Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Hasse]

I just reread my post and see I desperately need to clarify a thing or two to make it understandable!!! 

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.

I was really only wondering if Chris’ idea with the sub-mixer would be a way to reduce the mechanical noise many instruments produce - before the sound reaches the sound technician/engineer. Or are Chris’ idea with the sub-mixer a way of excluding the sound engineers tangling with the sound? 

EDIT: removed more unnecessary text!!!

[Chris Brimley]

Or are Chris’ idea with the sub-mixer a way of excluding the sound engineers tangling with the sound? 

Actually, not at all, in fact as Ian has pointed out, that is a disadvantage of the idea!  I see this as a way of helping sound engineers who are suddenly confronted with a complex set of problems when a box player arrives, but my original idea was simply to allow you to experiment.  There's a tendency nowadays at open mic sessions for singer/guitarists performers to arrive with their own total station, so they can sing with harmonies, play all sorts of guitar effects, use looping and so on, and yes, this can cut down set-up time and problems considerably if they know a bit about what they are doing (and most do, or they probably wouldn't be using the concept).  I don't see this direction as a bad one, I think it encourages people to think more about the sound they are giving the sound engineer, and this is all part of being a performer. 

[Hasse]

OK, Thanks! Now I actually think I get it 

But would this kind of sub-mixer be flexible enough when playing several different melodeon and maybe even a concertina on the same mic, or is this concept more suited for one melodeon only? I really got to look into this!!

Thanks for bringing new interesting sound technicalities up to the attention for slow ones like me! 

[Chris Brimley]

Well, the sub mixer is just a tool to combine your signals.  I'm not sure what question you're asking, but it seems to me that learning by experimentation might be just what you are after.

[Howard Jones]

As I mentioned above, I play melodeon, anglo concertina, vocal/recorder mic and hammered dulcimer. I don't find stand mics work well for both the melodeon and anglo.  For this and other reasons I prefer to use clip-on mics through a sub-mixer.  The instruments all have separate mics, which are combined into 2 channels to send to the main mixer. 

The reason for this is not so much to reduce the number of channels I use on the main desk but so I can mute the channels I'm not using - as I often change instruments mid-set this puts me in control, rather than putting the burden on the sound engineer who has other things to think about (including playing an instrument himself or calling the dances). I don't mess about with the EQ or levels unless the soundie tells me to.

[Chris Brimley]

I realise that in the guide, we haven't really covered the use of a sub-mixer.  I wondered Howard if you'd like to contribute some words, for comments?  I'm guessing you've preset the various channel pairs for each instrument on the sub-mixer - do you have LH and RH on each box as separate LH and RH channels, or do you pan both of them to both LH and RH to get a more realistic sound?

[Andrew Wigglesworth]

Andrew, I'd say that if you're using a stand mic 6-8 inches is a bit close for a normal-sized melodeon, especially with a supercardioid mic with a tighter pattern, because this puts the top and bottom notes well off-axis and also further from the microphone -- you might not notice so much when playing, but when mixing and listening to FOH this makes for quite a big volume difference across the keyboard. I normally put the mic 10-12 inches away -- you might think this doesn't make much difference but it does, and I've never had feedback problems doing this since a melodeon is a pretty loud instrument. Or mine is, anyway...

With that in mind I checked last night where I normally set the microphone whilst playing live, and it was about 8 1/2 inches away. Now, Shure say what they refer to as the "polar response pattern coverage" or "coverage angle" on the Supercardioid microphones is 115°. I did an easy check using a 90° angle and it easily covers much more than the end of my 2 row boxes (they're both little, ie. Baffetti "Black Pearl" and an Excelsior 3 voice hardly any bigger). I do back off a bit with the one row since it is louder and bigger. I sit down and keep the right hand end of the box very steady.

I could back off a bit more, but it's always a trade off with other factors and I don't think there's a problem.

However ... interestingly, Shure says that its cardioid microphones have a coverage angle of 131°, how's this for microphone technique .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk5ErIW4r4c

Sharron Shannon always seems to be right up against the microphone (in fact so close that it's actually bumping against the grill in that video). When I've seen her live I've wondered about this, but it doesn't appear to be an issue. Looking at various videos she also seems to use two standard vocal mics, often an SM58s by the looks of it but it varies to the extent that I'd suspect that she just asks for vocal mics. and uses whatever is there. Also the left-hand mic is quite a long way off; which also seems to be standard. eg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtPx_TwgGsc

Maybe let's not worry so much, stick the mics where they feel comfortable and don't feed back, forget them and get on with playing  :-)

[Chris Brimley]

Yes, in the second clip that RH mic does seem quite close, and also on the first clip its alignment in relation to the monitor is only just into the null area if it's an SM58 - and looking at Shure's polar diagram, watch out for 125Hz feedback!  I'm also a bit surprised about the LH position, because if that's the same mic, placing it so that the bellows movement crosses the axis rather than being in line with it would appear to offer a more even sound, particularly with that 131 deg. coverage.

