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Author Topic: The all-important interface between box and PA system  (Read 14056 times)

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Chris Brimley

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The all-important interface between box and PA system
« on: September 15, 2016, 10:14:11 AM »

Prompted by another recent thread, I've just tried something out, and it works, so I thought I'd share it in case others find it of use.

Miking up an accordion of any type is notoriously difficult to do.  There are lots of sources of sound, spread over quite a wide area, and the LH moves around all the time.  Any microphone system needs to accommodate all these evenly and faithfully, and also not be susceptible to feedback.

There have been different approaches to this problem.  Mine is to have two free-standing mics, one for the RH sources and the other for the average position of the LH sources, sufficiently far away to be reasonably even across all the sound sources.  And these mics need to be designed to have a narrow 'cone' of responsiveness along their axis, to have little response from the opposite direction, and to be positioned pointing away from the monitor speaker.  However, what I'm going to say applies equally to other systems such as close mics.

I've always advocated recording yourself to listen critically to what you sound like.  You just don't get an accurate impression when playing on stage of what the audience hears, because what you mainly hear is the acoustic sound of the box, that you're familiar with.  It's easy to imagine that's what the audience is hearing.  Therefore by recording yourself through the mic system you use you should be able to discern any problems.  This is an invaluable technique for all musicians, I reckon, but it is sadly underused.  Many seem to believe that from the point that they play a note, it is up to the sound engineer to reproduce it.  Wrong, sound engineers are human, and the systems needed to mic up an accordion are specific to the instrument, and usually not within their capabilities.

Now the snag with recording yourself, playing it back and re-adjusting your interface system is that it takes time - it is not immediate, and it can be painstaking.

So I just tried something else.  I've bought myself a sub-mixer for my personal use.  They're ridiculously cheap these days, about £70 in my case for a Behringer Xenyx 1202.  Most people would only need a cheaper mixer with few channels, but I play various instruments, so I bought a 12 channel model.  I plugged my (Samson Q1) mics in, turned on the phantom power to make them work and used some noise-cancelling headphones into the mixer output to listen directly to the sound the audience would hear.

Hey presto! I can then fiddle around with the mic positioning to my heart's content, and can immediately check what happens to the sound.  I can compare the notes produced at various points on the keyboard, and immediately compare with the natural acoustic sound, by taking off the headphones.  I can check for odd sounds, eq, and balance between RH and LH.

What did I learn?  First, that the concept of my system does work well - you can back off the box from the mics I use quite a lot to achieve an even sound, and it will still be picked up.  And variations in signal when moving the LH side through the 'cone' of sound are perfectly acceptable.  Second, that I needed to cut the top treble a little because of sibilance - when you listen to yourself playing, you're hearing a sound with less top treble than the audience, because treble frequencies are attenuated when you're sitting above the box.  And third, that the use of noise-cancelling headphones is not actually critical - any headphones will do, provided that they surround your ears and blanket the acoustic sound.

I'd really urge people who have bought, or are considering buying a microphone system for their box, to try this.

There's other benefits of having a personal sub-mixer - if you're a musician who likes to play at Open Mike sessions or amplified folk clubs, you're giving the sound engineer one DI lead to adjust for volume - he/she doesn't need to do anything else.




« Last Edit: September 15, 2016, 11:45:11 AM by Chris Brimley »
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IanD

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2016, 11:14:14 PM »

Speaking as both box player and sound engineer, a stand mic for the left-hand end doesn't work very well on a stage with other instruments or foldback, it's too prone to picking up background noise/bleed from other instruments and feeding back, especially if the box player wants some bass end in their foldback and uses the bellows so the bass end moves around. Careful mic positioning helps, but it's either too far away so you have to turn the gain up (pong, howl...) or the volume varies a lot as it moves around. It can be OK for solo box players with relatively quiet foldback, but in a band on a crowded stage it's asking for trouble.

For treble end a stand mic (preferably hypercardioid) about the height of the box away works very well, for the bass end a gooseneck clip-on is a much more reliable solution than a stand mic. In both cases the sound isn't what you hear listening to the box either from the audience or as a player since the mics are a lot closer to the box and on-axis for all the treble sounds and key noise, you usually need some treble cut on both ends and often some carefully chosen mid cut on the bass end to remove any "honkyness".

