This all started here. Where that ended was ordering new gear that seemed better suited to this recurring gig than what I was doing. All that gear has arrived and I’ve used it now, and I’m happy to report it was a good improvement.
The setup is:
- Musican #1
- Vocal Mic: Audix OM5
- Acoustic Guitar: Seymour Duncan 5A-3SC Pickup
- Musican #2
- Vocal Mic: Audix OM5
- Banjo (2): K&K Twin Pickup (on each)
- Musican #3
- Fiddle: Shure SM57
Those five inputs to to a Mackie ProFX12v3 Mixer. Using a mixer instead of trying to make audio interfaces work was a big change here, and now it’s more clear to me it’s the correct piece of equipment.
The mixer allows me to power the HH – VRE-15AG2 PA Speaker in an obvious way. Just cords directly from the mixer output to the speaker, without awkwardly using monitor outputs. The mixer also has monitor outputs, so those go to a new Behringer Eurolive F1320D monitor. Having a monitor is huge in this environment for being able to hear each other.
Problems / Questions / Observations
- Is the Seymour Duncan guitar pickup decent? I can’t even remember why I own the thing, I just had it around. I somehow doubt I did a lot of research before getting it originally. It seems pretty inexpensive, which isn’t a problem, I just don’t know if that equates to quality. Is this hurting overall quality of sound? Are there better options? When people have built-in pickups in their acoustic guitars, do those tend to be better? Or just more convenient?
- The Audix OM5‘s were recommended to me. I think of all the changes we made, moving to these dynamic mics and entirely away from condenser mics was the biggest improvement. The condensers were far too sensitive to feedback in this environment, and would have been even worse with a monitor (I think). Particularly because we have a wall right behind us (right?). Are these decent though? Should I have sprung for the OM7s? Left to my own limited knowledge, I would have gone with Shure SM58s, how do those fare against the Audix ones?
- Having gone with only dynamic mics, we were quite a bit less feedback prone and I felt we could increase the output volume higher than before, which we needed. But it did not make us feedback-proof as I hoped. There was a pretty hard limit on the monitor before we got gnarly feedback. Dammit! What is the most likely cause? Can I beat it so I can feel more free with the volume?
- I ended up buying that Shure SM57 for a fiddle player for one set. She didn’t have a pickup on the fiddle, so it needed some kind of amplification. I don’t think she was particularly experienced or comfortable playing into it, and it didn’t seem to work particularly well. Is that a normal way to handle a fiddle? Is there a better way?
- I found the Mackie mixer kinda fun to play with and totally solved the problem of needing to output to both the PA speaker and monitor. Plus having some on-board basic high/mid/low control knobs was nice. I found the $350 price tag surprising. It seems like a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment. Why so cheap? It’s about the same price, or cheaper, than similar and far more basic audio interfaces, and it has USB out too! Are there nicer mixers I should be looking at? Perhaps that have nicer designs, don’t have the cheesy built-in effects (or have nice ones), but otherwise can do the same stuff. I like the idea of having 10-ish inputs. Is the mixer a quality of sound bottleneck at all?
- I’m linking to Sweetwater for the equipment as I’ve been generally pleased with their company and my orders. You get a decided sales rep to help answer questions and stuff, and so far they have been reasonable helpful. I’ll probably send them this blog post to see what they think.
- On my last order, the one bit of equipment that they didn’t seem to love was my monitor choice, the Behringer Eurolive F1320D. Of all the other equipment, I’m cool with owning nice high quality stuff, but I don’t quite feel that way about a floor monitor. I just don’t see using it a ton aside from this one particular gig in this one particular room. (I’d prefer using no equipment at all, if possible, but alas). This thing was $299, and it seems pretty decently nice to me. It’s about 3× heavier than the PA speaker. Did I go wrong? What are better options?
- Speaking of the PA speaker, I think I paid $650 for the HH – VRE-15AG2 at a local shop. Looking around online, they cost like $440 for two of them, so I think I got decently screwed on that. To my ear though, it sounds pretty good? I have some specific questions on this:
- I run two cables from the mixer to the speaker, one for left and one for right. Is that necessary even though I’m only using one PA speaker? Or is one equally fine?
- Would it make sense to have a true pair of PA speakers? Would I essentially be doubling the potential sound output?
- Is this speaker decent? Or is it a sound quality and output bottleneck?
So much to think about! If you have any experience or advice I’m all ears.