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[Katie Howson]

Looking for some ideas and advice re microphones from forum members ... ideally, something that can be moved from box to box very rapidly without hassle and will allow me to play standing up and moving, or sitting down.

I'm very untechnically minded, especially when it comes to PA (glazed look even just typing those two letters).

I'm sure it's been discussed before but can't see a recent thread, so ... comments welcomed.

[robotmay]

Not quite a suggestion for mics but a neat trick I saw Saul Rose using earlier in the year: his bass mic was clipped to the underside of his arm on a sweatband on his left wrist (I wear one when playing my pokerwork as it cuts into my arm otherwise) which meant he only had to switch the treble mic from box to box. That seemed to work quite well, though it could depend on the setup of the bass end and how tight your bass strap is!

[Lester]

I use a pair of AKG C1000s MKIII on stands, feeding a Behringer Xenyx 802 mini mixer prior to it going off to my bands ancient PA. The mics are now superseded by the Mk4 at £99 each and the mixer is £40 from http://www.thomann.de/

[Mike Carney]

I have used two small gooseneck mikes from Thomann. They are t bone cc75s and are pretty cheap. I used one with its spring clip on the bass strap and on the treble side I have modified it by joining it to the clip from an old guitar tuner, fixing them together with Sugru. This means it can clip onto the top of the treble fingerboard.  Both then go into an ART power supply and mini mixer which also has a headphone socket and takes phantom power.  That is a little pricey at around £70 but great. There is a separate vol for bass and treble so you can balance it before it goes into the desk. No Velcro, no drilling or screws in the melodeon. Quick switchable.
Mike

[Theo]

If you want to keep it as simple as possible then two mics an stands, as mentioned by Lester, is the way to go.   It will give the most natural sound.  I would advise against having your own mixer to combine the bass and treble sound.  Just two leads to the sound desk is the way to go.  It is simpler for you, and the sound person is better placed than you are to get a good balance between the two mics, because (s)he can hear the front of house sound which you can't.  Same applies if you prefer to get clip on mics, have two separate leads to the sound desk.

You should try to learn a tiny bit about mics.  Nearly all mics that would be used in gigs are one of two categories, and it will help if you have a basic understanding of the difference. They are:

Dynamic mics - need no battery or power supply, usually have a warmer sound, but usually are less sensitive than:
Condenser mics - which need a power supply either battery or can come from the mixing desk, have a brighter sound and are more sensitive.

Hope that has not put you to sleep!

[Lester]

I would advise against having your own mixer to combine the bass and treble sound.  Just two leads to the sound desk is the way to go.  It is simpler for you, and the sound person is better placed than you are to get a good balance between the two mics, because (s)he can hear the front of house sound which you can't.

I agree if you have such luxuries as a sound person and a sound desk. My band runs to an ancient pair of linked amps with 8 inputs per amp operated by our guitarist between strums. So I prefer to have my own control. Plus my mini mixer provides phantom power for the mics which is not available from our amps.

[Steve_freereeder]

What Theo said. That's the sort of set-up I mostly use too. Mostly I use these cheap and cheerful Behringer C2 mics which give amazingly good results and are excellent value for money.

However, in a ceildh band situation an even simpler arrangement is to use just one single Behringer C2 mic on a stand, with the mic pointed at the centre of the bellows perhaps about 12 - 18 inches away. It ought not to work terribly well, but surprisingly it does, and picks up both RH and LH sides.

You have to decide which is most important for you:
(a) mics on stands - allows you to change instruments very rapidly, but you can't move around too much. Also more prone to feedback.

(b) swan-neck mics clipped on, or mounted on the instrument. Less prone to feedback and you can move and boogey around whilst playing, but it is a faff to change from one instrument to another, and you need to have fixing brackets/clips on each instrument. The cables tend to be thinner and more vulnerable to damage in a stage environment than stand mic cables.

[baz parkes]

SM 57...he said as if he knew what he was talking about....

[rees]

I used to be a big fan of clip on mics but after many years of broken cables, faulty clips and the general faff of swopping from box to box I have now gone back to using mics on stands in a folky situation.
Meanwhile on the Zydeco stage, I have mic capsules inside the bellows screwed directly onto the reed blocks. It's not a subtle sound but it is loud. This system works best on one-row boxes with two reedblocks mounted flat and two vertical (Cajun style).

[Chris Brimley]

I agree with Theo's comments but would just add that the word 'sensitive' could easily be misunderstood - what you need is directional microphones that are sensitive to your instrument, but not sensitive to the sounds from the other direction - the main loudspeakers or the monitors.  And that is where the discussion starts!  There are some technical past threads on this forum about the issue, and quite a lot of disagreement it has to be said, but I would suggest approaching an experienced folk sound engineer (who won't have a product to sell), and ask his/her advice.  I'm an advocate of two free-standing directional mikes too, at least for players who sit down - it is not my experience that clip-on mikes are less prone to feedback, and I fear they also bring other problems.

[Sage Herb]

Hi Katie. I use a dynamic mic (SM57) on a stand for the right hand; this gives a good sound but also allows you to turn away from it if you want to check a bit of tune to yourself. The SM57 is also good for gob-harp. Obviously you do have to adjust the mic stand if you want to play gob-harp or shift between standing and sitting whilst playing box.

I use an AKG clip-on gooseneck condenser mic for the left. If you clip the latter to the bass strap, it's isolated from any mechanical noise in the box, but is easily moved to another box and is a constant distance from the sound source.

I agree with earlier posts that you ideally want left and right into individual channels on the main mixer.