For recording it's completely different, for a smooth sound and even pickup the best solution is a high-quality condenser mic for each end placed several feet away, assuming you're in a room or studio with good acoustics.
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Chris Brimley

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2016, 10:07:21 PM »

There's two separate issues here - the first one is to do with feedback problems, which is not something I was covering in this thread (though it's equally easy to try out experimentally).  I have to say however that I don't find with my system that the LH mic, as I position it, is any more problematic than the RHS with regard to feedback (and indeed feedback is hardly ever a problem for me on either end).  Not surprising really, because I have both mics pointing directly away from the monitor, on which axis alignment signals of all frequencies are highly attenuated on my Q1's.  In fact, I find that other systems, where one or other mic moves around, are more unpredictable, and therefore more likely to cause feedback when the mic is pointing the wrong way.  Ian, I am sure you and I will many times have had the experience of a careless caller or musician aligning their mikes towards a monitor or FoH speaker, and then being surprised that they howl.  One of the benefits of a static system is that this doesn't usually happen.  The other thing is that small close mics are not usually as directional as larger free-standing ones, and that is why I suggest they may be more susceptible to causing the feedback problems you refer to.

The second issue is that of the quality and evenness of the sound of the LH mic, and that is where the experiment I was talking about comes into its own.  If the direction of travel of the LH end is perpendicular to the axis of the mic, and it is a reasonable distance away, say around 20cm, then my experiment showed me the sound can be faithful, and pretty even across the normal range of bellows movement, which is usually much the same as the displacement of sound sources on the RHS.  Provided both are within the 'cone' of even influence on the mic, the concept does seem to work very well.  I accept that the close mic idea might work well too on the LHS with suitable eq'ing because the sound sources are closer together, but the point of this thread is that it gives the player a chance to do that very comparison for themselves.
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IanD

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2016, 01:44:39 PM »

There's two separate issues here - the first one is to do with feedback problems, which is not something I was covering in this thread (though it's equally easy to try out experimentally).  I have to say however that I don't find with my system that the LH mic, as I position it, is any more problematic than the RHS with regard to feedback (and indeed feedback is hardly ever a problem for me on either end).  Not surprising really, because I have both mics pointing directly away from the monitor, on which axis alignment signals of all frequencies are highly attenuated on my Q1's.  In fact, I find that other systems, where one or other mic moves around, are more unpredictable, and therefore more likely to cause feedback when the mic is pointing the wrong way.  Ian, I am sure you and I will many times have had the experience of a careless caller or musician aligning their mikes towards a monitor or FoH speaker, and then being surprised that they howl.  One of the benefits of a static system is that this doesn't usually happen.  The other thing is that small close mics are not usually as directional as larger free-standing ones, and that is why I suggest they may be more susceptible to causing the feedback problems you refer to.

The second issue is that of the quality and evenness of the sound of the LH mic, and that is where the experiment I was talking about comes into its own.  If the direction of travel of the LH end is perpendicular to the axis of the mic, and it is a reasonable distance away, say around 20cm, then my experiment showed me the sound can be faithful, and pretty even across the normal range of bellows movement, which is usually much the same as the displacement of sound sources on the RHS.  Provided both are within the 'cone' of even influence on the mic, the concept does seem to work very well.  I accept that the close mic idea might work well too on the LHS with suitable eq'ing because the sound sources are closer together, but the point of this thread is that it gives the player a chance to do that very comparison for themselves.

I have indeed had the "idiot caller" problem, but I've never had this problem with clip-on mics on the bass end -- assuming they're cardioid pattern (which most are, the same as most stand mics -- and being small capsule they've often got a more consistent pickup pattern) they're so much closer to the box than the foldback that this isn't really an issue. The big enemy on stage as far as feedback is concerned is distance from the mic -- if you find that you get reliable pickup with it 20cm away then you must move your bellows around a lot less than many other players, me included. A stand mic also relies on the player keeping the bass end position where it was when you did a soundcheck, which is also not always the case -- in other words in the right circumstances and used carefully (e.g. by you) it can work well, but in many cases it doesn't.

