There is nothing worse than spending an entire event struggling with feedback demons. You may have been taught to fight feedback with a graphic EQ, but there is a better way. Actually, that’s not true: there are six better ways. Use my guide to controlling feedback onstage and mix in fear no more.
“The feedback frequency is determined by resonance frequencies in the microphone, amplifier, and loudspeaker, the acoustics of the room, the directional pick-up and emission patterns of the microphone and loudspeaker, and the distance between them.” –Wikipedia
Method #0 – Psychology
I had to include this step 0 because the more I thought about it and the more I talked to other sound engineers, the more this came up. When it comes to improving your GBF (gain before feedback), start with the beginning of your signal chain and work forwards.
Example 1: Jason works as an AV tech on city council meetings. He was having lots of feedback problems and asked for my help. After we went through everything in the signal chain and made improvements where we could, the most important change we made was simply explaining to the council members the importance of proper microphone positioning. Nothing else we did made more of an impact than getting that first step right.
Example 2: When Brian Adler works as a monitor engineer in situations where he expects the GBF to be an issue, he will purposely start with vocal mikes way too loud in the mix. This will give the performer a little shock and start the sound check off by asking their mix level to be turned down, instead of what normally happens.
Probably the biggest tip I can give in this area is to be proactive and be a pack leader. You don’t want to wait until the stage is all set up and you are halfway through the sound check before you approach the guitarist about potentially moving his amp for a less face-melting experience. Instead, while you’re giving them a hand loading in, mention that “What we normally do here is put the guitar amp on this stand so that you can hear it well and I can get a better mix out front.”
Or for vocalists: “We’ve found that the ideal position for the monitor is with this microphone in this position. If you want it to be somewhere else, I’m totally fine with that, but it might not be able to get as loud, so we’ll have to work around that.”
Method #1 – Microphone Placement
Close Miking
For loud stages and busy rooms, close miking is generally the way to go. It might not always be the best for sound, but for the maximum gain before feedback, you have to kiss the mic. Remember, with each doubling of distance, sound level is cut in half. Plus, if you’re working mostly with Shure SM58 and SM57 microphones, that’s how they are designed to be used anyway.
For corporate audio this usually means teaching your presenter how to handle the mic. For theatre this means adjusting headworn capsule placement. I have seen sound designers successfully mic a play without headworn microphones, but it’s tricky (see How To Mic An 800 Seat Theatre With Floor Mics).
Polar Pattern
For concert sound you almost never use an omnidirectional mic. Microphones with a cardioid pickup pattern have the most rejection at the rear of the mic capsule, which should be pointed at the stage monitor.
Don’t cup the mic! This will defeat the directional pattern, turning it into an omnidirectional mic.
Corporate and theatre events require specific and stable placement of the microphone capsule. Some sound engineers argue in favor of using omnidirectional capsules on the grounds that they are easier to place and produce more reliable results with the movement of the actor. My experience is that none of that matters when the audience can’t hear the actor because you can’t get enough gain.
I’ve done a lot of musicals and concerts with omnidirectional head-worn microphones in the past, though, and it’s always a struggle. The performers can’t hear themselves, and if the audience starts clapping or singing along, chaos ensues. Why did I do this? Because it was what I had available. These days I try to let directors and event producers know way ahead of time about the limits of working with certain equipment. If possible, I’ll schedule a test so they can hear the difference in the performance space.
Method #2 – Speaker Placement
Stage Monitors
Floor wedges should be placed on-axis and as close to the performer’s head as possible. I’ve heard people suggest moving the monitor away from the performer for better gain before feedback, but don’t do that. That just creates lower sound levels at their ear level, so you’ll have to turn it up louder. Most live stages are loud enough as it is, so anything you can do to lower the stage monitor level will be helpful.
Have you ever seen those little Hotspot monitors? I haven’t seen them in a few years, but I love the idea. Put a small monitor on a stand and you significantly reduce its distance to the performer.
