Monitoring vocals - help!

keir

Looking for some tips please:

My band rehearses in a tiny room which is probably less than 4m by 3m, there is a pa and mixer provided but we have always really struggled to be able to hear our vocals. 

We have acoustic drums, bass and 2 guitar amps in the room but we want to rehearse with the gear we are going to use when we do gigs so I don’t see the point in coming along with a 5 watt amp and the drummer using brushes etc

The pa only has small-ish speakers, maybe 10inch which won’t help. 

We’ve tried setting up a few different ways and recently the drummer has started putting baffles in front of his kit which has helped too. 

We use sm58 beta mics which have a decent amount of gain but we just can’t get it loud enough to hear ourselves without feedback 

The room is the only one that is central to the whole band and attempts to find somewhere else have always come up short. 

Does anyone have any suggestions please?

Is it worth buying our own pa / monitors or maybe in ears / headphones or is the room just not right?

Thanks 

maltingsaudio

How many vocalists? I would suggest you use the PA as your monitors, set one speaker up at ear level to you and the other on the floor in the middle of your band, careful eq of the mics will prevent feedback.

keir

Thanks

we have tried placing the monitors on the floor but in front of each singer (2 of us) it was pre covid and I’m not sure if made a huge difference. 

Would it be worth investing in a powered floor monitor each?

I’m not adverse to spending £200 on something if it solves the problem. 

If we got powered ones then we could basically avoid the house pa altogether

Or are we just as likely to get feedback with more power?

Musicwolf

The fact that the PA system has 10" drivers won't be the problem, in fact smaller drivers will help if anything for vocals.

You need to have the back of the mic (the dead spot for a cardiod or hypercardiod mic pattern) pointing at the monitors, which you may be doing already.  You can try to kill problem frequencies with a graphic eq (somthing like a 31 band) but ultimately, too much vol = feedback.  Practice rooms are really about practice, not full dress rehearsals / soundchecks.  When we need to rehearse at gig levels we hire a much bigger room for the session.

keir

Musicwolf said:

The fact that the PA system has 10" drivers won't be the problem, in fact smaller drivers will help if anything for vocals.

You need to have the back of the mic (the dead spot for a cardiod or hypercardiod mic pattern) pointing at the monitors, which you may be doing already.  You can try to kill problem frequencies with a graphic eq (somthing like a 31 band) but ultimately, too much vol = feedback.  Practice rooms are really about practice, not full dress rehearsals / soundchecks.  When we need to rehearse at gig levels we hire a much bigger room for the session.

It’s difficult to get that exact position but we will have a move around at next rehearsal to see if we can get more into the dead spot for the mics. 

PA on the floor with the back of the mic pointing towards it may help, another thing we can try thanks. EQ at the mixer is just a knob for volume, treble bass and mids. 

Just wish we had a bigger room that was within reasonable travelling distance for us all. Maybe we need to reassess what we are trying to do and scale right back

any advice on where guitar amps should go in relation to the mic and pa? We have tried in front and behind both with mixed results 

uncledick

I'm pretty rubbish at this but a couple of hints that worked for us were to turn off all compression on the PA.  We also found that the SM57/58s were picking up too much ambient noise.  A borrowed Sennheiser (the number has worn off!) was a lot more tameable.

 

keir

uncledick said:

I'm pretty rubbish at this but a couple of hints that worked for us were to turn off all compression on the PA.  We also found that the SM57/58s were picking up too much ambient noise.  A borrowed Sennheiser (the number has worn off!) was a lot more tameable.

 

We’re using SM58 Betas, best sound rejection is at 126 degrees which I learned a couple of mins ago. They have more gain than a 58 but less mids which may or may not be a good thing. 

Maybe it’s time to try some new mics but wouldn’t know where to start, suppose if I was very careful with it I could return it if it wasn’t any better 

Musicwolf

I'm not sure that a different mic would be the answer.

There are things that you can do to reduce the volume in the room;

Rule #1 - don't turn the volume up if you can't hear something, always look to see what else you can turn down.

If the drummer is too loud then don't point any amps / pa at him.  Sometimes drummers increase their volume so that they can hear themselves over the guitars.  If you drop your volume they drop theirs.  Some drummers simply can't, or won't, control their volume in which case replace them at the earliest opportunity.  If a guitarist is too loud then get them to point their amp at their own ears and away from others.  Guitar amps, especially 1 x 12" cabs, tend to be quite directional.  With bass it can be better if the bass player stands further away from their amp.

If people are wearing earplugs and then turning up because they can't hear (I have encountered this) then they need to give their heads a good wobble.  There's nothing wrong with ear plugs as final protection but get the volume down first.

keir

Musicwolf said:

I'm not sure that a different mic would be the answer.

There are things that you can do to reduce the volume in the room;

Rule #1 - don't turn the volume up if you can't hear something, always look to see what else you can turn down.

If the drummer is too loud then don't point any amps / pa at him.  Sometimes drummers increase their volume so that they can hear themselves over the guitars.  If you drop your volume they drop theirs.  Some drummers simply can't, or won't, control their volume in which case replace them at the earliest opportunity.  If a guitarist is too loud then get them to point their amp at their own ears and away from others.  Guitar amps, especially 1 x 12" cabs, tend to be quite directional.  With bass it can be better if the bass player stands further away from their amp.

If people are wearing earplugs and then turning up because they can't hear (I have encountered this) then they need to give their heads a good wobble.  There's nothing wrong with ear plugs as final protection but get the volume down first.

Thanks. More things to try there. 

The baffles we have started using for drums have been a big help to reduce the perceived volume in the room

i think we have been setting up the mics in the wrong position to the speakers so that’s another thing to try along with putting the speakers on the floor so they are a bit closer. 

