SM58 vs AT2020 for live bluegrass instruments

[RHA III]

I have a gig coming up where I need to mic up upright bass, fiddle and banjo. Also have two vocal microphones and an acoustic guitar going direct to the board. Going to be a busy event with about 200 people so we will need to use wedges for monitors. Mixer is an x18. Question is do I use sm-58s or AT2020 condenser mics for the instruments? Pros and cons?

At rehearsal we noticed the condenser mics were nice because they didn't need to be positioned as close to the instrument but feedback was an issue.

We've never used monitors in the past so our experience is limited.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

I have done and do a fair amount of bluegrass shows and have used condensers and dynamic mics in various combinations as well as many single mic with maybe a line from the bass.

Electrovoice RE Variable D series mics work well for dynamics RE10, RE11, RE15 PL6.
All are older and out of production, that style mic all but eliminates the low build up proximity effect as you get the sound source closer to the mic.
A high pass filter is a must on acoustic instrument mic inputs.

Why are you going to use monitors for this show?
Ring them out using the instrument mic, keep them at the bare minimum level. They can be tricky, the instrument mics are for the most part lower and closer to the monitors, even without feedback there can be a lot bleed back into the instrument mics.

You will never get rock and roll monitor levels with any instrument mic and the instrument playing 12 inches away from it.

In your case the banjo a fiddle have some decent output to mic up.

How are you going mic up the bass, the classic is put a 57 in a piece of foam stuck into the tail piece. You can mic with a mic on a stand if the player does not move the bass around too much while playing or try a small clip on mic on the bridge.

 

[Wasnex]

AFAIK, bluegrass groups don't typically use monitors. It's common for all group members to gather around a single mic. When it's your turn to solo, you step up closer to the mic, and when your solo is done you step back.

Mic'ing an upright bass and then putting it in the monitors is difficult to impossible. The mic will sense whatever sound is loudest at the capsule. The biggest problem is upright basses are not very loud to begin with. When the sound coming from the monitor approaches the volume of the upright, it will cause problems. At low gain settings it will degrade the tone. As the gain is increased it will break over into feedback. Gain before feedback with a mic'ed upright is incredibly low.

It can even be difficult just putting a mic'ed upright in the PA because lows tend to be omnidirectional.

You might be able to spread the sound around to the other musicians, but making it significantly louder on stage is unlikely.

If you absolutely must amplify the upright louder on stage, I suggest using a pickup. Way more gain before feedback.

Both mics are listed as cardioid. The AT2020 has wider and flatter frequency response.

AT2020

SM58

I would expect the AT2020 to sound a bit more natural, but the extended low end may cause more problems with feedback.

Something that may help is time aligning the arrival of the acoustic sound and sound from the PA. The idea is to pick the prime listening location and set up the mic and speakers so the acoustic and amplified sound arrives as close together as possible. This can be done by setting up the speakers and mic so they are equidistant from the target area.

If you are using a digital board, it may have a delay function that can be used for time alignment. The idea here is you can delay the sound coming from the PA so it better aligns with the acoustic sound coming off stage.

The time alignment trick is most helpful when the level of the instrument's is about the same as the volume coming from the PA.

Placing the speakers wider may give you more gain before feedback. However if the speakers are too wide, the sound stage tends to collapse more in the center. Rather than seeming like the music is coming from the band, the audience will hear primarily whichever speaker is closer.

IF the gig is indoors, careful aiming of the speakers can improv gain before feedback and fidelity. You want to focus as much of the sound as possible on the audience, and try your best to keep it from bouncing off the walls, ceiling, and floor. Ideally you want the speakers fairly high and tilted to aim down into the audience, rather than level and shooting straight out.

 

[eniac]

Is this event going to be a potential stepping stone to bigger and better jobs, if the crowd is impressed?

 

[Mike Caldwell]

You will want to hi pass the bass, higher than you may think 80hz plus.

Not sure of your playing style but yes to the mentioned stepping in and out of the mic.
The instrument levels are normally set for the solo / "break" levels and maybe after a couple tweaks during the first song or two the band does the rest.

You mentioned the acoustic guitar going direct so that could need to be more actively "mixed"

Had one bluegrass band who wanted to use the single mic but not once did anyone ever move on the stage!!!!

 

[BobKay]

Some form of condenser mics will be fine for the banjo, fiddle and mandolin. Trying to mic the bass will be very difficult if you want the bass to be heard. This opinion is based on playing upright in a bluegrass band over many years.

If possible, one option would be to use one large diaphragm condenser mic, perhaps one from Ear Trumpet labs, and have everyone work off that one mic. The several times I've played in that situation, it worked reasonably well. Of course, everyone has to be sure they are not standing in front of another player unless soloing. But those mics are not cheap.