Sometimes, because of sightline issues or stage layout, you can’t get a monitor right in front of a performer where a cardioid microphone’s off-axis point is. This happens often with drummers and keyboard players whose instruments take up so much space and lead vocalists who want clear sightlines. This is when you need a hyper-cardioid or super-cardioid microphone and this is why many live music venues have a collection of Shure SM58 (cardioid) and Beta SM58A (supercardioid) microphones, or similar.
If you find yourself stuck with a drummer or piano player whose stage monitor is at a 90° angle to a cardioid microphone, try cheating the microphone out closer to 45° to get more rejection. If an artist requests a monitor position that is less than ideal for your microphone selection, go ahead and do it, but warn them that you may run into feedback problems and need to reconfigure the speaker and mic.
I’ve seen some pretty creative microphone and monitor placement that allow for very high gain before feedback. If you are working with acoustic instruments, ask the performers if they have any tips for placement. I used to work with a cello player in Portugal who placed the stage monitor a little behind himself so that it wasn’t pointed at his microphone but it was still aimed at his head. It worked great.
Stage monitor placement for theatre deserves its own article, but my number one tip is to start the conversation early. Explain your limitations to the production team and discuss ways to best accommodate the actors. You don’t want to realize in tech rehearsals that the actors can’t hear the musicians and that the director won’t allow downstage speakers. I often lobby for small downstage monitors straight out of the gate. I also try to make friends with the set director and builder as quickly as possible, alerting them to the fact that I’ll probably need help hiding speakers around the stage.
FOH
Make sure your FOH speakers are covering the house and not the stage. This means checking the speakers’ off-axis angles to make sure they are not spilling onto the stage or creating strong wall reflections. (See also: How To Tune A Sound System In 15 Minutes.) I’ve heard people say that all microphones must be at least six feet behind FOH, but I’ve seen it done many different ways. Some situations call for more separation and control, others less.
Method #3 – Instrument/Source Placement
If you are working with a loud rock band and you place the lead vocalist right in front of the drummer, guess what happens? Your vocal mic will be full of drums and your vocalist won’t be able to hear. This happens all the time, and explains why you see the bands on Saturday Night Live using a drum shield on that very small stage.
Your goal is to balance every source input for the performers and audience. Now let’s talk about the most frequent offenders.
Drums
Drums are loud. Some drummers are interested in harmony and balance, and will change their technique, use brushes, and dampen their instruments. Those drummers are in the minority. Why? Well, have you ever played drums? It’s fun as hell to play loud, and boring as shit to play soft, or so goes my personal experience.
If you’re on tour, you’ll need a rug and a drum shield. If you’re full-time at a venue, put absorption everywhere. Two of the noisiest venues I’ve worked at have pulled the same trick and covered their ceiling and walls with black semi-rigid duct insulation or vinyl that screws right into the wall. It made a big difference.
For more on this topic, see 5 Pro Drummers Explain How to Make a Drum Kit Quieter on Stage.
Electric Guitars
I’m a guitarist, and as such I’m fully aware of how hard it is to hear myself without the amplifier blaring. The only way I was able to handle this in my band was to learn to play without hearing. In the real world, getting a guitarist’s amp as close to their head as possible will help. Put it on a chair or milk crate. Most are open-back, so put a bunch of absorption back there.
In my interview with Larry Crane he mentions a guitarist who built a Plexiglass shield for his amp that redirected the sound upward at an angle so that he could play with feedback and do fancy things with his amp without blasting the stage. Pretty smart.
I worked on a show last year where the guitarist made a shield for his amp from case lids and jackets. This helped it not bleed into other microphones as much.
Buford Jones is famous for doing whole tours mixing from inside a truck outside of the venue. (He’s even more famous for mixing some band called Pink Floyd.) These were large venues where they had little acoustic sound coming from the stage. The guitar amps where all in dog houses off-stage and all of the performers were on IEMs (in ear monitors). Most of us won’t experience that, but it gives you an idea of how far people will go to control sound levels on stage. If you are worried about approaching a guitarist to discuss changing their setup, just remember that asking them to turn down their amp and put it on a stand is nothing compared to removing it from the stage entirely.