I was also thinking open back headphones may be worth a try, just running vocals only from the pa 

Stratavarious

Throw things at the drummer.  Might put towels on the snare. They really should get an eKit for small rooms!     I don't like the full kit in a small room..

We do full band practices with speakers as monitors toward the singers.  Rear position is rejected by mics. Sennheiser and SMs. But most of us have IEMs too.

+1 on guitar amps toward player and away from drummer unless they ask.

HAL9000

For practice we use a monitor at about ear level for each vocalist, so three in total in our case. Rehearsals are at nothing even approaching gig volume. Rehearsals and gigs are two separate things.
Also, I’d always understood that vocals need to be about twice as loud as everything else; our bassist (who has far more experience gigging experience) reckons about three times as loud.

keir

HAL9000 said:

For practice we use a monitor at about ear level for each vocalist, so three in total in our case. Rehearsals are at nothing even approaching gig volume. Rehearsals and gigs are two separate things.
Also, I’d always understood that vocals need to be about twice as loud as everything else; our bassist (who has far more experience gigging experience) reckons about three times as loud.

Do you practice with a full kit? Our drummer really sets the volume which isn’t ideal in a tiny room. 

Where we rehearse has the pa speakers on top of 2 stacks of cabs so it’s almost impossible to move them, only position yourself in relation to the speakers, this is difficult as once we have 4 people and all out gear in the room where you can actually stand is also limited. 

If we lived in a city we would 100% move to a different place but as 2 band members meet in the middle so to speak, if we were to go to a new venue then it would mean one travelling twice as far which isn’t practical

mrkb

Controlling volume is the key. The mics will be picking up all the sound in the room and amplifying it as well as your voices. Having the amps pointing up towards each guitarist should help in dropping the required volume from them. Drummer needs to control his volume a lot.

HAL9000

keir said:

HAL9000 said:

For practice we use a monitor at about ear level for each vocalist, so three in total in our case. Rehearsals are at nothing even approaching gig volume. Rehearsals and gigs are two separate things.
Also, I’d always understood that vocals need to be about twice as loud as everything else; our bassist (who has far more experience gigging experience) reckons about three times as loud.

Do you practice with a full kit? Our drummer really sets the volume which isn’t ideal in a tiny room. 

Where we rehearse has the pa speakers on top of 2 stacks of cabs so it’s almost impossible to move them, only position yourself in relation to the speakers, this is difficult as once we have 4 people and all out gear in the room where you can actually stand is also limited. 

If we lived in a city we would 100% move to a different place but as 2 band members meet in the middle so to speak, if we were to go to a new venue then it would mean one travelling twice as far which isn’t practical

Drummer uses a full kit but is quite able to play quietly.

The p.a. / mixer belongs to the main vocalist. Only the vocals go through it. Guitars go through peoples’ own smallish (15 - 20 Watt) amps. Bassist has several hundred Watts available but keeps it sensible. We are all mature enough not to get involved in volume wars.

We are a mixture of city and more rural dwellers. We have used rehearsal rooms but renting a village hall for the afternoon is cheap and works well. Obviously we need to take our own gear though. IMO a good thing as we get to know our own gear better that way.

keir

We have been raising the amps up and facing them towards but this would actually put them at 180 degrees to the mic where as our mics cancel at 120 so that is definitely something that needs addressing. 

The walls have a carpet-ish material on but the sound will be bouncing off all the walls like you say.

I think putting them on the floor tilted up will help, keeping the mics parallel to the floor. 

Roland

keir said:

My band rehearses in a tiny room which is probably less than 4m by 3m ...

... we want to rehearse with the gear we are going to use when we do gigs

Unless you’re using IEMs and a quiet stage, or modelling amps and electronic drums, then these two factors are difficult to reconcile. In a room of that size I use ear plugs to protect my ears from all the noise coming back off the walls and ceiling. It’s louder than our stage volume. I’m not surprised that a small PA won’t cope with the vocals. IMHO your options are to turn down, or use a larger room.

EricTheWeary

I think you probably need to work on songs in that room using gear that’s appropriate for that room. Assuming you them want to gig the rehearsed songs hire a large room and set up as if for a gig with own PA,etc, and sort out your live sound then. Playing to an imaginary audience so you are all face forwards also works out how many visual cues you were relying on to get through a song. 

slacker

I turn the vocals up until it goes woo and the everyone plays to that volume. 

Roland

EricTheWeary said:

I think you probably need to work on songs in that room using gear that’s appropriate for that room. Assuming you them want to gig the rehearsed songs hire a large room and set up as if for a gig with own PA,etc, and sort out your live sound then. 

That’s what we do. 

keir

Thanks all lots of ideas to try but ultimately I think it may come down to scaling back everything a touch until we can find a bigger room. 

We have definitely been positioning ourselves in the wrong place so that will be 1st port of call at our next rehearsal 

newi123

Understand that you want to use the same gear / volume as when you gig - but guessing you won`t be gigging in such a small space, so I wouldn`t worry about trying to replicate it too much.

I`m trying to bring our practice levels down as much as possible partly because of the room, but also if you can`t hear the vocals, what else are you missing? Practice is there to get all those little subtleties right - the pushes and pulls, the accents, and to make sure your all 100% playing exactly the same parts correctly. Also to make sure harmonies are in tune and timing of the BVs are spot on with the lead singer. It`s all about attention to detail, and that`s all much easier to spot, identify issues and rectify at lower levels where everything is clear.

In a small space with an acoustic kit you`re always tied to the level of the drums, so a start is to get your drummer to play less aggressively (if he / she does!), and then as others have said, bring other levels down too.

We`ll do regular practices like that, but then we will also book a bigger room occasionally before a gig to run at gig levels and run our own PA etc.