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[Brian Dill]

Hi all,

as always thank for your experience and ideas!

Update: Played a  large venue Friday and Saturday night last weekend, same place both nights.

And, not a peep. Not on my hottest setting with compression. Pretty decent stage volume too, due to the venue being a bit larger. Not Marshall stack stuff, but that volume in my house would make my ears ring a bit.

Got some really nice usable feedback, not a bit of squeal.

My amp was in my usual position, about 45 degrees to my right and behind (think side wash, but back a little). maybe 6' from the stack to my right.

The differences from the squealing gigs:

Several feet further from the stack.

Similar acoustic tile ceiling to squeal gig, 8 to 10' high maybe, but more surrounding area overall.
Much more area out front, venue might hold 800 or so.

Great guitar setup done before gig, pickups at correct height. (Don't think they were too far off before tho).

P.A. would have been cranking more, we're a moderate volume band (older demographic) but in that venue it would have been pushed quite a bit more. But, with a bit more stage volume, I was probably not quite as hot in the mix.

Adjusted my "sound" at home, I had crept up the levels on my processor to the max, with amp turned down. (It just happened ;-) So I dropped the levels on my patches and raised the amp volume, sounds a heck of a lot better. So the gain structure was different.

Last, and certainly not least, I didn't use my Line 6 wireless, just used a cable. I did use my in ear wireless, not sure if that would affect anything.

Someone mentioned that a guitar wireless signal is compressed? Add that to my compression and I wonder if that was a culprit. I'm going to avoid the wireless for awhile and see what happens.

Question about microphonic pickups, wouldn't that show up at home as I was working with my sound? I was at stage volume, enough to ring the ears a little. Not a peep of squeal at the house.

Thanks guys, just wanted to let you know what was happening in the mystery squeal case. . .oh, and I don't have alien sweat. Some odd alien qualities to be sure, that's just not one of them.

Any chance you have those metal pick up covers on your guitar(s)? (Like a Les Paul)  I have noticed in the past, when using a wireless in high gain set ups, pick ups with covers can cause added squeal. If so, try it with a guitar without pick up covers. This is a rare case scenario, but it has occurred for me.

I run a Line 6 G90 wireless, and Sennheiser G3 IEM's, personally. I don't have any issues with unwanted feedback through the mains, ever. But I also run direct, with no cabinet mic.

Hope this helps.

B

[lindsay Dean]

    Im still cheering on the guitar cable
it takes a mighty expensive wireless rig
to beat a good quality cable.

[Alec Spence]

Last, and certainly not least, I didn't use my Line 6 wireless, just used a cable. I did use my in ear wireless, not sure if that would affect anything.

Thanks guys, just wanted to let you know what was happening in the mystery squeal case. . .oh, and I don't have alien sweat. Some odd alien qualities to be sure, that's just not one of them.

Come on, you can get a little bit more thorough than this!

What you really need to do is find a situation where you experience your undesired feedback with your wireless system, and then swap it out for a cable and see if the problem follows the wireless.

Right now, you've found that going cabled in a certain venue is OK, but you haven't properly narrowed it down to the wireless (which is certainly a plausible suspect).  Until you do this, you can't really be sure it's not down to some other factor, and won't re-appear elsewhere.

[jan house]

Lol Alec, thanks for the trouble shooting "nudge" (and you are correct in doing so! )

It won't be long before I'm in a more enclosed venue, where I'm pretty sure I can replicate the squeal --   I'll hook up the wireless and see if that's the culprit. We play in a few places where the band is pretty much on top of one another.

I'm not really that huge a fan of wireless, but I got promoted to running sound for this band for about 6 months and I wanted to hop out front and listen from time to time. It's nice not tripping over cabling, but it's also nice to simplify the setup too, doing one nighters all all time. I miss the days of 5 nights in a venue!

Brian, that was exactly my setup by the way -- Sennheiser inear -- though I go through mine by way of a Rolls since I don't get my own mix in the ears. I do not have metal covers on my pickups.