Method #4 – Mix
Stage Monitor
Most performers these days are wise to the challenges of microphone feedback on stage and will make specific requests for their monitor mix. I’ve made it a practice to not add anything to a stage monitor mix until expressly asked to, except for vocalists who almost always need reinforcement. When musicians walk in the door saying, “Just give me a mix of everything,” they likely don’t know what they need. Smile and nod.
I’ve made it through entire shows without adding anything to some performers’ stage monitors because the stage layout allowed them to hear everyone. I’ve also worked on shows where the band has skipped sound check then walked on stage expecting a complete mix. I try not to work off of assumptions and I give people only what they need, because the lower your stage volume, the better your FOH mix will be, and everyone will be happier.
FOH
In small to medium venues, you aren’t “mixing” in the classical sense, you are doing sound reinforcement. You are balancing the acoustic energy in the room for a more pleasant musical experience. From my interview with Howie Gordon:
The other thing I hear a lot about [is] guys setting the whole mix base from the drums, and in my opinion that’s the last thing you should do because the thing that immediately suffers is vocals. It’s the one instrument that can’t control its own stage volume. -Howie Gordon
And from my interview with Larry Crane:
How many times have you been blown out of the water by the mains because you’re trying to keep up with the stage? It’s like, “No, no, no! That’s not necessary.” You’re not building the mix up from the kick drum at that point. You’re building the mix down from what’s happening on the stage, and you’re filling in what’s missing, just a little bit. -Larry Crane
If you need definition on the bass guitar, roll off the low end and mix it in. If you are missing the melody from the keyboard, bring up the right hand. If the guitarist is too loud then invert the polarity and lower his volume in the house with deconstructive interference. That’s how noise cancelling headphones work.
(Just kidding! You know I’m kidding, right? If you actually try that and it works, keep it to yourself.)
Compression
Normally, I love compressors, but they raise the noise floor and reduce dynamic range, and therefore reduce gain before feedback. I would really like to use compression on lapel mics during corporate presentations, for example, but I’m often on the verge of feedback and can’t spare the gain.
Method #5 – The Holy Grail
IEMs, e-drums, synths. Done! 😉
Method #6 – Don’t Give A Fuck
“These setups that we’re working on, there’s EQs everywhere. If there’s still feedback, it’s too loud. So lower it or let it ring all night. I don’t give a fuck.” —Dimitris Sotiropoulos
I laugh every time I read this quote, but there is plenty of truth to it. Half of what I write on Sound Design Live is about psychology. People don’t trust sound because they can’t see it. That also means they don’t trust you because they can’t see what you’re doing. Letting the monitor feedback for a second before you bring it down communicates to the artist that it has reached it’s maximum level and that you are turning it down.
Q: But you do use EQ, right?
A: Um, yeah, most of time. At least to attenuate some low end.
#ObligatoryBonus – EQ
This is your last tool in the war on feedback. Use high-pass filters to remove the rumble from guitars and the proximity effect from vocals. Use narrow-band filters on a parametric EQ to surgically remove problem frequencies. Although it’s your last step, it’s also necessary. Temperature, humidity, and performance changes throughout the night will require compensation.
I recently worked with a sound engineer who would cut the low end from all of his vocals up to 200Hz in the stage mix. That’s a lot! But it worked. A few years ago I worked on an outdoor event where everything would be balanced during the afternoon sound check, then explode into feedback at night because of environmental changes.
So I think we can agree that some amount of EQ is necessary, but watch out for assuming too much. There is a process that we sound engineers call “ringing out the monitors” that often takes place before any artists have arrived. We use this process to lessen the amount of time we will need to chase feedback during sound check. I gotta tell you that over years of working on live events I do this less and less. Why? Because if you do it before sound check then you are making a lot of assumptions about the sound that can all be ruined by changing a mic or its placement. You’re also making changes to the speakers’ performance and sound quality without due cause. A better technique is to test for feedback, make note of those frequencies, but hold out on makes changes until you need more gain.
I sort of hate the fact that “ringing out” is supposed to be a normal part of our job. Under normal circumstances, with high-quality equipment and a properly optimized system, you shouldn’t have to do this. The fact that it is a normal part of our job makes me realize that there are a lot of sound systems out there that need your TLC.