So I stand by my assertion that on stage a stand mic for the bass end is much more likely to cause problems than a (correctly positioned) clip-on, based on experience of mixing for a fair number of bands over the years. It's why I use one on stage as do many (most?) other box players, along with a stand mic for the treble end -- IMHO each is the best solution for two different problems.

If people find that stand mics on both ends work for them, that's fine. But then don't be surprised if at a booking you ask the sound guy for more bass end in the foldback (or out front) and he says he can't do that because of feedback -- I know, I've been there both on and off stage...
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Chris Brimley

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2016, 03:11:25 PM »

Certainly, I wouldn't trust my system to work using other mics I didn't know, I always take them with me.  The mic's characteristics are crucial to the success of this. 

But I still feel this is straying from the topic - I wasn't promoting the system I happen to use, I was promoting the idea that players carrying out their own experiments into whatever interface they are using, through a sub-mixer, and then decide for themselves.
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IanD

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2016, 03:59:52 PM »

Certainly, I wouldn't trust my system to work using other mics I didn't know, I always take them with me.  The mic's characteristics are crucial to the success of this. 

But I still feel this is straying from the topic - I wasn't promoting the system I happen to use, I was promoting the idea that players carrying out their own experiments into whatever interface they are using, through a sub-mixer, and then decide for themselves.
That's fine Chris -- but you also said:

"There's other benefits of having a personal sub-mixer - if you're a musician who likes to play at Open Mike sessions or amplified folk clubs, you're giving the sound engineer one DI lead to adjust for volume - he/she doesn't need to do anything else."

Which is true (as far as it goes) under those circumstances, but not if you're in a band on a stage which is the other case you were talking about. It removes the ability for the sound engineer to change the balance between treble and bass ends, which might have been right when you listened to the instrument on its own but is very often not right when playing in a band (usually too much bass end) -- and especially not if there are any feedback problems from a bass end stand mic, so you can't turn the treble end up when the box is leading a tune...

Being blunt, players deciding for themselves (sub-mixing) can work so long as they know what they're doing (correct balance and EQ for both ends) and make the right decision for the circumstances (e.g. playing solo). In other cases (e.g. playing in a band, or with foldback) it can make it difficult or impossible to get a decent sound out to the audience, which is surely what matters?

Speaking from the POV of the guy behind the desk whose job this is, a single channel for both ends of a melodeon is a bad thing much more often than it is a good thing --- you can't adjust the treble/bass end balance, you can't EQ the two ends separately, you can't put mostly (or just) treble end in the monitors for other musicians, if the bass end feeds back first you can't turn the treble end up and nobody can hear the tune. And if the sound is bad, guess who will get the blame?

For most people in most circumstances -- one lead good, two leads better... ;-)

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Chris Brimley

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2016, 12:51:39 PM »

I did indeed say that, Ian - I confess it was a bit of a throw-away comment at the time!  But yes, your comments go into an interesting area of the interplay between sound engineers and musicians, which I agree is highly worth discussing.

First, I think (for the reasons you give) that I agree with your idea of separate channels, if you're a sound engineer who understands about accordions, as you obviously are. (It sounds like it would be very enjoyable to play on a stage you are running!)  However, for the great majority of us on this forum, it's probably true to say that the sound engineers at folk clubs and open mic clubs (or even within dance bands?) are used to 95% of their musicians being vocalists or acoustic guitarists, whose needs are very different.  The truth is that many sound engineers are not specialist in mic'ing up accordions of any kind, and may need assistance from the player.

However, I also feel that when I'm the sound engineer, I really appreciate it when a musician has taken the trouble to listen to themselves through their own 'interface'  (I can't think of a better word to describe this), and tried to adjust it to best suit their requirements.  I would usually defer to their artistic decisions on the balance they want, if they've done that listening.  It is of concern that so few take the time to try out their systems, don't you agree?  (It is also slightly worrying to me that you and I are the only contributors to this thread so far, because if anyone out there ever wants to play amplified, this is stuff you'll probably need to consider!) 

