Need Help With PA For A Low Singer

[shawshank72]

I recently starting playing in a side project that has a female singer. We have a yamaha powered mixer at 350 watts a side going into 2 2x15 cabs, yeah plenty of everything. When I sing through the settings that we have for the singer its so loud you cant hear anything else, but when she sings it is barely audible in the mix. She has a great voice but she just dosent project it, is there anything that we can use as in compressors, etc. so that we can crank the gain without getting extreme feedback?

[greenboy]

Best to deal with the signal first. A good singer is not a soft talker. And a good singer knows mic technique: proximity, etc.



That said, are you doing channel gain/trim and EQ and mic choice correctly for the particular person's voice?

[shawshank72]

But I dont wanna be a pirate!
I love that show....
Yes eveything is good on those items, we have her sounding great. Its just we cant increase her gain anymore to have her louder in the mix.

[Munjibunga]

Singing lessons.

[MrDOS]

I'd have to agree - work it at the source, if the PA works OK for other singers. A compressor isn't going to really help here.

[Stumbo]

Originally Posted by Munjibunga

Singing lessons.

+1

Vocalists need volume to be able to sing with dynamics.

If she's singing as loud as she can and not projecting, how can she do the dynamic level changes required by some songs?

[canshaker]

Originally Posted by Stumbo

Vocalists need volume to be able to sing with dynamics.

Unless the sound she gets is the sound required for the band.
What kind of mic are you using? Try one with higher gain.
A trick that Kurt Cobain used, so as to get more gain out of an SM58, is to dent the grill, to enable the singer to get closer to the diaphragm of the mic. It works. I have done it in the past.

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Another vote for singing lessons. You always have to fight the problem at the source, singing into a mic is not an exeption to that rule.

Originally Posted by canshaker

What kind of mic are you using? Try one with higher gain.
A trick that Kurt Cobain used, so as to get more gain out of an SM58, is to dent the grill, to enable the singer to get closer to the diaphragm of the mic. It works. I have done it in the past.

IME, more gain always equal more feedback problems. At least when inexperienced singers are concerned.

If one has to dent the grill in order to "get more gain" a change of hobby might be a better choice . The physics are strongly against that working.


One thing I've noticed with inexperienced people singing into mics, is that they do fear hearing their voice. So they sing softly. Increasing their signal on the mains or on the monitors will make them sing even softer. IME 9 out of 10 "newbies" fall into that trap. Some will never get over it, and are limited to unamplified performances, where the bone transfer sound overcomes the sound transmitted by the ears.

Regards
Sam

[KeithAlanK]

If there are monitors, turn them down so she HAS to sing louder.

[Jonjump]

How loud are you running your monitors?

Following on from the last message, it's sometimes a problem with a less confident singer worrying that they are either too loud or not sounding good. Try the following:

1. Run a little reverb on the monitor feed ( often your mixer won' be providing any fx to monitors by default )

2. Turn the monitors down a lot; your singer will usually sing louder to compensate

If she complains that she can't hear herself, do not explain what you are doing (it will destroy the magic), just explain that it might help if she got nearer the mic.

I have been amazed how well this trick works over and over again. And good luck.

[TimmyP]

Barring singing lessons, the first step is to get her a microphone that will give the maximum ratio of wanted sound (her) to unwanted sound (anything else). The OM7 would seem to be the champ here, although the E935 (especially if you put a shorter ball on it), ND767a, ND967, and PL80a are good contenders.

Whatever mic she uses, she needs to have her lips on the grill at all times.

[canshaker]

Originally Posted by T-Bird

If one has to dent the grill in order to "get more gain" a change of hobby might be a better choice .

This is my "hobby"??

[greenboy]

Originally Posted by shawshank72

Yes eveything is good on those items, we have her sounding great.

If everything I mentioned up there was covered, she'd be loud enough.

Its just we cant increase her gain anymore to have her louder in the mix.

While she's "singing" kick her in the can, HARD, and see if she can't make a louder noise than a "soft talker" usually does. I mean, she is the problem, not the gear.

She needs to sing!!!!!! - not just whimper or simper.

[greenboy]

I remember seeing Lydia Pense and Cold Blood way back in the dark ages. After listening to her sounding powerful enough to envelope the horn section when she cut loose on the albums, I was shocked to see a little pixie of a woman, maybe a petite 4'8". Amazing power and dynamics!

[derrico1]

Originally Posted by shawshank72

We have a yamaha powered mixer at 350 watts a side going into 2 2x15 cabs, yeah plenty of everything.

+1 to the long-term fix being voice lessons to help your singer project. In the meantime, though, you need help getting through gigs.

We're guessing about your venues, monitor system, band mix, etc. We're also guessing about the functional problem. Is it that you can't get enough gain for her to be heard in the FOH, for her to hear herself in the monitors, or for the rest of you to hear her in the monitors?

If you mute the monitor system to prevent the stage wedges from feeding back, is your singer's mic still feeding back in the house mains when her channel has enough gain to put her over the instrument bed?

If so, you might need to pull other instruments and voices down in (or out of) the FOH mix. You can also play with mics that have tighter response patterns and that fit her voice better. In the most extreme cases, you'd have to pull the instruments out of the mains *and* bring them down on stage. Until your singer learns to project, you'd be "that quiet band."

Or is the problem originating with stage monitors? If so, start by ringing these out to address any serious frequency spikes. If her mic is feeding back in well tuned monitors, you can lower stage volume, move her to in-ear monitors, or both. If she doesn't fly all over the stage, I'd start with a simple wired in-ear path of mixer aux out --> limiter --> headphone amp --> ear buds.