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[Chris Hindle]

I've mixed lots of shows.  The gain on your mic DEFINITELY MATTERS!!! 

Nope. Loudest thing at the mic wins. Simple as that.

[Alex Lusht]

Tom,MAC,Chris are you trying to tell me that a pre amp setting has no effect on what comes into your mix?  That a hotter gained mic WON'T pick up more sources?  I simply disagree.

Todd... GREAT suggestion!!!!


Tom, MAC, Chris, et al...... how bout some solutions to the question?  Other than the ones that you have repeated from my first post. i.e. relative volume of the sources is important( see Number one in my original post)

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Tom,MAC,Chris are you trying to tell me that a pre amp setting has no effect on what comes into your mix?  That a hotter gained mic WON'T pick up more sources?  I simply disagree.

We are saying two things:
1. Turning up the gain affects everything the mic hears uniformly - adding 6dB of gain makes the intended target - the vocal 6dB louder.  It also makes all the undesirable background noise the same 6dB louder.  There is no relative benefit of clarity from additional gain at the preamp.
2. The suggestion that the preamp gain knob has a different effect on the mics performance than the fader is incorrect.  It is true that the circuit topology of a preamp gain control (which usually is a gain control) is often different from a fader (which is often an attenuator, and not a gain control), however, within the electrical limits of the board, they accomplish the same thing and their actions are on the same vector, so to speak.  Turning one up and the other down the same amount will net you no change.

One can make the argument that preamps have a different tonal character and the signal timbre may change slightly depending on how hot the preamp is run vs. the channel fader, but this is a small effect, and has nothing at all to do with what the mic "hears".

Todd... GREAT suggestion!!!!


Tom, MAC, Chris, et al...... how bout some solutions to the question?  Other than the ones that you have repeated from my first post. i.e. relative volume of the sources is important( see Number one in my original post)

Other than your incorrect understanding of the affect of mic gain, your post was pretty good, and your post plus the clarifications of others cover the usual bases:
- Turn the offending source down (play quieter)
- Get the mic closer to the good source and farther from the offending sources (eat the mic)
- Get a mic with a tighter pickup pattern.
- Gate to keep the mics off until good signal is present.

About the only thing left is to ask the vocalist to sing louder.

[Alex Lusht]

I'm Sorry, I can be "offensive" and "defensive" which is a dangerous combo....!

I didn't mean to offend...

I have spent my life enjoying this magic that we all create.  I came to this forum hoping to find new ideas, camaraderie, advice, community, and all the things we are here for!

Anyhoo, I hope some of the suggestions will help for the drum bleed problem.

Peace,
Alex

[Doug Fowler]

I'm curious which pins on the XLR cable are used for the mixer to report back to the mic what selective things it should be picking up and which protocol is used?

Interesting technology.

No protocol involved, it's actually simple and ingenius.  This technology was used AFAIK by the Grateful Dead 'back in the day' by taping a pair of microphones together, reversing the polarity of one (IIRC), and ensuring the capsules were a specific distance apart to make all this work.

I suspect with a Wall of Sound ^tm directly behind the performer, this was a huge, huge advantage.

Crown PDF on differoid technology:

http://www.crownaudio.com/pdf/mics/136368.pdf

I owned a four-pack of CM-310s for years.  I got them when I was doing noisy club gigs.  They didn't sound as 'nice' as some other options, but getting a significant amount of cymbal bleed out of the vocal microphones made up for it, in spades.

For the OP:  get thee a CM-311a and fix your problem as much as you can, with hardware.

Seriously, if you're not 'lips on grill' you won't be heard.  They work that well, in my experience.

[James Babcock]

Singing drummer myself, I use the Crown CM311 after trying pretty much every recommended headset mic available. The AKG picked up more cymbal bleed than the Shure by far. Could it also have something to do with the actual physical drum setup? I run my cymbals fairly high compared to the newer "norm" ala Travis Barker. Even the particular cymbals being used should be considered. Sometimes drummers will select a cymbal set without recognizing they will be having microphones on them and don't necessarily need to cut through the guitars and such on stage like needed sometimes in a small loud rehearsal room. Also being able to play for the room is a skill learned over some years on stage as well. One can still LOOK like they are bashing like the cool kids like to do without actually hitting the things that hard. Being able to mix ones self on the kit and work with the room is paramount to having a good front end sound that isn't battling the extremely loud stage mix.

Rock on,
James

[Scott Middleton]

About the noise canceling "Wall of Sound" mics...

"2 B&K caps used in out of phase pairs as differential noise canceling mics"

Sing in to the top one only, bleed is canceled.

[Douglas R. Allen]

Many years ago I heard the "turn the gain down the mic won't hear as much far away method" and I questioned it. To find out for myself I put 2 speakers out. One speaker 1 foot away from my rta mic the other 10 feet away from the mic. I put 2 test tones on. 1k  in the speaker 1 foot way and 4k in the speaker 10 feet away. 
I set both speakers volumes so 0db read on an RTA I had at the time at these freq. (In 1988 it was all I had)
Turning the gain up and down on the mixer within the 12db range the rta had showed no difference in spl between the two tones. The same effect for the fader.
If changing gain means less input for a signal farther away I should have noted a difference in spl between the tones.
I also wondered back then why some assigned a source to many groups to gain-gain to reduce feedback? Seems the same thing to me. If a preamp won't give you what you need in a modern board then how quite is the source signal?
Get what you want in the mic louder and have what you don't want to go in it turn down or hit lighter.
Get the best mic you can.

Douglas R. Allen

[Mark Hadman]

Many years ago I heard the "turn the gain down the mic won't hear as much far away method" and I questioned it. To find out for myself I put 2 speakers out. One speaker 1 foot away from my rta mic the other 10 feet away from the mic. I put 2 test tones on. 1k  in the speaker 1 foot way and 4k in the speaker 10 feet away. 
I set both speakers volumes so 0db read on an RTA I had at the time at these freq. (In 1988 it was all I had)
Turning the gain up and down on the mixer within the 12db range the rta had showed no difference in spl between the two tones. The same effect for the fader.
If changing gain means less input for a signal farther away I should have noted a difference in spl between the tones.

Douglas R. Allen

Fantastic! What a hero! I've often idly dreamed of setting up such a demonstration...

There is, however, one very common situation in which Alex's theory holds some water - that is when there is compression (or other dynamic processing) between the gain pot and the fader. Otherwise, yes, the gain pot and the fader have exactly the same effect on what gets into the main mix bus. In the OP's case, I would recommend reducing or completely removing any such compression.

[DavidTurner]

I've mixed lots of shows.  The gain on your mic DEFINITELY MATTERS!!!  But what do I know.
Go ahead, crank it all up!  Have fun with that......

I am sure you have mixed a lot of shows Alex, but don't discount what Mac and others have said here and elsewhere. Mac is a true professional having been the mixer for some mighty big events (football games with super in the title to just name one). He is always eager to share his wealth of knowledge and you can benefit greatly from the things he has to say. I know that I have.

[ProSoundWeb Community]