However, I guess the answers lie in Sharon's (phenomenal!) playing style, with her very much leading the sound of the band with the treble, and mainly RH end.  She probably doesn't really need much in the monitor, and maybe the LH mic perhaps doesn't get a lot to do?

[Howard Jones]

I realise that in the guide, we haven't really covered the use of a sub-mixer.  I wondered Howard if you'd like to contribute some words, for comments?  I'm guessing you've preset the various channel pairs for each instrument on the sub-mixer - do you have LH and RH on each box as separate LH and RH channels, or do you pan both of them to both LH and RH to get a more realistic sound?

Both melodeon channels are panned hard one way while anglo, dulcimer and vocal are all panned the other, so one channel is "melodeon" and the other is "everything else".  EQ is already set on the sub-mixer for each channel, and I leave that alone unless instructed otherwise by the sound engineer during the sound check (I know my place).

It works well for the way we work. Admittedly the soundie doesn't have full control over the individual instruments, but levels and EQ can still be adjusted at the sub-mixer (and if necessary he can just lean over and reach it himself).  On the plus side, it gives him one less thing to worry about when I change instruments (as well as sound he will probably either be playing bass or keyboard, or calling the dance) as I can mute or turn on channels myself.

I don't use it much now we've gone digital, it's all done through a tablet instead, and I don't use it when we have the luxury of a dedicated sound engineer, but I still get it out whenever we use a self-drive analogue desk.

[Chris Brimley]

That sounds like a very good plan, Howard.

[Rob2Hook]

I've never seen Ms Shannon touch a bass button - and that's not a criticism, just an observation.  I suspect the "LH mic" just happened to be there for another turn!  In the second link you might notice there is only one mic.

Rob.

[Theo]

I've never seen Ms Shannon touch a bass button - and that's not a criticism, just an observation.  I suspect the "LH mic" just happened to be there for another turn!  In the second link you might notice there is only one mic.

Rob.

If this is the one you mean by the second link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtPx_TwgGsc  then there are two mic's and she does clearly play the bass.   There is a close shot if fingers playing the bass, and the bass sound is just audible.  For example between 1.00 and 1.10

[Rob2Hook]

Yep, you're right Theo!  I had another two goes before I managed to get rid of obstructive adverts over the picture and lo - there was the mic and the momentary bass.  Must admit, I'm glad you corrected me.  I've long admired Ms Shannon and her playing, but rarely see her without a large band backing her - or maybe they feel just as honoured to be invited to play along as we would be...

Rob.

[IanD]

I realise that in the guide, we haven't really covered the use of a sub-mixer.  I wondered Howard if you'd like to contribute some words, for comments?  I'm guessing you've preset the various channel pairs for each instrument on the sub-mixer - do you have LH and RH on each box as separate LH and RH channels, or do you pan both of them to both LH and RH to get a more realistic sound?

If you do a stereo sub-mix with all the RH panned into one channel and all the LH panned into another and give a two-channel output to the PA, then at least the sound engineer can deal with the two hands separately, which is the big problem with a single channel output.

How he then pans them into FOH is his choice -- some engineers put everything centre stage (effectively mono FOH) so at least the balance is consistent across the hall even if you're close to one speaker, other pan instruments apart to separate them at the cost of an unbalanced sound if you're near to one speaker.

[IanD]

Ian, you're right about my playing style, I always sit down (though I once experimented with standing with my right leg on a stack of cases), and I think that I probably don't expand the bellows so much as most people I've seen.  This is not because I play more quietly, it's because the playing style I've developed with my big boxes uses reversals of RH notes and LH chords extensively, not only for variety in dynamic effect, but to cut down on bellows extensions deliberately.  There's various benefits from this, I find: a) this microphone location issue; b) having a smaller volume of air to compress and expand requires less pronounced changes in direction to generate the necessary pressure to drive the reeds, so it tends to give more attack when playing;  c) it's easier on the arms.  An example of this for me is the Atholl Highlanders tune in A (on a DGAcc box) - I used to find that almost unplayable until I learned to re-finger my playing to use the push LH bass A chord to bring those bellows back in.

