination from overloading its respective channel. The idea is to set it so it doesn't overload for the highest possible input signal level that channel would get hit with. Having done sound for a lot of screamin' rock singers, I usually leave some headroom - in other words, I don't push the loudest signal right to the distortion point, but back it off a set amount. It's important to try to get everyone to hit the mic with the loudest possible signal they will ever use during soundcheck. Unfortunately, not everyone does that - some singers (and instrumentalists) get a lot looser as the night wears on.
Once the trims are set for each channel, everybody should be on a reasonably equal footing in terms of input to the channel faders - if those are now all set the same, everyone should be sending roughly the same signal level to the main fader.
So the second step is to adjust the channel faders so that the balance is appropriate. That depends on how you want the mix to sound. Don't touch the trims now - do all this with the channel faders. Then as the main fader is brought up and down, that mix should, in principle, just go up and down with it.
In fact, I don't think it usually works exactly like that because, once you consider the room acoustics or various psychoacoustic effects, some voices or instruments scale up with the fader at different rates than others. So I might well make some adjustments to relative channel fader levels for softer or louder main volumes. But this approach should get you in the ballpark.
This may be more than you wanted to know, but that's the general approach a lot of sound people I know use. |
|
|
|
Marlin Smoot
From:
Kansas
|
Posted 13 Jan 2009 3:18 pm Mic Work
|
|
Also seems like when the mic is set for singing... it dosen't sound the same (Level-EQ) when the singer is just talking on the mic between songs...
The projection (at times) may be the difference between singing and talking on the same mic thus levels-EQ are different?
I'm not the expert but some listeners/dancers in the crowd say they can't understand the singer when "he's talking"....
Bottom line is: a great sound guy is worth his payday... |
|
|
|
Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
|
Posted 13 Jan 2009 4:06 pm
|
|
Yes, yes, yes. Everyone's different, and most every mike is different.  |
|
|
|
David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
|
Posted 13 Jan 2009 4:26 pm Re: Mic Work
|
|
| Marlin Smoot wrote: |
| ...some listeners/dancers in the crowd say they can't understand the singer when "he's talking".... |
Yeah, that always bothers me. It's mostly because of the reverb and/or delay used for singing. It should be turned off for talking. |
|
|
|