Wrapping a SM57 in foam may be the classic approach, but I haven't seen it used in many years, unless as a last resort. There are many more mic options available now, with greater but still limited success.

The best option is a pickup, either direct or through a DI to the board; good piezo units are available under $75.

 

[BobKay]

Here's the web site for Vic's Pickups. Specializes in upright bass. Model B is very popular - $45 including jack.
Hope this helps.
Vic's Pickups

 

[BobKay]

You might want to post this on the DB side. We have a Bluegrass forum over there. Might get a few more answers.

 

[Bonecat]

My daughter plays fiddle in a number of bluegrass bands and the majority of the time they’re using a couple good condenser mics that the players move in and out of as the tune demands. URB is usually mic’d or a pickup through a small preamp. Gain levels are modest. No monitors, no vocal mics. It works surprisingly well. Keep things as simple as possible…

 

[newfuture]

I've mixed a lot of bluegrass and old time over the years.
Single mic is wonderful if you have practiced it a lot already. De facto standard was an AT4033 at the time. The 2020 is a much brighter/harsher sound (imo), and might not be a great choice.

If you are new to it and/or have someone else mixing, close micing may be better.

In your shoes, I'd go with -

Bass- DI if possible. If not, 57 or 58 attached to the instrument. Towel wrap if need be (under the strings between the bridge and end pin). But really, get a pickup/DI. I've had good sound with everything but the fishman clip-ons. K&k was my favorite I used when I was playing URB, followed by Underwood.

Banjo - SM57 (58 if you don't have a 57)

Fiddle - 2020.

Monitors- like others said, get away with the lowest volume you can. Maybe just vocals.

Like Mike Caldwell said, Hi-pass everything, and probably higher than you might initially think.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

For the single mic bluegrass I have and used many times a CAD E100 original made in Ohio version with the two 9 volt batteries in it.
For the last six or so years I've been using an Ear Trumpet Edwina most of the time.

In addition to the mics I mentioned earlier I've also used AKG 535's, AT Pro 37's, AT 873R,
SM57's, AT AE4100's.

I carry and very inexpensive clip on piezo pickup that I have used a few times on a bass bridge that has worked decent when connected to a Radial PZDI.
I can't remember the brand name of that pickup!

 

[neddyrow]

Our band uses 2 AT 4033s and I go direct with my bass using a pickup and DI. We use in-ears as the mics cause too many feedback issues. We have had great success with this method. We have even played indoors with this setup when I said we shouldn't.

How soon is this gig? You've got a lot of planning and practice to do to be ready for a 200 person show - if you hope to do well. There are lots of options and good ones mentioned above.

Good luck

 

[Mike Caldwell]

All told for this show maybe think about renting in a PA system with a soundperson who
has experience and worked acoustic bluegrass type shows.

 

[REV]

Back in the day I used to put an SM58 in a sock and place it inside my bass through the F hole. Worked great.

 

[micguy]

At rehearsal we noticed the condenser mics were nice because they didn't need to be positioned as close to the instrument but feedback was an issue.

This statement is odd - the primary reason to place mics close to a source is gain before feedback. So...to get the same gain before feedback with the condenser, you will need to move the condenser mic closer to the source, so that means.... they do need to be positioned as close to the instrument as the dynamic.

 

[jthisdell]

IME it is so much easier when everyone in my BG group uses a pickup. Banjo is easiest because they tend to be loud and you won't need much in the monitors but still much easier with a pickup. Have played numerous gigs with no mic or pickup on banjo and the rest of us play to his volume. And I take it you are doing your own sound from stage? Again, my .02 is to use pickups, especially if running your own sound while playing.

 

[RHA III]

Thanks for all the replies! Lots of good advice in here, I really appreciate everyone chiming in.

The gig happened last night and it was a good one. Approx 175~200 people in a large banquet/ballroom. We played a 30 minute set as background music for people arriving at the event. Then a break before another 45 minute set while they ate dinner. After another break we played 1 1/2 hours for a "square dance" with a caller. Everyone was happy with the band and we got lots of compliments. Our sound on stage started out pretty good but as the night went on it got worse and worse.

Here's what I learned.

Our sound guy said he might not make it, so I decided to focus on the best monitor mix I could get and just run that thru the mains. At rehearsal the night before we were pretty happy with it by the end of the session. I went with a sm 57 for banjo, sm58 for fiddle and a beta52 kick drum mic for the bass. No condensers. Everything was high passed at 140ish except bass. I played around with it a lot and decided to leave it at 40hz. We are older folks using music stands on stage and not moving around at all, so I was able to get the mics pretty close. I set the gains to the point where we could have some dynamics in the monitors, but they were not to loud at all. I was just guessing at how much volume we'd need to hear ourselves in a moderately noisy room.

