Frustrated at not hearing vocals - any suggestions?

smigeon

Hi all,

Our band just played at a local festival (no, not Glasto!). While it went well generally, I was, as usual, frustrated at not hearing my singing well enough. We had stage monitors and a sound man provided by the event. For the first couple of songs I could hear my voice, but it was drowned in a ridiculous wash of echo. Then the echo went away, but the level plummeted so I couldn't hear anything. Then I was treated to a mix which featured almost nothing except the other guitarist's guitar. Then for one blessed song I could actually hear myself - bliss! ... before it all too quickly went crap again. I'm sure this is a familiar story to lot of you folks!

Well, maybe the ultimate answer in in-ear monitors, but I'm not sure I like the idea of those. Maybe I'm wrong, but I worry that they'll be a bit like the "singing with your finger in your ear" thing (like folkies), and also isolate me from the "real" live sound of the band.

What I crave is being in control - I don't even trust my own band mates when we're using our own PA/monitors :-).

So I'm imagining something like the following:

- a small box that sits on a chair beside me, and a dedicated passive monitor set up in front of me
- I plug my mic into the box, and it has two outputs: a mic level output that travels on to the main mixer; and a power output that goes to my personal monitor
- so the box would need a power amp to drive the monitor and a decent EQ so I could manage the sound and keep feedback at bay.

I can usually hear the drums, bass and my own guitar perfectly well with no monitoring stuff. So I don't think I'd need anything in my personal monitor except my own voice. 

Does this scenario ring a bell with others? Are there solutions out there? Bits of kit that anyone can recommend??

Thanks...

John_P

Sounds like the sound guy didn't provide the monitor mix you needed.     In fairness he is concentrating on the foh sound so unless you tell him what you want it's never going to be right.   
In ears are great but again you are in the same position of relying on the mix being right.     

Unless its its a huge stage I would only want vocals in the front monitors and then have back line at the lowest volume everyone can manage to hear themselves over the drums - should be easy enough to get an onstage sound then and he can worry about the foh sound.  

smigeon

Yeah, on this occasion we had a great on-stage sound. Everything was crystal clear. I just hate it when I can't hear myself sing and am fed up of not having control of this. Hence the search for a solution where I have sole control of the monitoring of my voice from a personal little box of tricks...

steamabacus

You have experienced the joy of what is euthemistically called the 'soundman'.

It sounds like something like this is what you are after - mic into xlr input, xlr 'thru' to front of house.

smigeon

Thanks @steamabacus - looks promising. Have you used one of these? Positive reports?? Would you worry about lack of EQ??

steamabacus

No, I've not used one of these. I should imagine there will be other options, more powerful, better quality, etc. I've even seen little units that you can mount up on your mic stand.

A lot will depend on how loud your band are on stage as to how much power you need. Remember though, it only has to amplify your voice so should be quite efficient.

ICBM

The only thing you need is a competent soundman…

What was he doing dicking around with the monitor mix the whole time? That should be set up first, before the FOH mix, and then left alone unless there are problems once the FOH is up as well - and even then, it shouldn't need changing after the soundcheck.

Failing that, something like the little monitor steamabacus suggested might help.

smigeon

Thanks guys. Yes, the concept of the little monitor steamabacus suggested looks good - with the potential to lift things out of the embrace of the incompetent soundman. 

Would appreciate any personal experience of this particular item (Kustom KPC4 Powered Personal Monitor) - or any other suggestions along the same lines. Money is no object if I can find a really good one that lets me escape the clutches of Mr Soundman for good :-).

Danny1969

The trouble is at most of these small festivals you have a guy mixing FOH but no one on stage mixing the monitors. My own company 2020studios always have one front of house engineer and one (normally me) engineer at the side of the stage mixing the monitors. My job is to watch the band and adjust the monitors so they can all hear everything which I normally can get right within a song or two. With a busy multi band bash there isn't time for anything other than a line check but as a muso myself I know how important being able to hear yourself is, Especially vocals !

To be honest it sounds like your engineer made a few mistakes ... if your monitor mix is changing and washed with effects then he's either got your aux send on a post send and not a pre ... or he's on a digital desk and he's accidentally changed the mix on the wrong layer ... very easy mistake to make  ...

