Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

Spenser Hamilton said:
You can compress as much as you want, or should I say, as much as your particular situation dictates. You just need to be aware of how your compressor settings are going to effect GBF.
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Clearly (despite reading the manuals) I don't understand compressors enough concerning the GBF part. It seems to me if you dump 6dB (DBX says dump up to 10dB) and you put it back with the output level control the net effect on GBF should be zero, right? Kicking the output up a few dB over what you reduce it by would (I would have thought) could give you a bit more gain (should I need it)?
Thanks
Phil
 
Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

Dick Rees said:
I would disagree with both points in this sentence.
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I suppose everything is relative. The Carvin board is better than the one I was using. It is not a Midas. Why can't I compensate for any loss of highs in the compression stage with the eq please?
Phil
 
Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

I'll let someone else educate you. I've got to stir the stew.....
 
Phil Moseley said:
Clearly (despite reading the manuals) I don't understand compressors enough concerning the GBF part. It seems to me if you dump 6dB (DBX says dump up to 10dB) and you put it back with the output level control the net effect on GBF should be zero, right? Kicking the output up a few dB over what you reduce it by would (I would have thought) could give you a bit more gain (should I need it)?
Thanks
Phil
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Compressor makeup gain reduces gbf by the same amount. Simple as that.

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Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

Christian Tepfer said:
Compressor makeup gain reduces gbf by the same amount. Simple as that.

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Hi
Then I am very confused. Compressors seem to be counter-productive, but guys still pay a lot of money for them and they are built into all the latest digital boards. So where and when would you consider using a compressor and what settings would you consider to minimize the loss of GBF and still get some bang for the buck please?
Thanks
Phil
 
Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

Phil Moseley said:
Hi
Then I am very confused. Compressors seem to be counter-productive, but guys still pay a lot of money for them and they are built into all the latest digital boards. So where and when would you consider using a compressor and what settings would you consider to minimize the loss of GBF and still get some bang for the buck please?
Thanks
Phil
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You've already been given good info on why the compressor is the wrong tool in post #13.
 
Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

If you do not understand what it is and why you might need to use it, you need to unhook it and set it aside for now.

By all means, do NOT throw it away or sell it! Just put it aside for now and learn the basic craft of working with audio on your board. Eventually you will get to the point where you get the idea that "Hey, it would be really handy if I could do *something*!" Generally, this will be at some point after you have forgotten all about your stack of compressors that you set aside. Then you suddenly realize that a compressor or gate or whatever is the right tool for that job. Now you can get it out, hook it up, and make it happen.

Learn the craft first, add the toys later.
 
Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

Josh Millward said:
If you do not understand what it is and why you might need to use it, you need to unhook it and set it aside for now.

Then you suddenly realize that a compressor or gate or whatever is the right tool for that job. Now you can get it out, hook it up, and make it happen.

.
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I wouldn't argue with that. But, as these things don't seem intuitive to me, it would be helpful if you could give me some situations where using compression would be useful please. I use the same PA for my own band's rehearsals so I can always experiment on myself. But a roadmap would be good please.
Thanks
Phil
 
Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

For a gate to work to your advantage, the background noise that you are filtering out must be lower than the quietest part of what you're trying to pick up. Finding that point can be pretty challenging, depending on mic position and the instrument. If you're micing your drums, and you blast a monitor speaker into the mic, you won't be able to set the gate low enough to be effective. A gate can be effective in keeping cymbals out of your tom mics. Of course when the gate is open, the cymbals will come through, so if the back pickup is bad enough, the volume of the cymbals will increase every time you hit the tom. Net result could be crap versus just leaving the mics open and turning down the overhead mics to create the mix you want.

Compressors and gates are often found in the same package, but their jobs are vastly different. A compressor is designed to decrease the overall dynamic range of a sound. Used correctly, they can make things fit into a mix better, but used incorrectly, they will make a mess. On a vocal mic, they can be extremely helpful for the singer that doesn't have an even volume to their voice. If you notice some artists, they use their built in 'arm compressor' to do the job so the sound man doesn't have to. The way the arm compressor works is when they sing that stupid loud note, they pull the mic away from their mouth to even out the sound level. Other artists will just sing that loud note and hold the mic to their mouth the whole time. If the sound operator is paying attention, he can pull the slider down to simulate the effect of the 'arm compressor' although his reaction time may be slower. If you use a compressor for the job, it listens to the level of the sound and will turn down the level based on how loud it gets. Now, the tricky thing is to figure out how fast and far you want to set the compressor to react so it matches the desired result. In many cases, compressors are way over used, and the result is no dynamics to the sound, and everything ends up at the same volume for the whole song. Not a good position to be in.
 
Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

This pretty much agrees with what I have been reading in the link I was just sent. Overuse is clearly worse than underuse I think.
Thanks
Phil
 
Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

Phil Moseley said:
I wouldn't argue with that. But, as these things don't seem intuitive to me, it would be helpful if you could give me some situations where using compression would be useful please. I use the same PA for my own band's rehearsals so I can always experiment on myself. But a roadmap would be good please.
Thanks
Phil
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"I want to cut, Master! I want to cut!"

Okay, not self-experimental surgery.....

Gigs are the best and worst places to experiment. If you screw something up... well... uh.... But if you fix something or find The Lost Chord® in the FX unit, you're a hero. The pressure is great.

Much experimentation can be done with headphones; a mic and your voice; a playback device with music and pink noise, and your mixer. You can experiment with dynamics processing (compressors and gates) and time-based effects like chorus, flange, echo, doubling, reverb, etc. You can give a good listen to how your channel strip EQ changes your voice or affects program audio. If you record some individual instruments at a rehearsal, you can use the recordings as source material in your experimentation. One of the great things is you can learn without needing live players for this part of your training.

Some of what was alluded to about compression potentially altering your Gain Before Feedback is based on "make up gain" that is applied to compensate for the level reduction caused by the compressor. That gain is *always* there, even when the compressor is not lowering the level. When the signal is above threshold, there is additional gain. If you plan for that, factor it in, etc... (and most importantly, sound check with it set the way you'll use it in show) it won't inherently bite your ass, but if you're in a situation where extra level causes feedback you could be in for a long night when the artist needs "more".

Connected with this issue is that in most small analog mixers, the channel insert point is almost always "pre-aux" even if the aux itself is switchable 'pre/post'. You'd be applying the same make up gain issue to the singers monitor wedge and introducing a paradox to the vocalist: singing harder and louder but not hearing herself that way in the wedge. There are anecdotal stories of singers "blowing their voices out" and I suspect most of them are greatly overstated... but the extra strain of singing against a compressor is something a vocalist probably doesn't need. This is something you can experiment with over headphones. Sing into the mic and get your -6dB of compression and then really lean into it. Imagine singing against that all night. :(

You mentioned gates, too. In your vocal application gates are a gauze pad applied to an arterial wound. Here is a piece of wisdom, bestowed by The Old Soundman (or someone like him): "Loudest sound at the mic, wins." You need to convince the band that less stage volume is manly, artistic, and will get them laid. What instruments are bleeding worst, or is it everything?

A final prognostication: you are pushing the rig very hard to get the vocals and a couple of instruments above the stage levels. You need so much gain (Needed Acoustic Gain) to get over the din that there will be the potential for feedback any time your singer walks in front of the PA.
 
Re: Advice for dealing with singers who wander out in front of the PA

To attempt to help Phil with his lack of education on compressors (just in case the two posts before this don't help):

Compressors are essentially an automatic gain control. The reason this won't help with your feedback problem is that compressors reduce your dynamic range. Assuming there is a 15 dB difference between where the feedback starts and where you absolutely need to be to push the vocals over the rest of the mix/band, when you add a compressor lessens this value by however much you compress it (you'd probably eat up 7 dB in your case). This means that you will only have about 8 dB of usable dynamic range left. This certainly doesn't help you in any way, and in fact makes the problem worse.


Now if you want an explanation of how a compressor does this, read on:

What a compressor does is relatively simple. It takes a signal, and after it exceeds a certain level (a parameter called the threshold), it applies a set amount of negative gain at a certain ratio to the original signal (a parameter called the ratio-go figure) at a certain rate (a parameter called the attack) and allows the gain to stabilize to the normal level after the threshold is no longer exceeded at another rate (called the release). However, because negative gain is applied, the signal going out of the compressor will always be less than when it went in. To accommodate for this, there is a final amount of additional gain to return it to pre-compressor levels (this parameter is called makeup-gain).

However, all sounds below the threshold are not affected by the negative gain, while the makeup-gain still applies. This means that both the noise and the feedback floor are increased more than before. Thus, it will cause more feedback and also most likely make the singer sound worse- especially if they are inexperienced already.

For more information on the use of compressors and many people's opinions of them, see this recent thread concerning them here.

Best of luck, and break a leg!
 
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