Day of the gig our sound guy shows up just in time for sound check an hour before we start. I explain how I set the mixer for us to be happy with the monitors and ask him to try and respect that if he can. Long story short is, as the night went on he changed the settings more and more to make front of the house sound better, so the stage sound suffered. When we were nice and quiet in the beginning he didn't have to change much, but as more people started showing up and we got louder and turned up more he needed to tweak eq, gain, compression and add noise gates. All of this affected the monitor sound in a negative way. It went from "this is what we sound like in the kitchen, only louder" to weird and annoying, but the vocals were still helpful. Our sense of dynamics was diminished. Kind of like playing with condoms on your ears. We are very familiar with the material so I think we probably pulled it off just fine.

We've discussed using the one mic method, but it's not feasible with music stands. lol Maybe for a short set in the future? Probably just stick with no monitors for our handful of times playing out unless we could experiment with in ears... or maybe use a completely separate mixer for monitors so they aren't affected by front of the house changes.

 

[Wasnex]

I explain how I set the mixer for us to be happy with the monitors and ask him to try and respect that if he can.

This is essentially saying, thanks for coming and don't touch anything.

What you describe suggest the main mix probably improved as the monitor mix got worse. To mitigate this problem, the sound must be processed separately for the mains and monitors.

The signal flow in mixers varies. Monitors are usually run off Aux sends and should be set to pre fader. Pre fader allows the faders to be adjusted to make the main mix sound as good as possible, without changing the balance of instruments in the monitors.

Ideally you would also have different EQ settings for the house mix and monitors. Unfortunately channels only have one set of EQ controls. Better boards will allow the sends to be set pre or post EQ. With pre the sound going to the monitors is not EQ'ed (flat). With post, the channel EQ is global, meaning it applies to both the mains and monitors. There are different costs and benefits of each configuration.

Neither is a good solution when mic'ing low volume acoustic instruments because the monitors and mains are likely to have different problem frequencies that want to feedback.

Also the tone of the instruments can sound significantly different on stage VS out in the house. Ideally the sound of each instrument should be tailored separately for different listening locations.

Larger systems tend to have a versatile and powerful EQ on each output. These EQs are global to the mix, meaning they effect the entire mix. Typically 31 band graphic EQs or fully parametric EQ are used for this. These EQ can be used so the tonal balance of each mix is more alike (system EQ) and they can also be used to suppress feedback at different frequencies in each mix (utility EQ). What they can't do is adjust the tone of one instrument without impacting to tone of other instruments. The choice of mic and how you aim it can be helpful here.

Another way to manage the need for separate stage and house EQ is to dual assign the channels. For example if you have a 16 channel board and only use 8 channels, you can send mic 1 to channels 1 and 8, mic 2 to channels 2 and 9, mic 3 to channels 3 and 10, etc. Then you use channels 1 thru 8 for the house mix and channels 9 thru 16 for the monitors. This approach requires more resources and is more confusing and time intensive. Also, keep in mind the audio tech can't hear what you hear on stage. So there are some efficacy problems with applying EQ to the monitor mixes. One way around this would be for the audio tech to use a wireless tablet so he/she can come up on stage to dial in the sound of individual instruments to the monitors (during sound check).

If you are getting paid, I would argue that providing the best possible sound to the audience should be the top priority, but sound quality for the musicians is a close second. Unfortunately we have competing needs here, so some degree of compromise is usually required. This often translates to: As good as possible for the audience, and as bad as can be tolerated by the musicians. The key point is there is only so much sound quality to spread around, and often you can't improve the sound for one set of listeners without degrading the quality for the others. If the musicians insist on the best possible quality on stage, it tends to result in poor sound quality for the audience, and of course the audio tech is usually blamed.

Hopefully this gives you a better sense of some typical live-sound problems and work arounds. Ultimately live sound is more about achieving the best possible compromise, rather than pursuing perfection. It's rare for everyone to be happy with the results. Sounds like you hit the mark.

 

[Mike Caldwell]

Your XR18 while a simple box mixer has all the tools to do what Wasnex suggested for the PRE POST fade monitor mixes and EQ's. The split channels would work but kind of takes the level operation and setup up a notch or two.

 

[walterw]

Going to be a busy event with about 200 people so we will need to use wedges for monitors. Mixer is an x18. Question is do I use sm-58s or AT2020 condenser mics for the instruments?

We've never used monitors in the past so our experience is limited.

oh man, you might just be walking into an ambush

without pickups this is not going to be easy, it wouldn't be easy for an experienced bluegrass setup trying to mix their own sound from stage, much less if you're not used to it

there's a strong argument for just hiring a pro soundguy; yes you make less money but the show has a better chance of being actually fun instead of a stressed-out feedback-filled can't hear anything disappointment