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Setup, Bose L1 Model 2 with Tonematch
Fender P-51 Mic
TC-Helicon Voicelive 1
Roland Rogers W50
Band in a Box

Up until now I've never taken band in a box out of the house. Have not made backing tracks. Have had lots of people over to jam with. I used Band in a Box to learn to play the horn, I hate doing scales, although I still do them it's way more instructive to play.

The addition of the TC-Helicon unit has been a marvel. The combination of the Bose and the TC-Helicon makes me into something I always wanted to be, a singer.
At least in my feeble mind. When I get video 1 done I'll post it, I've a 10 month old grandson and am making a DVD of Papa John singing 'comin' round the mountain' etc.

So I'm setup up downstairs. I've turned the input gain on the TC Helicon way down. Way down.
Otherwise the bose shoved the keyboard into the mic and that was bad.

I'll digress on one of the advantages, my uncle has sung in country bands all his life, and called square dances, plays guitar and banjo and at christmas we set up my bose in the basement of the in-laws 'mansion' as I call it. Huge L shaped basement. He was walking around, coming back walked up to the stick when back and at a break says, "how come it's just as loud in the back corner as up front?" My reply ...Bose magic!

The other thing is you really hear yourself, no stage monitor needed, you hear what the audience hears. Now I'm on pitch, have harmonies, and sometimes, when I move, feedback.

The mic is cartoid, I read hyper is better? I sing close, but would like to back up sometimes. I use a 'pop sock' over my Fender mic. I had a passport system that pooched, so I have 2 mics.

I need to rethink the mics. Once for my vocals, and one for the wife's flute.

Suggestions?


John Conley
Musica est vita
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Filter out your post and you have more than 100 tracks there!

Performance mic? Shure 57 or a derivative thereof. Studio recording? Bose

Rock on, John!


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Sam
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Turning that corner again - I have to keep following that dream, no matter what
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But I'm ver-bose. And I think in tangents. One of us has to. If it's obtuse to you it's level to me. Just pick out the plumbs. I'm pretty sure my mic is a Shure knock off. But this situation is a bit unique, as per the setup. And requires someone with an 'engineering' background.

I do know enough not to ask you for advice on women! Maybe you 'horse' around too much. LOL....OK I'm stopping now..the morning coffees are making my hands shake..or I'm laughing at my own bad puns.


John Conley
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Hi John,

While you can spend $$$$ on the various "Live" mics out there, if you are looking for a great all around Mic with presence, I recommend the good old Shure SM 57 for flute and 58 for vocals. It's the industry standard, built tough, and thousand's are used by groups all over the world. You can pick one up for less than $100 USD, and I'm sure with some looking at ebay or graigslist, you could find them used much cheaper.

If you are looking for a wireless system, check out the Samson Airline 77 systems, they work great, and I saw it at Sweetwater for $299.

Hope that helps you,
Ed

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For Live work, make your life easy and your vocal chords happier by getting and using a modern dynamic that features the neodymium magnet.

Audix OM5 is one of my personal favs.

The Shure beta 58. 'nuff said.

For a male baritone voice such as mine, I tend to prefer the Audix slightly over the Shure, it has a wee bit more presence in that range IMO.

The neodymium magnet makes more AC electricity for a given amount of air hitting the diaphragm.

This translates to more perceived sensitivity, more gain (which is always a good thing, with more gain I can run the fader down lower for the same volume level) and the much touted advertising hype of "more gain before feedback".

These two mics will "cut through" the older designs with ease.

And ease is what I'm after.



--Mac

Mac #53706 01/02/10 09:55 AM
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I use a Shure and been very happy with it. Need to purchase a "Shure Voice" and I'll be straight.

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John,

If I may, I'd suggest a nice mic pre-amp before you purchase a mic. The pre-amp adds warmth to a vocal and I know its cold up North. I have the Presonus Tube-Pre and a Shure KSM 27 here. I use them at the Singsnap site and get personal messages about what gear I am using to record with. The pre-amp does make a huge difference in overall vocal output sound.

Here is a link on the Shure.

Trax

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Wouldn't want that KSM set up for a live gig - likely too live of a mic, as most LDC's are.

Audix or Beta 58 (as Mac suggested) if you like to wander from the mic a bit.
SM57 if you like being right up on the mic.

I prefer the 57 because I prefer being right up on the mic before being heard.. and it fits my 'less baritone' sound .. its more of a weak tenor voice ..

Back when I was doing the choir thing I was often put into the baritone section just because I could sing the range, but I had no power; the rest of the baritones wouldn't even notice if I wasn't singing! Now harmonies up a little higher I can manage to push through a rock band sound!

Point I was heading towards - You'll have to try a few and see which one 'fits'.
We all 'know' each other here, but often don't know what each other's voice sounds like. Macs voice on the phone surprised me with its depth. Maybe your voice would match up well with his suggestions.


I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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John,

I love this one Cad 195 .

Good Luck,

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Ya don't need a Mic Preamp at a live gig.

You also don't need phantom powered mic, esoteric recording mic, large diaphragm mic (feedback citaaay!) or any number of a host of mics available today.

The OM5 or beta 58 will make mincemeat of 'em anyhoo in a live performance shootout.