I found when I did my sub-mixer experiment that the LH mic positioning issue was probably the most instructive part of it.  I was listening closely to the effect of normal bellows extension on LH sound level, and was relieved to note that with my system it really didn't vary noticeably over my normal range of bellows extensions. (And there's a little trick - when you do need to open them a lot, you can afford to lean over to the right a bit without losing RH mic signal much.)  I agree that a useful starting point for such an experiment with my type of mics would be to have the LH mic (possibly RH too) in the range 20-30cm away. Would anyone like to suggest a good figure for other types of mic? 

Something else I've learned is to make sure to resist the temptation to approach the microphone to 'compensate' when the audience noise gets loud - that just makes it worse for everyone!

All of which explains why you find a LH stand mic works for you, and I say it often doesn't -- most box players nowadays play standing up and move the left hand end around a lot more than you do, both side to side and back to front, which makes for big volume changes unless the mic is a lot further away than you suggest, which means feedback problems. Of course if the box player doesn't use the bass end much this is much less important, but to me it seems a waste not to use what the instrument has...

For any type of mic with any instrument, the best rough "rule of thumb" (if possible) is to make the spacing from mic to instrument about the same as the size/width of the bits of the instrument that radiate sound -- this is roughly where the sound changes from "near-field" (different sound from different bits of the instrument) to "far-field" (blended sound from all the bits which is what you hear acoustically as an audience), and also where the pickup pattern of the microphone will be reasonably even.

If you move the box closer to the mic to get more volume then the middle notes get louder more than the low and high notes, which is not helpful -- the correct response is either to play harder or to turn up the box (or the whole band) in the mix.

[IanD]

Andrew, I'd say that if you're using a stand mic 6-8 inches is a bit close for a normal-sized melodeon, especially with a supercardioid mic with a tighter pattern, because this puts the top and bottom notes well off-axis and also further from the microphone -- you might not notice so much when playing, but when mixing and listening to FOH this makes for quite a big volume difference across the keyboard. I normally put the mic 10-12 inches away -- you might think this doesn't make much difference but it does, and I've never had feedback problems doing this since a melodeon is a pretty loud instrument. Or mine is, anyway...

With that in mind I checked last night where I normally set the microphone whilst playing live, and it was about 8 1/2 inches away. Now, Shure say what they refer to as the "polar response pattern coverage" or "coverage angle" on the Supercardioid microphones is 115°. I did an easy check using a 90° angle and it easily covers much more than the end of my 2 row boxes (they're both little, ie. Baffetti "Black Pearl" and an Excelsior 3 voice hardly any bigger). I do back off a bit with the one row since it is louder and bigger. I sit down and keep the right hand end of the box very steady.

I could back off a bit more, but it's always a trade off with other factors and I don't think there's a problem.

However ... interestingly, Shure says that its cardioid microphones have a coverage angle of 131°, how's this for microphone technique .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk5ErIW4r4c

Sharron Shannon always seems to be right up against the microphone (in fact so close that it's actually bumping against the grill in that video). When I've seen her live I've wondered about this, but it doesn't appear to be an issue. Looking at various videos she also seems to use two standard vocal mics, often an SM58s by the looks of it but it varies to the extent that I'd suspect that she just asks for vocal mics. and uses whatever is there. Also the left-hand mic is quite a long way off; which also seems to be standard. eg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtPx_TwgGsc

Maybe let's not worry so much, stick the mics where they feel comfortable and don't feed back, forget them and get on with playing  :-)

All the "coverage angle" numbers for microphones are just that, they're where the response falls off noticeably, I expect by 3dB -- which doesn't sound a lot but it's noticeable, moving an instrument up in the mix by 3dB makes a big difference to the balance. Also remember that this is for sound sources at a constant distance, which is not the case with a melodeon unless it's curved into a circle. If you follow the "coverage angle" advice the high and low notes are also significantly further away from the mic than the middle notes, which makes another 3dB or so difference. Now the mid notes are 6dB louder than the high and low notes, which is a huge difference, and they disappear under the sound of the rest of the band.

So if you stick the mics where they feel comfortable (probably too close...) and carry on playing, don't be surprised if you get frowns from the sound guy (assuming he knows what a melodeon is supposed to sound like), or even complaints from the audience (if they're listening...) that they can't always hear the tune you're playing.

