A mic in front of the guitar

Truth Hurts

Hey guys, long time no post.

I'm on the verge of playing out with my nephew, me on acoustic and him singing. We have a Marshall AS100D amp which works fine for his vocals. I don't yet have an electro-acoustic, so I was hoping in the short-term to mic up my Taylor, and by that I mean old school with a mic in front of the guitar.

I tried the nephew's vocal mic (Samson Q7) which is ok as long as you don't move more than 3 inches away from the mic. The guy in the local shop suggested a condenser mic, but I'm woried about feedback.

Any suggestions?

Unknown

Feedback occurs when the signal going into the mic contains some of the already amplified signal from the PA. Basically, when mic'ing an acoustic guitar, if you can hear the output from the PA at all, the mic will pick it up and you will get feedback. Yes, even with the speakers placed well forward etc. etc. It's possible to raise the sound level at which feeding starts by careful EQ'ing and the feedback buster on the Marshall AS is quite useful.

An acoustic guitar is actually a very quiet instrument, so you don't get much signal into a mic, hence the need for close mic positioning and high output volume levels, hence the feedback. A condenser mic will give more signal level, but they also seem to pick up more extraneous noise, which in this case will mean more feedback!

The further you can get the amplified sound away from the input, the better. Can you put the amp half way down the hall, since the people nearer to you will hear the acoustic sound anyway?

The best approach I've ever tried actually flies in the face of most of that. We tried just being on stage and mic'ing the general sound, with individuals concentrating on getting their own levels of the live acoustic sound balanced, with mics round the front of the stage picking up the overall sound. Since what we were putting out was properly balanced, we could put the amplification quite a way down the hall to reinforce the sound for people further away for whom the acoustic level was too low for decent listening. We initially tried the bluegrass approach of one mic, where the soloist moves in closer, but to get decent levels at the back of the hall resulted in loads of feedback. Four mics worked fine.

If you do this, though, your singer has to just sing. No handheld mic for rock-star posturing or hiding behind, just singing as one of the instruments in the ensemble. Some folks find that hard.

Hope this helps.

DaveBass

You need a directional mic, rather than omnidirectional, which in practice means one with a cardioid response pattern (although you can get more directional ones, e.g. for filming). Cardioid means that it will have a live side, which you point towards the guitar, and a dead side (at the back), which you point towards the speaker. So it's best to situate the guitarist well back from the speaker and not use a monitor speaker.

Many vocal mics are cardioid, except cheap ones. A capacitor (condenser) mic is likely to be better quality but omnidirectional.

You could try putting some sort of baffle behind the mic to cut out the fed-back signal, but this may be visually obtrusive for live performance.

Another possibility you might want to consider is a contact mic. These stick onto the guitar soundboard. The only manufacturer I know is Barcus-Berry but I expect there are cheap imitators. You need to experiment with placement and EQ to get a good sound, but they're quite resistant to feedback. The other good thing is that you can move around rather than being stuck a few inches from the mic.

Dave

Unknown

http://www.kksound.com/twinspot.html

Yeah. Should plug straight into the marshall too.

Truth Hurts

Thanks. I don't really want to stick anything onto the Taylor (it's far to precious to me). I think I'll perist with a cardioid mic, which can always be used later for backing vocals. Is the Shure SM58 still a favourite?

Unknown

I've never found a true directional mic, cardioid patterns still pick up a lot from around and behind the mic.

The SM58 is probably the industry standard for vocals, the SM57 is more common as an instrument mic - it has a slightly different frequency response curve and lacks the screening on the head.

Scrooge

if you have to go dynamic, try the shure beta57a. better gbf than the sm57 and its supposed to be a great vocal mic too.

Steve.

Unknown

I use an AKG C1000s - it really is excellent for what you require - it does not require to be as close as the SM58 so gives you that bit more flexibility.

Truth Hurts

I got the SM57 in the end. It seems to be working fine. Thank you all.