Pulling half the bands down on a graphic EQ is like removing a tumor with a wiffle ball bat.
If this is the first article you’ve ever read from me, you may wonder what I have against graphic EQs. For system EQ, their fixed frequency, bandwidth, and logarithmic spacing make them unhelpful. They maintain popularity until today because they seem to give you a visual (graphical) representation of the changes you are making. Unfortunately, the visual is misleading. While you appear to be making surgical incisions, you are really making ⅓ octave tonal changes. You can prove this to yourself by measuring one. Here’s a step-by-step guide.
I hate graphic EQs. I don’t use them unless I don’t have a better choice. You’re talking about ⅓ of an octave. That’s like a C to an F on a piano.
Michael Lawrence – Fighting Microphone Feedback WITHOUT a Graphic EQ While Mixing Monitors from FOH in a Reverberant Room
Basically, the only things that graphic EQs are good for are ear training and maybe use in the battlefield that is Monitorland. For more, see my interview with Dave Swallow, my interview with Bob McCarthy, and my review of McCarthy’s book.
Another consideration is where you will insert these EQ filters. Your first idea might be to insert them on the master output buss of the mixing console. Consider that this has global repercussions on the entire mix. You are affecting the system response and mix balance. If possible, scale your changes back to the smallest local change possible. Is the feedback originating from a single microphone to all outputs? Insert your EQ on that microphone’s input channel first. Is the feedback frequency present to varying degrees in all vocal microphones? Insert the EQ on the vocal buss.
In the world of my dreams, I would be able to insert filters on a per-send basis from each input channel for maximum transparency. Unfortunately, the only way I know to accomplish that on modern mixing consoles is to create a duplicate input channel for each send, which is overly complicated.
Ambient Changes
Humidity and temperature changes throughout the night will require compensation, especially if you are outside. My first big lesson in this came will working for the band O’QueStrada in Portugal at an outdoor concert at the Centro Cultural de Belém. I had all of my monitor mixes set just on the edge of feedback, which seemed fine during soundcheck. We came back that night to start the show and as soon as I unmuted the band I also unleashed a storm of microphone feedback.
At the time I didn’t understand that a rise in relative humidity at that location would result in less high-frequency air absorption. I could have compensated for the change in humidity with a high-shelf filter.
The lesson: Don’t mix your stage monitors to the edge of feedback if you expect a rise in relative humidity and be prepared to compensate with a high shelf filter.
Temperature changes are less obvious. It would take a a 20ºF change in temperature to produce a 2% change in the speed of sound, which may be only enough to shift your acoustic crossover point by one seat. Unless you are working outside with some very large changes in temperature, I wouldn’t worry about its affect on microphone feedback.
Other Tricks To Try
Feedback Eliminator
If you look up reviews for feedback eliminators they are almost equally bad and good. You never see them on professional productions. Part of the issue is that sound engineers don’t like things to be out of their control, but the main problem is that these units just don’t work that well. Everyone who has used them has horror stories.
That being said, sometimes pro audio feels like a war zone, and I will never judge you for using one. Especially for corporate events where you have several lapel mics walking around a stage and you only need to stop one frequency from feeding back on one microphone for three seconds at a time. Or small setups where you are very limited in the way of EQ.
Frequency Training
Imagine the show-stopping seconds you could save if you could identify feedback frequencies immediately without using an analyzer. There are some nice apps out there that will train you to identify frequencies. This is not the same skill as having perfect pitch. It’s pitch memory and anyone can learn it. Most of them train you using the 32 bands of a standard graphic EQ, which isn’t ideal, but is a great place to start, helping you avoid a frequency-wide sweep. I’ve used Audio Frequency Trainer and Quiztones. Read more about my experience here: My Results from 30 Days of Ear Training.
Microphone Splitter
Don’t have a digital mixer or a separate mix console for the stage? Try splitting a few channels for more control. Let’s use the lead vocal microphone as an example. Right before it comes into the mixing board, connect a splitter or use a Y cable for the most basic passive version. This will give you two copies of the lead vocal coming into the mixing board. Mix one for the house, mix one for the stage. This will allow you to roll off way more low end then you normally would and make other adjustments to the stage mix without significantly affecting the house.
