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Author Topic: Heil PR-22  (Read 63087 times)

Jordan Wolf

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Re: Heil PR-22
« Reply #20 on: June 25, 2008, 01:44:25 PM »

Bob Leonard wrote on Tue, 24 June 2008 23:24

Also, I spoke to Bob Heil and Andy is correct. Sweetwater not carrying the Heil line is nothing more than a business decision. Quality is not an issue.


I never doubted it...I was surprised when I heard my voice through the PR-22 just using it as a talkback!    Razz
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Robert Alan

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Re: Heil PR-22
« Reply #21 on: June 25, 2008, 01:46:13 PM »

going back to what andy said about them making a super-cardioid version of the pr-22. isnt the pr-35 a super? im a bit confused because it says its a cardioid on its site page but then says its a super in the instruction manual?



also im liking the fact that everyone keeps describing the heil mics as very clear and articulate because most flatter freq. response dynamics ive come across, the more muddier they are. the heils are sounding more and more appealing.
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Bob Leonard

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Re: Heil PR-22
« Reply #22 on: June 26, 2008, 09:45:36 AM »

Yesterday I received the last four of my PR-20s back from Bob Heil, retrofitted with the new PR-22 element. After listening to the 20 for as long as I have it seems to me the 22 is actually more articule than before, and of course all the handling noise is gone. Life is good. I replaced a 57 on a Vibrolux with on of the retrofits. It's night and day, and sounds like a whole new amp. So my lineup right now is PR-22s for backup vocals, PR-35 for lead vocals, PR-30, 40 and 22 for guitar cabinets. For other bands and guests, drums (22 and 30), bass (30 or 40), guitar (22, 30, 40). Like I said, life is simple and life is good.
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Dave Dermont

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Re: Heil PR-22
« Reply #23 on: June 26, 2008, 03:29:20 PM »

Bob Leonard wrote on Thu, 26 June 2008 09:45

I replaced a 57 on a Vibrolux with on of the retrofits. It's night and day, and sounds like a whole new amp.


Geeze, with your head so far up Bob Heil's ass, it's a wonder you can still hear ANYTHING.  Rolling Eyes

Bob, you know I say that with love.

...but seriously folks (for you youngsters, this is a Joe Walsh reference)

It pretty amazing how fast the Heil folks have responded to the marketplace.

DD
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Bob Leonard

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Re: Heil PR-22
« Reply #24 on: June 26, 2008, 04:10:13 PM »

Dave Dermont wrote on Thu, 26 June 2008 15:29

Bob Leonard wrote on Thu, 26 June 2008 09:45

I replaced a 57 on a Vibrolux with on of the retrofits. It's night and day, and sounds like a whole new amp.


Geeze, with your head so far up Bob Heil's ass, it's a wonder you can still hear ANYTHING.  Rolling Eyes

Bob, you know I say that with love.

...but seriously folks (for you youngsters, this is a Joe Walsh reference)

It pretty amazing how fast the Heil folks have responded to the marketplace.

DD


("Popping sound") What was that???  Laughing

I still have other mics I use Dave, just not anywhere near as much as I use these. I guess I've gotten lazy in my old age. Not as many decisions to make with the Heils. Very Happy

Re-inserting now, give me a tug if you need me.  Laughing
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Brandon G Romanowski

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Re: Heil PR-22
« Reply #25 on: July 01, 2008, 08:44:31 PM »

Hey Andy,
  I wonder if you would do a review of the handi mic?   I would be interested to hear your take on them.

Regards
     Brandon
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Andy Peters

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Re: Heil PR-22 :(
« Reply #26 on: July 02, 2008, 12:33:57 PM »

Well, now the bad news ...

I am convinced that the PR-22 pattern is wider than a standard cardioid.

And that may be fine on non-box-like stages, but at Maxwell's (where the legend is bigger than the room) and with singers who are not all that strong (and depending on the song, intentionally so), there's just not enough side rejection (even if that side and back sound is "nice") to get adequate monitor levels. And this particular venue has the boxes rather close to the stage so there is some significant backwash off of the box' sides (JBL SR things), leading to a low-level low-mid "hummmmm."

Now since I am not pig-headed enough to stick with something that is clearly not working, I grabbed a pair of the industry-standard obsolete ball microphones out of the club's kit, put 'em up, and fuck me up a rope: there was a marked improvement in GBF. Shure (that's a pun, folks), the tone from the mic wasn't as "good" but a few twiddles of Carey D's EQ knobs and I was able to get the singer to sound like, well, the singer. He was happy, I was happy, and probably most important, the 250 people who waited 17 years to see this band again were happy.

So I will stick with the SM58 for tonight, mainly because it's working, and I'll try out the PR-22s again on Friday outdoors on a big stage, where I expect they'll do well. But for smaller stages where things tend to be loud, a mic with a tighter pattern is necessary. Besides, you paid for the channel-strip tone controls and there's no shame in, you know, actually using them.

Bob, if you're reading this: gimme a PR-25 with a supercardioid pattern.

-a

PS: I have audio files of the singer's voice through the PR-22 and through the SM58, and once I sort it all out, I'll post snippets.
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Bob Leonard

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Re: Heil PR-22 :(
« Reply #27 on: July 02, 2008, 10:35:52 PM »

Andy Peters wrote on Wed, 02 July 2008 12:33

Well, now the bad news ...

I am convinced that the PR-22 pattern is wider than a standard cardioid.

And that may be fine on non-box-like stages, but at Maxwell's (where the legend is bigger than the room) and with singers who are not all that strong (and depending on the song, intentionally so), there's just not enough side rejection (even if that side and back sound is "nice") to get adequate monitor levels. And this particular venue has the boxes rather close to the stage so there is some significant backwash off of the box' sides (JBL SR things), leading to a low-level low-mid "hummmmm."

