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Help! Drums Causing Monitor Feedback
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When my band is set up very tight into the corner of a bar or frat
house, the drums cause feedback in the monitors. The drums are mic'd,
but only going to the mains. There are no reverb or delay effects on
the monitors. However, the vocal mics that are picking up the drums
and causing feedback have a small amount of gate and compression on
them in both monitors and mains. Should I:
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Gating vocal mics is almost always useless. Compressing them in the
monitors is asking for trouble.
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1) Wire up the PA so that there is no compression in the monitors--only
on the mains? This will be possible with the Alesis 12-r I'm thinking
about getting.
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This is definitely a way to solve the problem. Does the Yamaha board have
subgroups? Does it have enough spare channels to an additional channel per
vocal? (one for mains, one for monitors)
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2) We have a Yamaha powered mixer that has an effects loop and return
on the mains. We could run the mains out of the monitor channel and
the monitors out of the main channel. This would allow us to put one
side of our 31-band EQ in the effect loop and cut the frequencies that
are causing problems. It's an FBQ that shows which frequencies are
feeding back. The 9-band EQ on the powered mixer isn't good enough to
do this. The vocals can be mixed together, split into 2 busses on the
Alesis 12r, and run through the other sided of the EQ before going to
the mains. That way, I can EQ the mains and monitors differently with
my 31 band EQ without having to buy all new gear.
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It would help to know the model number of the mixer. I think the problem is
the compression in the monitors. For small stages I try to avoid
compression on any mics but one or maybe two vocals at a time, and only in
the mains.
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I'm avoiding going the mixer/power amp route because we'll never have a
sound man and I like leaving everyting hooked up in its case. Also, we
only play small rooms and I can't afford all new stuff!
Thanks for your help!
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