There's some things you can do to ensure you can hear yourself.... the easiest way is to buy a mic splitter and send one split to FOH as normal and the other split to your own monitor ... I would advise this option rather than passing through a cheap monitor as a good splitter is transformer isolated, won't cause any noise and you can use it with any monitor or an IEM setup right on stage. When it comes to wedge monitors DON'T buy cheap .... you will get much more level without feedback from a well designed wedge monitor like an HK Dart than you will from something cheap .... that's why professional PA companies don't use cheap monitors in general 

My own product, The Dr Watson combiner has a transformer split so you can adjust the mix in your IEM's or wedge regardless of the soundman ...plus it's got a stereo input for Helix \ Axefx \ Kemper as well so guys have full control of their vocals and modeller regardless of what the sound engineer does. 

smigeon

Danny1969 said:

When it comes to wedge monitors DON'T buy cheap .... you will get much more level without feedback from a well designed wedge monitor like an HK Dart than you will from something cheap .... that's why professional PA companies don't use cheap monitors in general 

My own product, The Dr Watson combiner has a transformer split so you can adjust the mix in your IEM's or wedge regardless of the soundman ...plus it's got a stereo input for Helix \ Axefx \ Kemper as well so guys have full control of their vocals and modeller regardless of what the sound engineer does. 

Thanks Danny. I've never been happy with the monitors our band have had. We started with Laney powered wedges - which were crap and a total waste of money. At the moment we have two passive EV tops with a power amp - these are OKish, but I'm not really happy with them either. Nine times out of ten they feed back before I can get my vocal to a comfortable isolated volume. 

Do you think something like an HK DART would be game-changer better?? (I'd just want one for my own personal use - the rest of the band are happy to stick with the EVs.) If so, are there other similar products you'd recommend apart from the DART (just for options)?

Also, how would you compare good IEMs to these high-end wedges? Any of these that you'd recommend?

Finally, your Dr Watson gadget seems interesting - might be nice to have the future option to use my personal wedge to monitor guitar going through a modeller, as well as just vocal. Do you have info/specs on the Dr Watson? What does it cost??

[Sorry for the barrage of questions :-)]

Danny1969

@smigeon ;

I recommend HK Darts because my own company and own band has used them for 8 years or so and I know they are reliable and you can get insane foldback vocal levels out of them before feedback. Plus you can generally pick them up reasonably cheap second hand. There are loads of other great wedges out there at a similar price point, EV do a great active 12" with horn with onboard digital processing. I brought a couple for an install job and was quite impressed with them for the price. The cheaper FAST wedges come up cheap as well, they aren't quite as good but still preferable to the normal cheap laney, Thoman, Whalfedale etc. 

Your probably find using an amp and passive wedge system that you don't have the necessary processing to get the best out of the speaker. A modern active floor wedge generally has 2 class D amps for the main driver and horn and the onboard processing filters out everything these drivers can't handle leaving more headroom for the vocal .... they are no good for reproducing kick drum or anything low but great for vocal clarity. 

I don't have a price yet for the latest Dr Watson gadget yet as a company has agreed to produce it for me on a modern surface mount PCB automated process ... the previous units were hand made but it's too time consuming. They were £89 to £150 depending on the spec

smigeon

@Danny1969 Seems to me that your little Dr Watson wired device is the way to go. I reckon I'll buy one if they are available any time soon (any idea when that might be?).

But can I try to understand the functionality of the device better? This is the way I see it:

1. The device sits on my pedalboard (or on my guitar amp if I'm not using a pedalboard).

2. The device has the following inputs (maybe not all of these are actual physical inputs - see below):
    - Input 1: My vocal mic plugging directly into the device (I want to take a direct pre-main mixer split off my own mic, rather than just take a monitor feed from the mixer, so I'm in control.)
    - Input 2: An SM57 in front of my guitar amp plugging directly into the device (again, I want to take a direct pre-main mixer split off my own guitar amp mic, so I'm in control.)
    - Input 3: A third "ambience" mic (or 2 mics?) plugging directly into the device (the goal being to overcome the feeling of isolation you get with IEMs).
    - Input 4: A "general band" monitor feed from the mixer plugging directly into the device (so I can hear the rest of the band).