Polarity and Delay
It has been suggested to me that you can invert polarity or add small amounts of channel delay to get more gain before feedback. I’ve never had success with this. It just moves the feedback to a different frequency, makes it attack slower, or makes no change at all.
Separate Speakers
From the Meyer Sound Design Reference by Bob McCarthy ©1998:
One solution is to double the number of stage monitors and separate them into music and vocal systems. This has the advantage allowing for separate EQ and, in additon, the musicians find it easier to localize their voice and their instruments since they come from different positions.
Thanks to ra byn for tipping me off to that one.
Turn Down
While on tour with Ringling Bros., I found that in some arenas I had GBF for days and in others I could barely get the main vocal up above the band. Our system and performers being the same, I had to accept the fact that my headroom changed from week to week. The audience didn’t know it was different, so as long as the balance was good I could adjust the overall level as necessary.
Conclusion
Your best tool for controlling feedback in live sound is stage layout. That means microphone placement, speaker placement, and instrument/source placement. Then you can work on the mix and if you still can’t get enough gain before feedback, use EQ. If you’re lucky, you’ll work with a synth-pop band (call me, Active Child!). If you’re unlucky, challenges abound, everyone’s a dick, and you just let it ring all night, cause fuck it.
What are your best tips for fighting feedback on stage? Comment below!
great article Nathan. Especially good point about gain structure, not building up the drum kit too loud at first.
Personal tip: sometimes it’s the reverb in the monitor mix that makes feedback. Dry up their mix on stage and you can get a bit more gain or at least fewer distractions.
Good tip. Do you often get requests for verb in the monitor mix? I almost never do. In fact, I was recently asked to do that on a Vi6, and couldn’t, because I didn’t know how! I figured it out after a while, and yes, I did have some limits beacuse of feedback.
Our lead vocalist always asks for verb in her monitor. Of course the trick was to let her have it 🙂 without giving it to FOH. I’m using an X32 Rack that has a DiGiGrid IO in the same rack with waves Soundgrid. I input her vocals on CH One of the X32. Because the inputs of the x32 can be seen on the SoundGrid (via a madi card between the x32 and the DigiGrid network, I can take her vocal on CH One of the X32 as input to Soundgrid, add some verb, then send it to another unused channel on the X32 (say channel 17). Channel one then goes to FOH, and Channel 17 (with the verb) goes to her monitor. Of course she also has a habit of walking in front of the mains to sing in the crowd, and she wants verb there also (really…ugh). For that, I can use the send on fader on Channel one with the X32 onboard FX.
Verb has the distinct capability of lessening intelligibility in a vocal. So it also covers up flaws, mistakes, warbles, off pitch, etc. So a singer who is very much aware of their imperfections can like the verb as their little security blanket cuz they think that others will not notice their imperfections with it therefore ultimately they sound better. Might be helpful to find a Musical musical psychiatrist
Yes!
Hi Nathan,
Boy, am I confused! I’m the parent of a high school theater performer (the school does 4-5 shows each year: musicals with large pit orchestra, dramas with no orchestra, comedies with small group of pit musicians). I have been asked by the drama directort o research and purchase 18 new lavalier mics (worn over the ear with the mic near the mouth), as the current ones are old and shoddy and I think originally purchased based on price, not quality. My confusion is: should we purchase omni-directional or directional mics? They have never had stage monitors before but I also plan on setting up 3 stage monitors for them. My thinking is: if the mics are positioned on the face, hugging the cheek and ending close the mouth, directional is better for the elimination of feedback and to reject other sound sources (like the orchestra or other singers)…..but it seems almost EVERYTHING I’ve read says omni-directional is far more commonly used. Can you help me with this?? Thanks SO much!!
Hi Jeff!
Thanks for commenting. Omnis are more commonly used because they are more versatile. They are also often easier to hide, which can be just as important as anything else in theatre. If you are planning on using stage monitors and have any concerns about getting enough gain before feedback, get directional elements. Maybe a steeper learning curve, but worth it. If I was in your position I would talk to a distributor and get them to send me both models to test on a real performance. That’s the only way to know for sure.