Now since I am not pig-headed enough to stick with something that is clearly not working, I grabbed a pair of the industry-standard obsolete ball microphones out of the club's kit, put 'em up, and fuck me up a rope: there was a marked improvement in GBF. Shure (that's a pun, folks), the tone from the mic wasn't as "good" but a few twiddles of Carey D's EQ knobs and I was able to get the singer to sound like, well, the singer. He was happy, I was happy, and probably most important, the 250 people who waited 17 years to see this band again were happy.

So I will stick with the SM58 for tonight, mainly because it's working, and I'll try out the PR-22s again on Friday outdoors on a big stage, where I expect they'll do well. But for smaller stages where things tend to be loud, a mic with a tighter pattern is necessary. Besides, you paid for the channel-strip tone controls and there's no shame in, you know, actually using them.

Bob, if you're reading this: gimme a PR-25 with a supercardioid pattern.

-a

PS: I have audio files of the singer's voice through the PR-22 and through the SM58, and once I sort it all out, I'll post snippets.


Holy shit Batmandy, your experiencing just the opposite of what I experienced. I've had much better results on tight stages with the 20/22s and wash hasn't been a problem. Stupid monitors! I'll put in the request with the powers that be. And thank's for the honest review. If all we needed were one mic than my case would be much smaller than it is.

How's the little guy doing. Is he strong enough to push a fader yet??
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Andy Peters

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Re: Heil PR-22
« Reply #28 on: August 17, 2008, 06:49:34 PM »

OK, so more on the PR22.

Last week, I used them with good results on a local band with two lead singers, a guy with a serious Tom Waits thing (baritone voice and the hat) and a girl with strong pipes. I used one on the singer for the support act too. In both cases, the stage volume was quite reasonable and the singers were strong.

We had Xiu Xiu and Carla Bozulich's Evangelista in last night.

Now, if you don't know, Xiu Xiu are at the intersection of 80's English synth-pop/rock (New Order, Yaz, Erasure) and ambient experimental percussion (bells, glock, xylophone) plus a harmonium (which is an accordion that lives on a stand; IOW, the tool of a truly lazy devil). So backline is a drum kit, various percussion, a drum machine that makes weird noises, a sampler that makes weird noises and a synth that makes weird noises plus bass notes, and finally an electric guitar.

I put up the 22s for synthist Caralee and guitarist Jamie, and they did a couple of songs during soundcheck. Jamie's voice is sonorous yet not exactly strong. By the very rough indicator of such things, the input trim was up higher than usual. I cued up the channel in the cans and it turned out that I was getting as much of his guitar amp in his vocal mic as his voice. (And that guitar amp sounded great, even though it was six feet away from the mic.) Clearly not good. So once again, the obsolete 40-year-old ball microphone comes to the rescue and I get enough rejection to have his voice stand out from the din.

Evangelista was a different story ... the songs are tone poems supporting Carla's tales. She has a strong, resonant voice and she knows how to use it.  With the PR22, the input trim was way down, and with low backline levels, I wasn't getting a lot of leakage. She sounded great.

All of this of course jibes with my previous observations: if you are working with a strong vocalist in front of a quiet band (or one on IEMs), then the mic truly shines. The wide pattern in this environment isn't a liability. I suspect this mic will be great on the singer-songwriter type.

If you are working with a band in the usual rock idiom where the singer isn't really strong, look elsewhere. The PR22 just doesn't work here. I can use EQ and compression to deal with proximity effect and the presence peak and such. But electronics can't mitigate leakage due to a wide pattern.

Again, a supercardioid version of this mic would be great.

-a
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Mark Hadman

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Re: Heil PR-22
« Reply #29 on: August 18, 2008, 04:11:16 PM »

Jah Wobble's Chinese Dub project was in town recently. As H.E. I had my new PR-22 with me, and the B.E. was happy to give it a spin because he'd heard good things.

For sound check we set up the PR-22 and a Beta 57a at the center vocal position and let vocalist Claire have the option of using either one. After switching back and forth a few times, the B.E. and I agreed that the 22 had the edge in terms of clarity, but Claire thought that the B57a sounded clearer through the monitors and so we moved the 22 aside for Jah Wobble to use. In the 22's defence, the monitors were more or less EQ'd to sound good with a Shure, and Claire, like most singers, has been using Shures for years.

Later on in the same sound check it became apparent that the 22 was amplifying large amounts of rumble from people moving around on the stage, and since dancing was a central part of the show we reluctantly swapped the 22 out for another B57a. Having briefly A/B'd the two mics myself at home I have to say that the 22 does seem to have quite a lot of handling noise compared to a B57a. I intend to make a more scientific comparison next time I have a mixer and recorder set up and a spare half hour.

On a more positive note, as a B.E. myself I've taken to using the 22 as a backing vocal mic for our drummer*. With an SM58 or similar his voice requires a deep cut at 200Hz (he always asks for that cut in his monitors too), but I can run the 22 more or less flat, with maybe a little cut at 5K so as to not stand out too much from the front-line SM58s! This is a guy who's so sociable that he's generally lost most of his voice by the second day of a festival weekend, so having that clarity is important. The next step may be to try pointing the 22 somewhat downwards, allowing it double up as the drum overhead mic.

More to follow.


* Re my previous post - we've also tried it on snare top as suggested and it was fine and snappy, although for that particular gig I was mixing from backstage (yep you heard right) so didn't get much chance to appreciate the finer details.
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