Hope this helps
Cheers,
Steve

[Chris Brimley]

and is a constant distance from the sound source.

Ah, but there is more than one sound source, is there not?

[Sage Herb]

and is a constant distance from the sound source.

Ah, but there is more than one sound source, is there not?

Not sure what you're getting at, Chris. I was was referring to the left hand of the box. The mic on a stand can be kept at a constant distance from the right hand sound source (except when you want to vary it). Otherwise, the stage is full of sound sources and probably other open mics too, so there is an issue of monitor placement (if used) and other mic placement. But that isn't avoided by the choice of stand or clip-on mics, though the strategies for avoiding feedback may differ. But that wasn't what the OP asked.
Cheers
Steve

[baz parkes]

Hi Katie. I use a dynamic mic (SM57) on a stand for the right hand; this gives a good sound but also allows you to turn away from it if you want to check a bit of tune to yourself. The SM57 is also good for gob-har
Steve

Told you, he said , now getting all cocky....

[Howard Jones]

Mics on stands are far simpler when you frequently want to switch between different melodeons, but they do pin you down a bit.  If you're happy to remain more or less static (whether seated or standing) then that's not a problem.  Personally I like to be able to move around or to switch to a different type of instrument (which brings its own micing issues), so I prefer something attached to the melodeon.  I use an AKG 516 gooseneck which has a clip permanently fastened to the instrument, and the lead is permanently gaffer-taped to a spare shoulder strap (which I only put on for gigs) which keeps it out of the way.   Of course this makes it more difficult to swap around, but with my current band I have tried to resist the temptation to bring out lots of different melodeons and just play the D/G  (just don't mention the two concertinas, dulcimer, recorder...). 

I'm less happy with mic stands for the bass end.  It is difficult to position them where they won't get knocked, especially with a large band on a small stage (and folk venues usually seem to have stages which are one size down from what the band requires).  I prefer a clip-on mic for this, and use the Thomann CC75 mentioned before.  This would be easy to swap, if I needed to.


 

[Chris Ryall]

See also Peter Hyde's idea on the 21st Century Box thread

  http://forum.melodeon.net/index.php/topic,7840.msg163452.html#msg163452

yes, it needs to be "built in" so may not help OP here

[Chris Brimley]

Sage Herb, yes I was just referring to the bass end too.   To illustrate simply, if I pick up my box with my left hand only, and play a bass button at the end of the basses near my pinky, most (but not all) of the sound comes out of the holes on that side of my hand.  However if I play a button at the thumb end, most, but not all, comes out of the holes on the thumb side of my hand.  Not surprising, that's where the corresponding reeds are.  So positioning a close mike to get an even balance is never going to be straightforward.  If you have one which picks up from  many directions equally, you're  likely to have feedback problems.

I'm afraid there's loads of physics involved here, and plenty of pitfalls, and compromises to be struck. Rather than rehearse all the previous discussions, I'd still say to Katie to put it all in the hands of an experienced folk sound engineer.  Explain that you want a natural sound from both ends, but minimal feedback in noisy situations. See what suggestions he/she makes.  And then experiment, live.

[Sage Herb]

Chris - sure, but doesn't the complexity primarily derive from all the other stuff on stage, rather than the choice of clip-on vs stand mic? I agree that left hand reeds may be some inches away from each other (especially on a 12 or more bass box) so that the left hand is strictly not a point source of sound. But using a stand mic for the left hand would scarcely improve matters on that front unless the player has enough spare headspace to adjust the box's positioning dependent on the basses being used at a given moment. I certainly agree with getting the best sound engineer advice you can and if practicable trying possible set-ups in a wide range of live situations.
Cheers
Steve

[Katie Howson]

Thanks for the comments so far.

I currently use two mics on stands and a third for mouthorgan. I have my own mics for gigs where we provide our own PA, but am often in the hands of sound engineers when playing with PolkaWorks. I'm quite happy with this system for when I'm playing sitting down, and don't need to buy more ordinary mics - sorry I didn't explain that in the original post.

However I do like playing standing up, and am thinking of looking again at something like the AKG tie-clip type mics (sorry don't know the number) that I have used previously - on goosenecks which then attach via a base-plate fixed permanently to the box. The sound was OK from these, but the cables and battery packs were not brilliant quality, and I hate sticking the base plates on to my instruments.

My co-melodeonista in PolkaWorks, Jeannie Harris, has more of an issue swapping to this type of system because she uses three one-row boxes and sometimes swaps instrument in the middle of a set. You do need something robust for that sort of usage. Hence, we're quite interested in Saul's adaptation - or maybe Rees's.

[Steve_freereeder]

However I do like playing standing up, and am thinking of looking again at something like the AKG tie-clip type mics (sorry don't know the number) that I have used previously - on goosenecks which then attach via a base-plate fixed permanently to the box. The sound was OK from these, but the cables and battery packs were not brilliant quality, and I hate sticking the base plates on to my instruments.

I use AKG 416 mics (now updated to AKG 516) though less often than in the past. Yes the sound is good, but I agree with your other comments.

I also dislike sticking the base plates to my instruments. On my Castagnari Lilium, my main gigging box, I have partly overcome this by using two small oval patches of self-adhesive velcro on the top of each end of the instrument. They are black and fairly unobtrusive, and match up with equivalent velcro patches which I have stuck on the underside of the plastic mic clip plates.

Alternatively you can mount the base plates on to the instrument with a generous blob of Blu-Tac or the black equivalent which AKG sells. It can be easily removed after the gig but can leave messy residues. I'm also always a bit scared the mics will come adrift during a set.