If you and/or the sound guy don't really care about getting the best sound from your box, please feel free to put the mic too close and stop worrying about it. Speaking as a box player and sound guy who does care (and understands the acoustics of musical instruments), I wouldn't do this ;-)

Don't forget that even famous box players maybe haven't thought about this, or been told about it by a sound guy brave enough to tell them otherwise -- and if you listen to those videos, the tune drops considerably in volume when she moves away from the middle of the keyboard, and I'm sure the box doesn't do that. Not so bad if you're solo or playing with one other instrument like she is, do that in a band when you're leading the tune and it disappears...

If you don't believe me there's a simple way to prove it. Put one mic as close to the RH end as you think is good (say 6 inches) and another identical one at least a couple of feet away, preferably three -- like they do in a studio. Pan one hard left and the other hard right in the mixer, and set the channel gains so the levels are the same in both channels for the middle notes. Now put on a pair of headphones and play up and down the keyboard and listen how much the low and high notes move towards the distant mic channel, and watch how much the meter levels differ by.

[Chris Brimley]

Ian, I'd agree with pretty much everything you've said here.  I think your implication that a lot of players are not getting the best sounds is important.   Do you want to translate your wise words into additions or amendments to my suggested guidance note?

[IanD]

Ian, I'd agree with pretty much everything you've said here.  I think your implication that a lot of players are not getting the best sounds is important.   Do you want to translate your wise words into additions or amendments to my suggested guidance note?

Just not to put the mic too close :-)

If anyone wants the numbers, for a cardioid mic the loss in level at the ends of the box compared to the middle due to inverse square law (this is the bigger effect) and mic pattern vs. distance are as follows (box height=1 e.g. 10" for a typical 2-row -- more exactly, the length of the row of pallets) -- since this is the distance from the pallets to the mic capsule, the mic touching the grille probably means about an inch effective spacing.

Also bear in mind that nobody keeps a box completely stationary, you need to assume it'll move at least an inch or so either way while being played -- for example with the mic 6" from the grille this gives another 1.3dB variation in level (for all reeds), and this increase rapidly as distance decreases. The figures in brackets have this variation added to the along-the-box variation.

0.1 : 18.6dB -- mic touching grille
0.2 : 11.9dB (22.3dB with +/-0.1 movement)
0.3 : 8.2dB (14.2dB)
0.4 : 5.9dB (9.7dB) -- mic 3" away from grille
0.5 : 4.4dB (7.1dB)
0.5 : 3.4dB (5.2dB)
0.7 : 2.6dB (3.9dB) -- mic 6" away from grille
0.8 : 2.1dB (3.0dB)
0.9 : 1.7dB (2.4dB)
1.0 : 1.4dB (1.9dB) -- mic 9" away from grille <== recommended minimum distance for a treble end stand mic on a melodeon
1.1 : 1.2dB (1.6dB)
1.2 : 1.0dB (1.3dB)
1.3 : 0.9dB (1.1dB) -- mic 1 foot away from grille

When mixing and trying to balance the volume of pairs of instruments (e.g two boxes, two fiddles, fiddle and box) playing simultaneously, I find that a 2dB change in level makes a noticeable difference, moving one from being the quieter of the two to the louder. All this suggests that it's best not to have the mic closer than about 9" from the grille of a normal-sized melodeon, and a little further wouldn't hurt if using a closer pattern mic than a cardioid -- though this doesn't make so much difference, the mic pattern accounts for about 1/3 of the level difference and inverse square law about 2/3, which is why just looking at the mic pattern doesn't give the right answer.

Having never actually calculated these numbers before, I'm glad to find that they agree very closely with my earlier "rule-of-thumb" suggestion ;-)

[Jack Humphreys]

Thank you to all the experienced and expert contributors to this thread.  I  have a ancient microvox set and now looking to find a better alternative. Looks like Bernard Loffet's advice may be a helpful addition to the melnet discussion. 
http://www.cadb.org/res/articles/pa48micro.pdf 
http://www.cadb.org/res/articles/pa56micro.pdf

I did notice at a Leveret concert that Andy Cutting  was using two clip-on mikes.  So was Rob Harbron on his concertina. So that decision by such fine musicians can't help but influence me!

[Jack Humphreys]

ADVICE REQUESTED on miking up....... for total novice.

I'd be grateful for advice on basics. Supposing I use  one or two AKG C156  gooseneck mikes,  what else would I need, if anything,  in order to plug in successfully to typical mixing desks? ( I've heard about  "Phantom" but no idea what this means).  On my microvox bass mike there is a battery box clipped to my belt. Anything like that needed?   Thanks in advance.