In my view, producing a good sound from any instrument can only be an interactive process between sound engineer and musician.  As somebody said, 'If the gig's going well, the musicians are on top form.  If it's not, it must be the sound engineer's fault.' 

But I think we can move on from this.  As musicians, we've all come away from gigs complaining about the sound in some respect.  We hardly ever say to ourselves 'so next time let's agree x y and z with the sound engineer, in advance.'

I think you and I are going in the same direction, Ian.  Your argument is I think that the sound engineer should be responsible for doing it.  Mine is that that's true, but it's a good idea for any accordionist to understand the inherent problems they're giving the sound engineer, if they want a better sound.
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Rob2Hook

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2016, 02:32:46 PM »

OK, so the two of you have some common experience but many differences.  I'd have to agree that many sound engineers have no idea how to mic and process an accordian.  I well remember diong a turn on the Sidmouth main stage.  Nobody else will, it was raining so hard the only "audience" couldn't get his wheelchair out of the mud!  It struck me as odd that the sound crew only set up a single mic for each box and told us to play as close as we could to it.  In fact we all stood back, so the sound included the basses.

In our ceilidh band, we considered running all the signal leads back to a desk, but in the end preferred tohave the drummer set us up through headphones on stage with a second opinion from his wife standing in the body of the hall.  I use a pair of AKG C1000s on drum stands (more copact than the average stand) and find their directional characteristics prevent feedback far better than some of the cheaper mics in use - usually cheap dynamic types

Of course, Ian spent quite some time playing in a band with their own "full-time" sound engineer who always managed to achieve more than you'd believe the hall's accoustics would allow - but he intimately knew every instrument in the band..

Horses for courses - you're both right given the right circumstances.

Rob.
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Chris Brimley

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2016, 02:47:20 PM »

Quote
It struck me as odd that the sound crew only set up a single mic for each box and told us to play as close as we could to it.

Oh dear, for Sidmouth main stage, that is pretty awful advice!  I'm hoping this was maybe some time ago?
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IanD

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #9 on: September 18, 2016, 05:03:32 PM »

For sure, it helps if musicians understand about how to mic up their instruments -- whatever method they choose -- and can make helpful suggestions to whoever is doing the sound. There are some excellent sound engineers around (e.g. Sam Skey who used to knob for TCB) but also some not-so-capable ones (who are often the ones who aren't willing to listen to such helpful suggestions), we've had bad experiences even at festivals where you wouldn't expect it.

For most bands a separate sound engineer sitting at a desk out front is not an option, either because of lack of availability or cost, so they have to do their own mixing from the stage. This can be made much easier nowadays with the advent of modern digital mixers (we now use a Behringer XR18 "mixer-in-a-stage-box") which can be remote-controlled from a laptop/tablet/phone, so at setup one of the band members can walk out into the hall and check and adjust the sound from there, instead of having to shout instructions back to somebody on stage -- and if there are numbers where they don't play some of the time, they can do this again during the gig to check volume and balance.
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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #10 on: September 18, 2016, 07:44:07 PM »

(It is also slightly worrying to me that you and I are the only contributors to this thread so far, because if anyone out there ever wants to play amplified, this is stuff you'll probably need to consider!) 

Don't worry Chris, there are some of us out here reading and inwardly digesting every word in this thread against the time and situation we will need to amp our boxes. For myself, those I play with at the moment think my Pokerwork is too loud as it is >:E so I don't have anything to contribute here.

Vince
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Andy Next Tune

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #11 on: September 19, 2016, 10:57:26 AM »

A few months ago I purchased a Behringer Xenyx 802USB and some AKG studio headphones in order to be able to do the type of experimentation Chris has suggested.

