Electronic Vocalist Feedback issues playing live

hospitaltapes · 27th November 2011

Okay, so I'm an electronic musician (half of a duo), who uses a lot of vocals. The music is really mellow and uses a good amount of reverb on both of our vocals (male and female harmonies). The reason I'm not posting this in a normal 'feedback' thread, is because traditional vocalists don't use their voices like we do. Also, our setup is very different.

Our main problem is relying on FOH for reverb, as they often don't 'get' our sound and tone back on the verb for a less atmospheric effect. We'll be buying an fx unit soon to fix that. The problem is that to avoid feedback, we end up with dry vox in our monitor mix. Since we rely on a lot of reverb to extend notes and make weird sounds, dry monitoring is really uncomfortable, and definitely doesn't give us an accurate sense of what's going on FOH.

Just for good measure, our setup is: Macbook pro running logic Mainstage and a good amount of plugins for live looping/live remixing, being sent out through a Pre-Sonus Fire Box in stereo. Then 2 vocal mic's (usually Sm58s) with a hall reverb.

Does anyone know of a good way to monitor with reverb? We're not opposed to in ear monitoring, but to do that we'd have to go straight into the presonus and add FX on the computer, which boosts gain and wouldn't sound good, correct?

If we did it outside of the computer, with a pedal (TC Helicon or other) how would we set everything up to monitor together? Would we need our own engineer?

Any help would be seriously appreciated. We're confirmed for a huge european tour in a few months and would like to sound our best.

Here's a sample of our music for reference:
Houses - Soak It Up - YouTube

Futureman84 · 28th November 2011

Yes to In ear monitoring.

Forget a wedge if you are using vox and a bunch of FX. Just gets too messy onstage real quick.

If it was me, I'd have everything going to my small desk, the singer gets in ears off an aux send, and I'd be monitoring the main mix off headphones.
The singer can then have their own mix and I hear the finished product.

Best of luck

Jet · 8th December 2011

Bump. I'm interested in this too. Anyone else have any suggestions? Thanks.

Kiwi · 9th December 2011

There is a new breed of digital personal monitoring systems that connect together with ordinary cat5 ethernet cables

For example:

BEHRINGER: P16-M

Which is probably stolen from:

Aviom Applications | Monitor Mixing

They advantage of this system is that each musician can mix their own monitor mix - it's possible to do this with analog, but the clutter of cables would be expensive and hard to setup and maintain.

Frankly - overall reverb is probably best left to the FOH mixer. It's best in stereo, and you may not want to run two lines per vocal. It's also a big variable with different venues and changes as people fill up a room.

Delays are probably best in mono, and you want them tempo sync'd and

If you want harmonies and pitch-based stuff, get a TC Helicon VoiceLive2 or the new rack version preferably.

For most live mixers you will probably want to drop the line level output down to Mic level with a passive transformer ... I got the Radial ProD8 for my rig which I like a lot. Transformers give a little analog mojo, and avoid ground loop hum which can be a problem if you are powering stuff on stage.

So - if you have a stereo FX processor for vocals consider this:

If the FX processor doesn't have a balanced mic level input, you'll need a mic preamp.

You can use one output as a mono send to the FOH desk - via the DI.
The other output can be used for your personal monitor mixer.

You could use little analog mixers for each musician - and these can drive in ear monitors if you wish. But it gets fairly messy setting up routing for backing tracks and/or instruments ... the digital solutons looks like a winner.

27th November 2011	#1
hospitaltapes Gear interested Joined: Nov 2011 Posts: 1 Thread Starter	Electronic Vocalist Feedback issues playing live Okay, so I'm an electronic musician (half of a duo), who uses a lot of vocals. The music is really mellow and uses a good amount of reverb on both of our vocals (male and female harmonies). The reason I'm not posting this in a normal 'feedback' thread, is because traditional vocalists don't use their voices like we do. Also, our setup is very different. Our main problem is relying on FOH for reverb, as they often don't 'get' our sound and tone back on the verb for a less atmospheric effect. We'll be buying an fx unit soon to fix that. The problem is that to avoid feedback, we end up with dry vox in our monitor mix. Since we rely on a lot of reverb to extend notes and make weird sounds, dry monitoring is really uncomfortable, and definitely doesn't give us an accurate sense of what's going on FOH. Just for good measure, our setup is: Macbook pro running logic Mainstage and a good amount of plugins for live looping/live remixing, being sent out through a Pre-Sonus Fire Box in stereo. Then 2 vocal mic's (usually Sm58s) with a hall reverb. Does anyone know of a good way to monitor with reverb? We're not opposed to in ear monitoring, but to do that we'd have to go straight into the presonus and add FX on the computer, which boosts gain and wouldn't sound good, correct? If we did it outside of the computer, with a pedal (TC Helicon or other) how would we set everything up to monitor together? Would we need our own engineer? Any help would be seriously appreciated. We're confirmed for a huge european tour in a few months and would like to sound our best. Here's a sample of our music for reference: Houses - Soak It Up - YouTube

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28th November 2011	#2
Futureman84 Gear addict Joined: May 2011 Location: Australia Posts: 447	Yes to In ear monitoring. Forget a wedge if you are using vox and a bunch of FX. Just gets too messy onstage real quick. If it was me, I'd have everything going to my small desk, the singer gets in ears off an aux send, and I'd be monitoring the main mix off headphones. The singer can then have their own mix and I hear the finished product. Best of luck

8th December 2011	#3
Jet Gear nut Joined: Nov 2009 Location: Putting the ass back into asset to the abbey Posts: 113	Bump. I'm interested in this too. Anyone else have any suggestions? Thanks.

9th December 2011	#4
Kiwi Lives for gear Joined: Feb 2009 Posts: 3,203	There is a new breed of digital personal monitoring systems that connect together with ordinary cat5 ethernet cables For example: BEHRINGER: P16-M Which is probably stolen from: Aviom Applications \| Monitor Mixing They advantage of this system is that each musician can mix their own monitor mix - it's possible to do this with analog, but the clutter of cables would be expensive and hard to setup and maintain. Frankly - overall reverb is probably best left to the FOH mixer. It's best in stereo, and you may not want to run two lines per vocal. It's also a big variable with different venues and changes as people fill up a room. Delays are probably best in mono, and you want them tempo sync'd and If you want harmonies and pitch-based stuff, get a TC Helicon VoiceLive2 or the new rack version preferably. For most live mixers you will probably want to drop the line level output down to Mic level with a passive transformer ... I got the Radial ProD8 for my rig which I like a lot. Transformers give a little analog mojo, and avoid ground loop hum which can be a problem if you are powering stuff on stage. So - if you have a stereo FX processor for vocals consider this: If the FX processor doesn't have a balanced mic level input, you'll need a mic preamp. You can use one output as a mono send to the FOH desk - via the DI. The other output can be used for your personal monitor mixer. You could use little analog mixers for each musician - and these can drive in ear monitors if you wish. But it gets fairly messy setting up routing for backing tracks and/or instruments ... the digital solutons looks like a winner.