3. Then, the device has the following outputs:
    - A single main output, which is a mix of all the inputs, feeds down my guitar lead back towards my guitar, and I plug my IEMs into the guitar end of the lead.
    - A "thru" output linked to "Input 1" (my vocal mic) goes on to the main mixer.
    - A "thru" output linked to "Input 2" (my guitar amp mic) goes on to the main mixer. 

4. Now, I've assumed 4 inputs above, which I'm guessing might be excessive! If that's the case, I can think of a few ways to reduce the number of inputs:
- Eliminate "Input 2" (the guitar amp mic channel) by assuming that the ambient mics "(Input 3"), plus general leakage, will adequately pick up my guitar sound.
- Eliminate "Input 4" (the monitor feed carrying sound from the rest of the band) by assuming that the ambient mics "(Input 3"), plus general leakage, will adequately pick up enough of the general band.
- Eliminate "Input 3" (the ambient mics) by assuming that the ambient mics plug into the mixer, rather than directly into the device, and so come in to the device on "Input 4" (the general band monitor feed from the mixer).
- Eliminate "Input 2" *and* "Input 3" by assuming that the ambience mics, *and* my guitar sound, *and* the rest-of-the-band monitor mix all come in on a combined feed from the mixer to "Input 4".

5. I'm assuming the device has 4, per-channel, volume controls to enable a personal mix, and has limiters on all channels to protect my hearing.

6. Finally, I'm also assuming that the "thru" channels allow phantom mic power to come back from the mixer (actually I don't immediately need this as I use Shure dynamic mics; but it would be a nice feature to have in case I ever wanted to use condenser mics).

Am I on the right lines? Can you clarify what the inputs and outputs *actually* are if they are different to the above?? Many thanks :-).

Danny1969

@smigeon

Although previous versions sold have been amp top the production version is going to be in pedal format with a standard 9V centre negative DC input 

It has 3 inputs which are

1 : PA in which comes from mixing desk as normal 
2 : Vocal in which is where you vocal mic plugs in
3 : Guitar Aux In .... this is a stereo input, ideal for direct connection to Helix or similar but you can bridge it to mono and feed it directly with a dynamic mic from your combo \ cab .... the input has enough gain for a dynamic mic

Ambient mics are built into the unit and turned on \ off via the footswitch on top 

Outputs are

1 guitar through which feeds your guitar signal into the amp or first pedal 
2 vocal through  ... goes on to mixing desk .... this is a direct connection so yes is fine for phantom power... the unit takes a split via a transformer internally 
3 combiner cable out which takes your guitar signal in and IEM signal out through the same cable

Controls are 

PA level
Vocal level
Guitar Aux Level 
Ambience level

Ambience on \ off via footswitch 

Basically the unit I use myself has all the above with the exception of the vocal in \ out but mines in the older amp top box format. 

I've got to make up a demo unit next week for another guy so will take some photo's and put them on here 

smigeon

@Danny1969 This sounds absolutely brilliant - I want one! Can you let me know when they are available and I'll have one. I'll PM you my email address now.

Just to check: it does feature a limiter, right??

TimmyO

Danny1969 said:

@smigeon

Although previous versions sold have been amp top the production version is going to be in pedal format with a standard 9V centre negative DC input 

It has 3 inputs which are

1 : PA in which comes from mixing desk as normal 
2 : Vocal in which is where you vocal mic plugs in
3 : Guitar Aux In .... this is a stereo input, ideal for direct connection to Helix or similar but you can bridge it to mono and feed it directly with a dynamic mic from your combo \ cab .... the input has enough gain for a dynamic mic

Ambient mics are built into the unit and turned on \ off via the footswitch on top 

Outputs are

1 guitar through which feeds your guitar signal into the amp or first pedal 
2 vocal through  ... goes on to mixing desk .... this is a direct connection so yes is fine for phantom power... the unit takes a split via a transformer internally 
3 combiner cable out which takes your guitar signal in and IEM signal out through the same cable

Controls are 

PA level
Vocal level
Guitar Aux Level 
Ambience level

Ambience on \ off via footswitch 

Basically the unit I use myself has all the above with the exception of the vocal in \ out but mines in the older amp top box format. 

I've got to make up a demo unit next week for another guy so will take some photo's and put them on here 

@Danny1969 take my money!

spark240

You need Presonus cue mix....control your personal mix from your iPhone