This thread and previous ones around the topics of mics, PA, etc have been very helpful increasing my understanding of the challenges of amplifying a ceilidh band. Like most bands, we don't have the luxury of a sound guy, and tend to focus on volume and instrument balance, rather than the sound 'quality' of individual instruments.
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Howard Jones

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #12 on: September 19, 2016, 11:19:52 AM »

I play concertina as well as melodeon and I've found that stand mics don't work for me.  In the beginning I played with a stand mic for the treble end and tiepin mic for the bass, before ditching the stand for a custom made microvox-style stuck on with velcro.  In the interests of freedom of movement, reducing spill from other instruments, and simply space on stage when we're playing in village halls with a stage slightly smaller than the band, for me it's now clip-on mics all the way.  With Albireo I now use an AKG C516 on the treble end and T-bone C75s on the bass end and the concertinas. I'm afraid flexibility and ease of use win out over getting perfect sound, but this is for a live ceilidh, not for recording or even a concert.

For a long time I used a small sub-mixer, but mainly to mute the channels I'm not using. Since I often change instruments mid-set, and since our soundie is also the bass player and sometimes the caller (although he'll only do 2 of these jobs at once), it's unfair to expect him to manage this as well. I don't touch the EQ, and once the channels have been balanced during the sound check I don't touch the faders either.

We too have now gone digital (Behringer X-32 - lots of pretty lights!) and I can now do this wirelessly with a tablet, as well as having full control over my own foldback.

I quite agree that musicians should have at least some understanding of mic placements for their instruments.  However in my experience the good sound engineers already know more about this than I do, while the bad ones think they do and won't be told.

Chris Brimley

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #13 on: September 19, 2016, 01:39:06 PM »

Can I just pick up on some earlier comments, because they may be crucial to understanding the technical background to this whole interface thing?

Ian preferred the use of hypercardioid microphones.  These do respond to sounds that are directly from the rear of the mic, but they have dead spots at other angles.  (Nulls at 109.5 degrees, eg.)  It would seem to me then that if you use these types of mics, it's crucial if you want to avoid feedback to make sure they are aligned so that the instrument when played coincides these dead spots with the monitor position.  What's more, as a musician you need to know this, and how to position your box and your close mics (if you use them) to avoid feedback.  Ian, you may have some recommendations on this subject, which might be good for advocates of close mic systems?

In my case, my Samson Q1's are cardioid condenser mics, and these have the dead spot directly to the rear, which makes aligning them easy - you just point them directly away from the sound source (the monitor), and you really don't then get feedback.  Ian, you mentioned the biggest feedback problem as being distance from the mic.  I agree with this being a big issue, but I feel it also depends on the mic, and if you have a Q1 or similar the biggest issue in practice is alignment, and proximity is then the issue you want to experiment with.

There is another issue here, and that concerns interference.  We've had discussions before on this forum about this, and basically the issue is that at certain frequencies, two mics coinciding can give rise to weird interference effects as those frequencies cancel each other out.  For recording purposes, most people use stereo mics on 'X-Y' axes, 90 degrees apart.  Having this in mind, for many years I used to set my mics at this angle, when playing box. This meant that the rear dead spot wasn't as effective, though it still worked pretty well.  However, one of the things I've learned from my experiment is that with my mics, and my positions, this interference effect is for some reason very minor, and the feedback suppression issue seems more important.

Just a last comment - it seems that many close mic advocates accept sound compromises for other good reasons.  Nothing wrong with this - but I'd still suggest that the 'brutal' acid-test experiment is worth while.  If you're in a band with no separate auditorium sound engineer, the sound the audience is hearing could be very different from what you'd hoped, and let's face it, we need to check that out - the audience won't ever tell us, and therefore you may never know.
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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #14 on: September 19, 2016, 04:19:26 PM »

Can I just pick up on some earlier comments, because they may be crucial to understanding the technical background to this whole interface thing?

Ian preferred the use of hypercardioid microphones.  These do respond to sounds that are directly from the rear of the mic, but they have dead spots at other angles.  (Nulls at 109.5 degrees, eg.)  It would seem to me then that if you use these types of mics, it's crucial if you want to avoid feedback to make sure they are aligned so that the instrument when played coincides these dead spots with the monitor position.  What's more, as a musician you need to know this, and how to position your box and your close mics (if you use them) to avoid feedback.  Ian, you may have some recommendations on this subject, which might be good for advocates of close mic systems?

