Re: long subject / i disagree with most of the answers
I do 4 sound guy gigs for every gig I get to play out with my accordions, so what the heck - more opinions!
David is right on about the hypercardiod: monitor should be off to one side. I've used Beta 58a's for vocals for dozens of shows and the offset really works.
Kirk is using the "pro" and expensive approach: use a separate EQ for your monitor so you can suppress the hot, problem frequencies that are occuring on stage with your instrument and your mic without coloring the house EQ. Usually a minor adjustment will make a touchy frequency safe: no need to kill the sound; a problem Dana (I think it was Dana) called out.
Jude's approach gives him control at the player's position, so he may be affecting the sound in the house, but Jude - if I understand - you are also balancing the sound to suit your ear.
I'm (maybe?) agreeing with Larry that a feedback killer isn't such a great investment. Every combination of monitor, microphone and room is going to have its over-sensitive frequencies, and judicious use of an EQ can actually tame the combination into sounding more natural.
And there's always the question of whether a) the gain needs to be so hot on the accordion mic [they are a pretty strong sound source], and b) do you need the monitor to be so freaking loud?
Re: long subject / i disagree with most of the answers
Hey Dwight - nothing personal with the "so freaking loud" comment - just a reflection of my experience working with fried-ear electric blues veterans in a 300 seat house: the monitor volume winds up being as loud as the main speakers!
My experience with monitors is: it's all relative. You can't hear your voice (or mandolin or whatever) until it's just a hair louder than the background sounds, and then, all of a sudden, it jumps right out at you.
The corollary is: if you can keep stage volume lower, you don't need as much monitor. That said, and not knowing your whole band setup: experimenting with monitor placement and a little EQ will probably go a long way towards solving your problem.
Re: long subject / i disagree with most of the answers
Hi Steve,
Sorry, I was being ******** I'm so new at this, I'm just trying to figure it out, with no one handy to help me. Drum volume, I would think, is not going to be that controllable without affecting the dancers. Amped people are on the other side of the drums from me. I can't be sure if my monitor level is already "loud enough" of if I just don't know what I'm doing. The latter is high on the list.
Re: long subject / i disagree with most of the answers
I only know a couple of songs on the Roland so far (lack of a thumb strap makes it not as easy to just port over existing songs if there's jumps on the keyboard).
I sing loud already. Can get distortion if I don't watch it.
Dwight, lose the thumb strap on the triple row! You don't need it - it will only slow you down and get in the way.
Also, if you get distortion when you sing loud, that is probably an indication that the gain is too high for that channel. Does your board have a little light for each channel that shows when you are clipping? You need to set the gain so that when you are singing as loud as you need to sing, that it only lights up a little bit, now and then. If it is on a lot, the gain is too high. If it is never on, the gain is too low.
Aside from that, there is a second way to get clipping on a channel. It can happen when the master volume is set relatively low, and the channel volume is higher. For example, on a scale of 0 to 10, the master volume is set to 2 or 3, but the channel volume is higher than that, say at 7 or 8. In general, the master volume needs to be set at a higher level than the channel volume.
Triple row does not have a thumb strap. And I'm used to playing with one. So, songs where I jump down to the 7/10 buttons, etc, are prone to error. So far. One I wrote on my double row (with thumb strap), is prone to error when I jump to the top of the box, when I don't have a thumb strap. It will just take time and practice. Or just learning new songs for the triple row and slowly incorporating the others. However, some songs aren't for the triple row, so.....
Regarding the distortion, I do set it to where it just clips, then back it off. I think the problem is, when I'm testing, the full band is not playing, so I'm not singing as loud as I would be with the band. I have no gauge. I do have a tendency to sing loud, guess I have strong lungs, but sometimes I get a little over-exhilarated and overdo it. Particularly when I'm trying to hear myself.
"Regarding the distortion, I do set it to where it just clips, then back it off. I think the problem is, when I'm testing, the full band is not playing, so I'm not singing as loud as I would be with the band. "
==ok well set it for shouting, there is no reason to have it ever clip..
==one other comment, this setting would always be the same for a given channel, board and mic
-==you could set it at home, and mark it -
there is no need to set it every time, it's just one more thing to worry about at setup time, and you don;t really have to
==just put the mic close to your mouth, sing as hard as you can, turn gain up til red light comes on, mark it
you can actually do this for the whole band if they always use the same mic, position, board channel..
i always know where to set my singers gains, because i do keep all that stuff the same
drum mics and guitar amp mics vary though
since i don;t control guitar amp knobs or exact mic placement
and i may not place drum mics in same spot every time
and i am never sure where the GE7 output is set, so i have to set the accordion gain every time, or if it seems wrong
but the singers are always set
unless the guitar player says 'i may lose my voice and don;t want to sing loud', then i may reset his initial gain for that.. then he ends up singing loud anyway, so i go dial it back
I've found that, when wearing a hat, the brim can
cause an audio reflection. The monitor sound
bounces off the brim on one's hat and into the
front of the microphone.
It's kind of difficult to explain, but it has happened
to me. It's akin to the technique of partially cupping
one's hand over the microphone to see if you're set
on the edge of feedback.
Maybe someone needs to invent a hat with built-in
GOBO.