Quote:
Originally Posted by Ricey  Greets, Slutz.
I'm playing 'cello next month on a couple of shows and need a good way to mic it.
i did a couple shows last month and the monitor feedback was a problem - not a great 'cello and i'm not a great 'cellist - the audience could hear me better than i could. read: NIGHTMARE!
any ideas? i'll be in NYC tomorrow for a couple of weeks so i could pick something up... |
Victor,
The slutty solution is as follows:
For arco stuff, a Beyer M-160 ribbon mic, aimed at the bridge. This will give you good gain before feedback, without sounding scratchy. Since this is a ribbon mic, your preamp will need a decent amount of gain. If your preamp is on stage, you have the option to run the line level signal through a reverb. You'll want a long 'verb setting for ballads, and a medium-to-short one for fast stuff.
For pizz, use your favorite piezo pickup into a high-Z preamp (1 Megohm or greater), EQ the heck out of it, and compress to taste. Run the result through a footswitch, so you can disable it when playing arco.
In situations with high stage levels, you may want to send the mic feed only to the house, and split off the pickup signal between the EQ and the compressor for the stage monitor feed.
I used to play cello in a celtic band, changing off between fiddle-ish stuff and bass lines, hence the two signal chains.
David L. Rick
Seventh String Recording