Hi,
This is actually for our Violin / Mandolin / Banjo / pedalsteel + guy.....with certain instruments, most often banjo, we struggle with feedback. He's tried a basic noisegate on a Boss FX floor unit but it's not doing the job.
I was wondering about one of the feedback destroyers, I can see for example rackmounted like the Behringer FBQ1000 or the newer FBQ2496 and the standalone Behringer Shark FBQ100.......but they all refer to microphones......
So I guess the question is whether these might work for him.....I don't know if they incorporate a noisegate but I know that in rehearsal, we sometimes kill certain frequencies on the mixer....but obviously that will be quite crude and the targetting seems much better on these things....
Any experience / opinions to share?
Thanks,
Andy
PS - the bassist uses a double bass sometimes with similar issues...
Comments
I used to use a Behringer one back in the day, still got it
So think about investing in those core elements first, a good mic/pickup correctly positioned and a quality modern powered wedge with a nice smooth response curve. Once you have that sorted you may find the fb destroyer is not even needed.
just my £0.02.
So before buying more kit, check out modern wireless mixers for it as a feature maybe,
That said, I’d be looking to sort out at source… monitors, mic positions/pickups, etc. IEMs can help eliminate a lot of stage noise monitoring feedback.
I think a cheap secondhand feedback destroyer is a reasonable experiment....
The feedback destroyer is a not-very-good answer to a completely different problem. I’ve had two and don’t use either of them now. It will work a little bit but there are several issues that make it unsuitable solution. I can go into that more if you want but I think you’ll find out for yourself.
Playing amplified is not the same thing as playing acoustically and there is a potential problem for every type of instrument. Fortunately lots of people have encountered these issues before and have developed answers, unfortunately many people who discuss this don’t really check their opinions against real life stressors.
You have to start at the instrument/pickup and optimise the source, fixing it later always comes at a cost.
This doesn’t have to be an expensive project but you can spend lots of money and get little benefit.
You could try putting some foam rubber in the resonator behind the head - not tightly stuffed, but just enough to damp the head. It will ruin the acoustic tone, but it won't affect the amplified sound as much.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
https://www.canford.co.uk/Products/92-611_SENNHEISER-e609-MICROPHONE-Dynamic-super-cardioid-guitar-cabinets-silver
You might think it’s asking for trouble to have a mic effectively pointing at a monitor but usually the banjo is so relatively loud that the gain on the mic is pretty low so it’s less of an issue than you might think. Also, ideally the monitor is pointing at your head, which isn’t in the same place as the banjo.
As an experiment, cable-tie a Shure ‘57 or ‘58 (little bit of foam wrapping) to the inner brace and have a listen.