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Dusty Chalk

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  • 4 weeks later...

Do you even play drums anymore Iain?

I sat in with a group of local musicians last night and had some fun.  Turns out one had a one hit wonder back in the day, Peter Quinn who did the Curly Shuffle.  Weird guy.

 

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On 5/21/2021 at 11:06 AM, VPI said:

Do you even play drums anymore Iain?

I sat in with a group of local musicians last night and had some fun.  Turns out one had a one hit wonder back in the day, Peter Quinn who did the Curly Shuffle.  Weird guy.

 

I know that song!  That was my best friend’s theme song back when I was a kid.

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I have a stupid question. Going to do live sound this weekend on the Soundcraft. It only has systemwide Phantom Power. If I want to use phantom power for mics and DI while using dynamic mics, can the typical SM7bs, EV120s manage phantom power without exploding?
 

I know I cannot connect standard ribbon mics but I am seeing mixed messages on whether dynamics care about getting 48v. 

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It’s best to look at each mic individually.  For example, my Shure KSM313 does not require phantom power, but it would be fine.  I explicitly looked it up, and it says right on the page, “However, properly supplied phantom power will not harm the microphone.”.   It also warns against plugging and unplugging, so definitely don’t do that.

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That said, if there's a mic that you must use, that does not require phantom power, and does not state explicitly that it is safe to do so, there's probably a device for that.  Either that, or it might be an example of an actual useful application for a cheap transparent preamp.  I have a Grace Design M101 that I could send you, but I doubt I could get it to you in time.  Maybe call Sweetwater?

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I think I am safe with the dynamics as they are all workhorses and should survive. 
 

My next big lift is figuring out live band karaoke.  I have the band setup and I can obviously throw YouTube up for lyrics, but not sure how to sync band and YouTube close enough that we do not have page turn issues. The band is all kids, talented kids, but kids with a fantastic drummer so I think I can get by having the drummer count us in and doing the push play thing, I just figured there would be some kind of service to make this easier. 
 

Also need to buy individual monitors as some of the larger bands require them but investing in another 3-5k worth of monitors seems stupid to me. Trying to find something good enough to get by with. 

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Not sure if anyone else is still shopping for stuff these days, but I have to say Sweetwater service has dropped off significantly the last couple of months. Stuff never gets shipped the day of purchase like it used to and now they will randomly ignore the shipping you chose, and the delivery date stated, and just mail it USPS for arrival days to weeks after they quoted your delivery date. Has happened with each of my last 8-10 orders. FedEx was bad, but fucking USPS for expensive shit is the worst. 
 

About to drop them altogether. 

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I am thinking they are hurting, as it was clockwork all last year, order, have it the next morning as they are only 4 hours away. 

They have even skipped the throw away candy bags a few times in the last few orders. 

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Sweetwater and Vintage King have alway been up and down as far as shipping time goes.I'm usually happy or pissed on any given order.

Could be that Sweetwater is being stung by the employee shortage thing. They employ a butt load of people there.

With the live music scene starting back up, they could be getting buried with orders too.

 

 Sweetwater keeps a shit load of inventory in stock while VK does not but they have more locations to draw on.

I prefer VK for most stuff and I'll live with and extra week or two to get it from them but for the run of the mill stuff, Sweetwater or Amazon is great because of their liberal returns/exchange policies.

There's always the less visible sellers like Musician's Friend, Pro Star Audio, etc.

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Holkenburg rebuilt his studio recently and even gave some of his gear away!

Not sure if it's still there, but he did have a Reverb Store that he unloaded a lot of his collection.

IMHO buying his stuff is a no brainer since he did whatever has to be done to keep it it excellent working condition.

Very generous guy!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Did one of the sound setup sessions with one of the groups for the 4th of July. 
 

The guitarist insists that both vocals and the acoustic guitar come through his crappy guitar amp because he likes the reverb and tone from the amp. I then have to mic the amp for the PA. 

No matter where I put the main speakers and mics, I am getting feedback when bringing the volume up much. 

He insists the feedback is not originating at his amp, so I cannot figure out how to address this. 

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On 6/22/2021 at 11:07 PM, VPI said:

Did one of the sound setup sessions with one of the groups for the 4th of July. 
 

The guitarist insists that both vocals and the acoustic guitar come through his crappy guitar amp because he likes the reverb and tone from the amp. I then have to mic the amp for the PA. 

No matter where I put the main speakers and mics, I am getting feedback when bringing the volume up much. 

He insists the feedback is not originating at his amp, so I cannot figure out how to address this. 

are the speakers facing so their back is toward the mic'ed amp?  Barring that, maybe a feedback destroyer to cheat.

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15 minutes ago, grawk said:

are the speakers facing so their back is toward the mic'ed amp?  Barring that, maybe a feedback destroyer to cheat.

This.

When I do my vocal lessons, I have to be really careful -- even though I have acoustically absorbative barriers between my monitors and my microphone, sound has a tendency to go around barriers, so you can't possibly sound-proof-ily seal between the mic and the speaker, but you can do things to minimize them. 

One is to use omnidirectional microphones everywhere, but especially on that amp.  Shotgun microphones are even more directional, so perhaps you need a shotgun microphone for that particular type of application.  But the important thing is not just to look at that particular signal chain (both electrical and acoustic), but secondary ones as well.  If one of the other monitors is bleeding into one of the other microphones, that could be your problem.

Or headphones.

But yes, feedback destroyers exist (I'm sure Aaron used them with Thing3, considering how loud they played) and they've gotten to the point where they're dynamic -- they pop in and notch filter the feedback out -- and then they pop out, so they don't degrade the signal with a permanent notch filter.

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I was just looking at a Feedback Destroyer/Monitor Manager. Seems like pretty cheap insurance. 
 

The feedback came with only one main connected that was 20 feet in front of the two mics (vocal and guitar cab). 

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