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Getting More out of Your Sound System
There is no better place to hear
bluegrass music than in the middle of the huddle. When
people play bluegrass, they typically stand in a circle in order
to hear each other. The harmony and instrument blend is
best when everyone can hear what's going on. Many times,
when playing through a
sound system, it's hard to get the sound you need in order to
play. When the microphones are spread out in a line, the
huddle is gone. There are so many sounds of the wrong kind
that it is a struggle to hear, let alone play.
At one of the local Saturday night jam
sessions experienced
this for a long time. Our group would practice on Tuesday and sound great. Then,
on Saturday, we just couldn't play it that way for the crowd. The problem was not
our playing (yeah, right) it was the way the sound system was set
up. All of the microphones were straight in a line and it
looked great. We had a sound man with a mixing board in a
tower behind the crowd where the sound could be mixed
perfectly. We had monitors so that we could hear
everything that we needed. WRONG!
Though that looked like the best
set up, we couldn't hear anything that we needed to hear, but we
could
hear everything that we shouldn't have. One night I played
into a microphone that was off and sang in one that was
HOT. The bass rattled the floor so badly that one of the
microphones picked it up and blasted everyone. I played
the banjo and I could not hear the guitar player (and believe
me, I needed to hear the guitar player).
The problem was that the sound man had no way to know which one
was too loud or not loud enough. It was a full time job
for the him to try to keep it under control. At least the weather
was nice.
We thought about what was
happening and came up with a plan for the next night and it worked like a
dream. We took the nine microphones down and left only
three. Those three were put into a cluster to act as one,
all on one stand. The monitors we cut off
completely. The cluster of microphones was strong because
it was three times as powerful as one single unit.
What happened was, we were back into our huddle and could hear
each other. We had to stand so that the crowd could see us,
which made our arrangement resemble a "U" formation.
The bass was in the center, the
guitar was to the right and I was to the left. As my break
came up, I stepped into the microphone and then stepped back
when I was finished. The guitar player did the same and
when we sang, we leaned in and shared the space. It looked
like it was choreographed. We just knew when it was our
turn. We could hear the main speakers in the distance and
we knew that the arrangement had made a world of
difference. We were now producing a great sound, full and
robust.
Once we set each microphone to
the same volume, the sound man was able to leave his post and
play bass on the stage for a change. There are microphones
that can do the job of our three but without any money to work
with, the three of our best mics worked perfectly.
Today bands use condenser mics
| Look at the diagram to the right. This
configuration will deliver an even pick up. One mic is
mounted on a standard mic stand. The other two are
mounted to each side with mounts used to hold instrument
mics. The area marked "STAY BACK" is the
area that you should avoid. Remember, you are three
times as strong as with one mic. There will be
sounds that bounce around so use them. The banjo
will bounce off the guitar and the vocals off of the bass
and so on. When you sing, all vocals will lean into
the center. When you take your break, step up to the
microphone(s) and then get out of the way when you are
finished. |
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