My next goal is to try to find a powered wedge monitor to move away from the in ear if possible. I use the in ear in one ear only, to hear my amp in the other ear, and it's bad news as far as  hearing loss. Our harmonies are a big factor in our band, and the sense of isolation gets in my way -- but, I'm a female with some nodes on my vocal cords as is, and I haven't been able to hear adequately with a wedge monitor, makes me over sing and then I'm in vocal trouble. I've looked through some good threads here and I probably need to get a pro level powered monitor, but that's a whole other deal.

[Wes Garland]

You definitely should not be using only one in-ear.  It can trick your brain into turning the IEM ear up a full 10dB louder than it ought to be.

Out of curiousity, which Yorkville speaker on top? Is the yellow light flickering when this happens? If it's a Parasource speaker, try toggling the club/concert switch.

[Rob Spence]

I had a wedding once where the band was packed in pretty tight. Really small room. Only enough for band at one end, me in the corner behind the drummer and the rest of the room, dance floor.

Well, got this low frequency feedback going and it turned out to be the floor tom interacting with the bass. A notch fixed it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Stephen Kirby]

Lol Alec, thanks for the trouble shooting "nudge" (and you are correct in doing so! )
My next goal is to try to find a powered wedge monitor to move away from the in ear if possible. I use the in ear in one ear only, to hear my amp in the other ear, and it's bad news as far as  hearing loss. Our harmonies are a big factor in our band, and the sense of isolation gets in my way -- but, I'm a female with some nodes on my vocal cords as is, and I haven't been able to hear adequately with a wedge monitor, makes me over sing and then I'm in vocal trouble. I've looked through some good threads here and I probably need to get a pro level powered monitor, but that's a whole other deal.

When I had Sensaphonics make my IEMs I also had some ER plugs made.  So for awhile I used to have an IEM in one ear and a plug in the other.  That let me keep the IEM level reasonable.  As said, one open ear is a recipe for hearing damage.

For hearing pitch on background harmonies I like the Hot Spot personal monitors.  Towards the end of that band's lifetime I would bring one and hang the belt pack on the handle and plug it in.  It didn't appreciably add to the stage level but I would laugh when the frontline singers would pull their ears out and come stand by me.     A couple of them hated the things.  We had our own stereo monitor board which was managed by the keyboard player.  Who was also a Grammy nominated R&B producer and knows a bit about mixing.  But it was a constant struggle for the singers and myself on guitar to deal with the things.  Only the bass player (who lived in his own frequency space), the drummer (who sat above a very loud instrument that came over his in ear mix), and the keyboard player (who was used to living in cans) could deal with the in-ears.  Which is why I believe that musicians who've been playing for awhile in small spaces shouldn't mess with IEMs without a dedicated monitor engineer who's paying attention.  In several varsity situations, the main person has their own monitor engineer who's dedicated to tweaking what they hear and making their lives easier.  There are small situations where they work.  Guitarists with modelers or highly processed sounds, the all direct-no amps on stage bit, youngsters or studio rats who spend more time playing in cans than live on stage with other musicians.

[jan house]

thanks all for replying, been awhile but here's an update.

I've abandoned the guitar wireless (I ran sound for the band awhile back, had to use one to get out front from time to time, but  we have a much better sound guy on bass so I don't need it now). Yep, the guitar does sound better with a cable.

So... haven't had the squeal problem since. I did hook up the wireless in a few venues known to have the issue, and couldn't replicate the squeal anywhere near what it was. Maybe a touch of it, if anything.

But, I am playing at louder volume than I was. I was being super quiet on stage guitar wise, and adding it to my in ear mix. But, realizing that the guitar got in the way of my vocal, and vice versa, I found a balance of being slighter louder without bugging the band. So I'm not as hot in the mains.

So, the wireless may have been involved, especially if it added it's own compression to my already compressed sound, and I ran at such a low volume before that I had to be pushed more in the mains.  A combination of those two factors may have been the culprit?

I will be dealing with the in ear situation this year -- I'm frustrated on a few levels with it, blending in harmonies being a big one. With a slightly damaged voice, it's critical that I get the frequencies I need so I don't try to create them by singing differently -- recipe for more damage, that. I'll be checking the forum for some really good powered monitors, or some kind of situation where I can control what I hear independantly (e.q.etc) -- be a relief to abandon the in ear actually.

Thanks again all, wish I had more of a clear answer to the problem, but hey, it seems to be solved.

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