In my case, my Samson Q1's are cardioid condenser mics, and these have the dead spot directly to the rear, which makes aligning them easy - you just point them directly away from the sound source (the monitor), and you really don't then get feedback.  Ian, you mentioned the biggest feedback problem as being distance from the mic.  I agree with this being a big issue, but I feel it also depends on the mic, and if you have a Q1 or similar the biggest issue in practice is alignment, and proximity is then the issue you want to experiment with.

There is another issue here, and that concerns interference.  We've had discussions before on this forum about this, and basically the issue is that at certain frequencies, two mics coinciding can give rise to weird interference effects as those frequencies cancel each other out.  For recording purposes, most people use stereo mics on 'X-Y' axes, 90 degrees apart.  Having this in mind, for many years I used to set my mics at this angle, when playing box. This meant that the rear dead spot wasn't as effective, though it still worked pretty well.  However, one of the things I've learned from my experiment is that with my mics, and my positions, this interference effect is for some reason very minor, and the feedback suppression issue seems more important.

Just a last comment - it seems that many close mic advocates accept sound compromises for other good reasons.  Nothing wrong with this - but I'd still suggest that the 'brutal' acid-test experiment is worth while.  If you're in a band with no separate auditorium sound engineer, the sound the audience is hearing could be very different from what you'd hoped, and let's face it, we need to check that out - the audience won't ever tell us, and therefore you may never know.

The reason for preferring hypercardioid stand mics is partly that they pick up less ambient noise because of the tighter pattern, but also that there's much more chance of getting the monitor near a pattern null and having the mic pointing at the instrument. Monitors are normally on the floor so with a cardioid you'd ideally want the rear of the mic pointing at the monitor which is rarely possible, hypercardioids have a much bigger rear "dead zone" and with the null at an angle to the mic rear you can often point the null at a monitor. Also if you use the rule-of-thumb of keeping the mic as far away from the grille as the length of the grille, there's very little extra loss at the top and bottom notes of the box with the tighter pattern.

For recording purposes in studios, every one I've been in hasn't used a crossed pair for recording a box, they've used mics each pointing at the two ends, the treble end mic from the right and the bass end mic from the left, at least a couple of feet away -- this gives less bleed between the channels than a crossed pair, which is what you want if you're doing multitrack recording.

As I said, close-micing -- especially with clip-ons -- does *not* give the same sound as listening to the instrument even with a perfect microphone, significant EQ is always needed to get a more natural sound. If you do this (and the mics are positioned correctly) there's no reason the quality should be inherently worse than a stand mic, but it does take more work to get the right sound and if you don't do it the sound will be worse.

As far as FOH sound is concerned you're entirely in the hands of the sound engineer, and if you're using monitors you haven't got a clue what it sounds like anyway -- if the monitor sound is good the band will be happy even if the audience isn't, and vice versa...
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Chris Brimley

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #15 on: September 20, 2016, 10:44:34 AM »

Ian, for those using hypercardiod mics, would you like to recommend a good set-up position, in relation to a monitor?  (I accept that this will probably depend on the actual mics in use.)

Just to reiterate a point on eq'ing close mics:  a player shouldn't imagine that you can just 'eq out' the proximity effect issue, because you can't deal with the different distances to the multiple sound sources that way.  So for example, if your close mic is over the mid-range reeds, and you want to reduce the proximity effect by reducing the bass frequencies, you will also be reducing those frequencies on the lower reeds which are further away, but which you actually want to boost.  I've heard people say: 'The trouble with close mic system X is that no matter what you do to it, it just doesn't sound like a melodeon.'  This is probably the main reason.  (There are also lots of more complex reasons to do with the many sound sources and the differences in the ways they are heard by the mic and by an ear.) 

I find I also notice when a LH has a close mic, because the very fact that it is moving with the sound source seems different from a natural sound - it's somehow more even.  Whether this has something to do with the Doppler effect rather than proximity, I really don't know.  Also I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it is often used very effectively by players, in the same way that bass guitarists will use compression to create an even sound with more sustain (though of course compression uses a different principle.)