Need more info? Here’s a thread on SoundForum about just your issue: Headset mics for theater
Hey Nathan,
I shadowed you at Ashkenaz a few years back and have been looking through your blog — good stuff. What’s the deal with supercardioid? Why would you want a mic to pick up sound in the opposite direction of the source? We have beta 58s at my work and I never realized they had a different polar pattern from regular 58s. Also, are you working Ashkenaz any time this month? It would be fun to come by and shadow again sometime.
-Nathaniel
Hi Nathaniel!
I remember. A cardioid pickup pattern is the most rejection you can get at the rear of a microphone. A lot of people like the supercardioid because it gives you even more rejection to the sides than cardioid. From what I understand, the small amount of rear pickup is a product of technical limitations. It is not desirable, but generally acceptable.
I haven’t been working shows at Ashkenaz. If you want to contact me through the contact page I might be able to help you about with some more opportunities, though.
Cheers!
Uh. Good luck with that. Small stage, freakish loud drummer, B15 with 8×10, anorecto-amphetaminist vocalist playing his Strat via AC30 and Fender Twin both at once and mumbling to his “stylish” Shure 55.
Analogue only.
No ringing?
Great article ! I really appreciate ! I was having a lot of problems with ringing frequencies yesterday at the venue where I recently started working as a tech ! This gives me a lot of good ideas to try and a tighter protocol to follow !
Great! Comment here again after you have tried a couple of ideas to let us know how it went.
Great article! . Do you get requests for verb in the monitor mix? I don’t know how to do that! My friends at school at seamedu.com asked me this and i couldnt figure it out. 🙁
Sure, artists definately ask for that sometimes. What desk are you using? How is your reverb routed?
Good one
Set the EQ flat, pull out the 250, done and done, good to go…..
Eliminates 90 % of problems in small/medium live band venues…..
Hey man.. I was doing an outside concert that started late in the day goinh into the night ..all bands sounded great..no feedback issues til the sunset then lowend rumble in the monitors..you posted humidity and temp change as a significant cause.. it seems so..cut lows out to around 250.. great help.. but vocals suffered some.. but really helped feedback issues..
Thanks for sharing Rob! I have come to believe that the best way to prepare for those eventual changes is to use wider filters in the EQ. What do you think?
Hi, thanks for this blog. Some really useful tips for me to try out. I work in a small club, often with really loud rock and metal bands. It’s a pretty small stage and we get drummers with humongous kits filling most of it sometimes. Unsurprisingly, the vocals don’t stand a chance. One approach I’ve taken recently is to give the drummer a friendly tip:
‘Try not to bash the shit out of the cymbals or we won’t hear the vocalist.’
But, this MUST be done before they’ve played a single beat. That way they know it is just a friendly tip and not a criticism of their playing. Sounds simple I know but some of these guys are huge bruisers with delicate egos.
Great post!
I work at a very small jazz club. Don’t be fooled that it’s a jazz club as there are a lot of bands with super high stage volumes as they reach out to other genres like latin, funk and even pop. And guess what, because of the stage’s position (terrible PA positioning, can not be moved as it’s chained to the ceiling) and it’s size and on stage placement of instruments (there’s an acoustic piano that needs to be mic’d, drums do fine without mics but the drummer’s monitor is raised up to the drummer’s ear level and it’s also facing the vocal mics) monitor eq’s are my life savers.
Normally a quartet or a quintet is the only way to make things work without monitor eqs on this stage, but I’ve had to deal with bands with 9 musicians on the stage. And yeah, with all the awkard PA and monitor positioning eq’ing the monitors is the only way to go (not that I’m happy about it)
BTW, funnily there’s not an eq on the mains considering the PA’s (mains) position.
Again, thanks for this great post!
Hey Ali, thanks for writing in. First of all, thank you for your service. You are doing god’s work. Secondly, if you could change one thing in that room, what would it be?
Hi, thanks for your reply and kind words.
Well, I would definitely ask for the replacement of PA speakers’ positions. I would have them placed so that no mics see them!
Very good articleFor the beginners, here is a little “how to” procedure (we’ve all been there ;)).
