ProSoundWeb Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: 1 ... 6 7 [8]   Go Down

Author Topic: Why are the vocal mics clipping the amps?  (Read 25125 times)

Deke Lockrem

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 27
Re: Why are the vocal mics clipping the amps?
« Reply #70 on: January 29, 2012, 04:32:40 PM »


Besides looking at the DBX link above, you might want to look at the manual for your factory processor and compare the two.  I would also recommend that you (and I) study up on what the various dB levels (dBfs, dBu, etc) represent in terms of scale and voltage.  A more thorough understanding in this area should make things clear in a "mechanical" sense and explain what we're hearing in the system output and response.

Happy trails.
This is one area that I would like to learn about. OK, so lets talk about what happened at the gig Friday night....Keep in mind though, this was a different band.

I did take your advice and run ALL 3 vocal channels through a subgroup. I assigned all the vox to subgroup 4 and assigned that subgroup to the main. I have reverb and delay on subgroups 1 and 2.

The photos below show what was going on. Input signal at -15 as suggested, but look at the subgroup meter. The first photo shows the open channel while nobody was singing. It was picking up a lot of stage noise...especially the drums(as you would expect) The second photo was with singing....input signal staying right at -15, but the output from the subgroup was hot. FYI, the subgroup 4 fader was at U.

There was no clipping of the amplifiers and no distorted vocals all night. Im thinking that lowering the input gain to -15 was the ticket. This was the only change I made for this show. Now that I have set my gain structure, Im fairly confident that I will have no problems with the 5 vox band.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2012, 04:36:41 PM by Deke Lockrem »
Logged

g'bye, Dick Rees

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7424
  • Duluth
Re: Why are the vocal mics clipping the amps?
« Reply #71 on: January 29, 2012, 04:54:45 PM »

Thanks for the visuals.

A couple of thoughts:

1.  You've shown the sub-group meters and set your channel input gains @ -15 as suggested.  Cool that that makes the problem less critical.  But there's one more thing I would like to know about the metering.  If you use the FatChannel LED's in the "Output" mode, what levels are the individual channels hitting while the sub-group meters are as they are?  Just a double-check....

2.  If you're showing that much stuff into the vox mics with no voices on them I'd recommend that you use your "expanders" on them.  It's somewhat like gating, but not a hard "on/off" situation which can be audible and distracting.  Set your threshhold for the expanders as high as you need to lessen the amount of bleed from the unused mics and set your release adjustment @ around 1.0.  This will help clean things up a bit.  The expander/gate selections are by channel pairs (1/2, 3/4, etc) and are set in the System menu, page 4 of the Master section.

3.  If you solo the vox mics and listen in the headphones, you'll be able to identify the worst offenders in the stage wash:  drums, amps, etc.  Then you can start to work on those issues by deploying some deflectors between the kit and the voice mics, turning the guitar amps to face across the stage rather than at the mics/audience (a much discussed topic around here) and just getting them to turn the amps down, use smaller amps or whatever it takes to let you dictate the mix in the house through the PA rather than limit your job to pushing vocals over the stage wash.

Enjoy.  Looks like you're getting along well.
Logged
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Why are the vocal mics clipping the amps?
« Reply #71 on: January 29, 2012, 04:54:45 PM »


Pages: 1 ... 6 7 [8]   Go Up
 



Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.021 seconds with 21 queries.