I was talking the other day about this thread with a friend of mine, who is a 'proper' sound engineer (and who originally suggested the Q1's for my needs many years ago.)  He says that he has gone through similar thought processes with regard to the mic'ing up of drum kits, over the years.  He used to use lots of different mics, so that you could pick up the perfect rim shot, or whatever, but now he just relies on the triangular system of one bass drum mic and two overheads pointing down, for the best and most natural sound.  I guess a drum kit has the same issues of multiple sound sources, but they're even worse to deal with!
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Chris Brimley

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #16 on: September 20, 2016, 10:50:25 AM »

Oh, I forgot: 
Quote
with a cardioid you'd ideally want the rear of the mic pointing at the monitor which is rarely possible

Not sure why not, Ian, that's exactly what I do, and I find it's very easy.  With the LH one I set it so that it points to the middle-open bellows position.  Because the bellows are moving perpendicularly to the mic's axis, it gives a very even signal - one of the things I was testing with my experiment.
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IanD

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #17 on: September 20, 2016, 02:20:35 PM »

Oh, I forgot: 
Quote
with a cardioid you'd ideally want the rear of the mic pointing at the monitor which is rarely possible

Not sure why not, Ian, that's exactly what I do, and I find it's very easy.  With the LH one I set it so that it points to the middle-open bellows position.  Because the bellows are moving perpendicularly to the mic's axis, it gives a very even signal - one of the things I was testing with my experiment.

If the monitor is a floor wedge in front of you (most common position)  and you're using stand mics on one (or both) ends, to get this in the pickup null cardioids ideally need to below the box (i.e. closer to the monitor) and pointing upwards and outwards. Hypercardioids can be placed higher up level with the box and pointing horizontally and parallel with each other, this gets them further from the monitor and also gives more even pickup of all the reeds. If you're using a side-fill at ear height instead of a floor monitor (which is what I do) the reverse applies.

Your comment about proximity effect being the problem with close micing isn't normally true, this depends on the size of the mic capsule but usually only gets significant if you get within a few inches -- proximity effect is caused by the fact that the wavefront at the mic is no longer planar, and is worse for bigger mic capsules, and also worse in the order (figure8 -- hypercardioid -- cardioid) -- omnidirectional mics don't suffer from it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_effect_(audio)

The problem you're referring to is with tonal quality, either because the high frequencies are directional so the mic picks up what the ear doesn't (e.g. melodeon treble end), or the sound close to the instrument is very different to far away (e.g. fiddle, guitar, double bass), or the pickup of different notes differs because they're different distances away from the mic (e.g. piano accordion with a relatively close single mic) -- if this is what you mean it's not proximity effect, that has a specific and different meaning with microphones (see above).
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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #18 on: September 20, 2016, 02:26:44 PM »

for those using hypercardiod mics, would you like to recommend a good set-up position, in relation to a monitor?
Trial and error advisable of course, but as a starting point, in theory the null of a hypercardiod is a cone at 120 degrees off axis.

Quote
I guess a drum kit has the same issues of multiple sound sources, but they're even worse to deal with!
In recording studios anything from one to over twenty mics have been used on drum kits.
There's a classic 4 mic setup, which as you described with the addition of a 4th mic on snare.
After that it escalates rapidly because if you want to close-mic one extra drum you end up wanting to do all the others to match...
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IanD

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Re: The all-important interface between box and PA system
« Reply #19 on: September 20, 2016, 02:35:07 PM »

for those using hypercardiod mics, would you like to recommend a good set-up position, in relation to a monitor?
Trial and error advisable of course, but as a starting point, in theory the null of a hypercardiod is a cone at 120 degrees off axis.

Quote
I guess a drum kit has the same issues of multiple sound sources, but they're even worse to deal with!
In recording studios anything from one to over twenty mics have been used on drum kits.
There's a classic 4 mic setup, which as you described with the addition of a 4th mic on snare.
After that it escalates rapidly because if you want to close-mic one extra drum you end up wanting to do all the others to match...

Don't forget two mics on the bass drum as well, one front/inside, one rear pointing at the beater with phase reversed...
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