My way to go is to set ALL the channels input sliders at unity, while each channel gain is at zero (completely turned off), I then evaluate the maximum amount of sound I want during the performance and according to the venue (bar, church, inside a building or open-air…) so I put the masters out slider(s) at the right volume amount (to do that, you may want to play a song or two with the mp3 channel at unity and gently bring up the FOH masters up until the right volume level).
Then from there, once you have place all the microphones as close to the source as possible, gently start to turn the first mic gain up until you are starting to ear a feedback noise, roll back a little, MUTE the current channel and do the same for the other ones.
Once all the gains are set, unmute all the microphones at once and check for cumulative feedback with the other instruments. If you have feedback at that point, quickly mute all the channels one by one in order to find which microphone is guilty. Try to reposition it if necessary, otherwise roll off the culprit gain off a bit.
Anyways, ALWAYS place the microphones BEHIND the FOH speakers and 6 feet (1,80 meter) is a good start…
If the FOH speakers are ON the stage, you may want to keep an “eye” on their rear sound rejection seen that a part of the sound coming from the front comes as well from the rear of each speaker and some frequencies travel through the stage floor and/or are bouncing on the stage back walls if any. Old carpets can be useful, but are not so handy to carry around.
At this point, you may try to use a compressor that has an optional gate like the SAMSON S com4 that I currently use myself. On this model, you can’t control the attack nor the release but it’s quite cheap and do its job well ;).
If you have an eq, you may want to cut 1 or 2 db from 800hz to 1,2kHz on the vocals mics, then set your LPF and HPF filters accordingly to each instrument characteristics, and you may want to cut anything above 15 kHz..
Good luck
Thanks Valentin! Great tips.
Thanks for going over some ways you can control feedback while onstage. It’s good to know that you should try to talk to the production team first to figure out a plan. It sounds important to do this early so you can practice different setups to see what works best for everyone.
Thanks Taylor!
Great article. Our 6-piece band keeps going in circles when the topic comes up at regular intervals. The amps keep getting turned up. We’re set up in two lines, myself on keys back left, drums back middle, and bassist back right. In the front are the vocalist and two guitarrists. Their amps, however, are on the back line. This means they’re continually boosting the volume to get through the drum wash (cymbals in particular), which means blasting everyone else out and creating difficulty for me, who’s also managing the mix (I have the overall mix in my ears, though that’s ineffective when a backline is contributing so much to the audience). I’d seen it suggested that amps be used in front of the player as their own monitor, mic that amp, and have the primary volume go out through the mains. Our guitarist was near violently opposed to this idea (though he suggested it a year and a half ago). We had feedback tonight because their amps are being mic’d and piped through a floor wedge, which was facing the amp, about 10 feet away. Another huge problem is that the amps are closest to the drums, so if we turn down amp volume and increase mic gain, we’ll primarily be amplifying drum bleed. I’m thinking now of two options: 1) position the guitar amp directly in front of the player, or 2) eliminate the amp and go direct. We have a Soundcraft Ui24r, which does have amp modeling on the first 2 channels. The guitarist seemed to think it would look weird having a guitar amp positioned in front (“no one does that”), but I think the issue with precedent is simply that most small bands don’t have proper sound reinforcement and are often relying on one speaker per instrument (the voice getting the PA). Your thoughts on the matter would be very much appreciated. Thanks!
Hi Andrew! Good to hear from you. Wow, yeah, sounds like a mess of issues plus human psychology. Here are some thoughts:
I love this idea. I doubt your musicians will like it, but you can tell them that John McLaughlin doesn’t tour with an amp, just his pedal board.
This is nonsense!
“If the guitarist is too loud then invert the polarity and lower his volume in the house with deconstructive interference. That’s how noise cancelling headphones work.”
In case you really want to cancel a source from stage, you need to exactly delay the signal so that at the moment the undesired sound reaches the ears of a listener, the same undesired signal in opposite polarity reaches the same ear. That is the moment they cancel out.
Since every listener in your room has tow different distances to both sources, it is impossible to do that for all people in the room!
In headphones you only have one ear to deal with, thats why it works!