What you want is to be heard clearly, with a bit of the cardioid pattern effect -- and not have to strain yourself to do so.

And Dynamic mics are where its at for this purpose.

Um, the purpose is doin' hit 'n run gigs with Band in a Box, 'K?


--Mac

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"One for the vocals and one for wifes Flute." KSM 27, e'nuff said.

Plus, that Pre-Amp would add some life to those canned harms, man.

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Hi John,

There's a lot of good info on mics over at the Bose site. Here's a link to the wiki and if you scroll down you'll see several mics and the setting the owners use with them.
http://toonz.ca/bose/wiki/index.php?title=Presets_%28v2%29_Used_By_Owners

My personal fav is the Seinheisser e835, but the Audix OM5 seems to be hugely popular over there.

I'm sure you realize that with your tonematch, you don't need a pre at all.
Best of luck with your search.

Cheers
Jim

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I wouldn't bother with a pre-amp either (though I have one for FX). For recording purposes, I use a Bose. For the karaoke shows and live work, I use a Behringer SM57 clone.

Baritone voice with depth


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John. If you can get that L1 to feed back when you move out from in front of the mic then the quality on the mic is bad. Simple as that. Those mics work well on Fender PA systems. They're matched to the input circuit. However, I've found that the best vocal mics on the market are the Shure dynamics. I use a Beta 57 for all my recordings. You should be able to put that mic right up against your speaker and yell into it without feed back. When I read the report on this I really sat up.

Speaking of feed back, my Beta 57 doesn't, as a rule. I've never gotten it up high enough to feed back. In fact, it's the only mic I've ever had that the voice was way over the backing tracks volume. You can ask Kajun Jeaux about that one. He uses a Shure SM58. He couldn't get his up to the same level as I was. I was Way too loud. So I had to bring mine down about 4 db. The bottom line here is I find the Beta models to be what it takes to have a quality sounding voice without feed back. I've thought about getting the Beta 87. Supposed to be the top of the line in vocal mics.

One thing is to goto a music store and try out different mics. Most places have a studio room of sorts for that purpose. Some even have really good recording studios so you can record the ambient sound of you vox across speakers.

This is just my 2¢ worth. Others mileage may vary ... a lot.


Russ
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First of all, your VL1 is a good vocal processor and has a good mic pre-amp, so you shouldn't bother with pre-amps etc. anyway.
I cannot give you any advice regarding the flute; I have no experience with that.

For the vocal microphone it is very importand to test several models and makes. Just like any musical instrument each microphone has it's own character. It doesn't allways have to relate to quality. For example: the AKG WM450 C5 is a very nice wireless condencer mic, good quality, great looks.......but I don't like it. It just doesn't feel right for me, I've got to work harder with that mic compared to other mics. Pure personal, just like buying a new guitar; it has to feel good.

Now, assuming you want a wired mic (most capsules are available for wireless systems anyway). The Shure Beta 58 is a top class (live) vocal microphone most singers can and love to work with. I use it as my back-up mic.
I am using the wireless Sennheiser 165 (condenser) for some 4 years now and I really love the thing. It suits my voice just fine and I can do about everything with it. Don't have any feedback issues with it.
Recently I worked with the Audio Technica AE5400 and I was blown away! What a great microphone. Ofcourse, I only heard the sound in my in-ear, but the feel of the mic was absolutely great.
I also have some cheapo Superlux condenser mics, which I use as guest microphones. For that price they are suprisingly good, but they do have feedback issues.

My best advice for you, however, would be to determin your budget and do a mic-shootout in your pricerange yourself. After all: you are the one to play the instrument, so it's got to feel right for you.

Don't be put down by the fact that a condenser microphone needs phantom power: your VoliceLive can provide phantom power.

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That's great advice Mike. One of the reasons I prefer the Beta 57 is, it has a close up range to it. If you back up a foot away it hardly picks you up, unless you are directly in line with it. This mic is no good for more than one singer because of the narrow line on it. If you get off side at all your voice drops out a good bit. I learned about this when I started using it for Sing Snap. You really don't want to get back from it anymore than 6 to 8 inches.

What's really cool is you can fade your voice simply by pulling back at whatever pace works best for you. And last, you can bump against it and hardly make a sound. I've bumped it several times during recordings only to find the noise didn't come through. Now that's a bonus.

Just another lost thought.


Russ
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Thought "phantom power" and "mic pre-amp" are the same basic thing. ( shrugs) Anyway.....if you ever plan on using the mic for recording via your comp's sound card, better get that pre-amp ( phantom power). Depends on the card, of course. I know my Delta ( astonishingly to me) card does.

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Swanman,

John already has a VoiceLive. As I stated earlier that thing is a complete vocal processor, including a pre-amp. It also can provide phantom power.

A microphone pre-amp amplifies the low signal coming from a microphone and brings it up to a more usable level signal. Computer soundcards most often are not made to record music with, hence they're not equiped with a mic pre-amp. Most interfaces (like a Tascam US122L) on the other hand are designed to record and to work with DAWs and do have (a) mic-preamp(s) on board.

Active microphones, like condesor mics, need a certain electrical power to operate. Phantom power is a method where an electrical DC voltage is sent via the microphone cable to provide this power for the microphone.

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