Quote:
Originally Posted by redstrat
Feedback is your enemy with condenser mics, generally although they do sound better. Condensors should stay in the studio. The 57 has always been the standard, not necessarily the cheapest or the best, but bullet proof in the reliability department. IMHO, the Blue Encore series rocks the 57 in price/performance and you should look there first.
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Excess gain is the real culprit,,, it doesn't matter whether it's a condenser, or a dynamic mic. With more sensitive mics, you reduce gain, plain and simple. You also have to familiarize yourself with the polar-pattern of your mic, as well as the nulls, in order to monitor yourself properly.
Excess gain can occur a variety of ways, especially if the gain-structure of the console is set just below the feedback threshold. It's important to give yourself ample leeway, at each point along the consoles' gain-structure path, to allow for transients, and
reflected sound. Basically, you need enough gain at all points, to comfortably avoid self-noise from the mic-pre's, channel faders, and main outputs. Setting gain just below "peak", is simply asking for trouble in a "Live" sound set-up. Pre-show sound-checks help, but you need to give yourself some room for "volume creep" as the gig progresses.
Reflected frequencies can often cause feedback, and a phenomenon affectionately called "cowboy hat" feedback, is well known among soundmen. It can be a simple reflection off your cheek,,, a hand,,,or your forehead, if they get too close to the mic-capsule.
Here's an example;
We were a bunch of guys having a jam. The guys wanted it loud, so we were really riding the limits,,,, far more than the room required, or even tolerate. Nonetheless, we were generally feedback free. Every trick in the book was used to reduce feedback, including DEEP EQ cuts on each channel. Every now and then, we'd hear a very brief (fraction of a second) intermittent squeal. It was very hard to detect the source, so I just watched the guys for a while, from the console. Turns out, the bass-player was turning his head to look at the drummer, and as he did so, he would lean forward slightly, with his cheek inches away from the mic-capsule,,,, and there it was. Once the problem was identified and the situation corrected, the feedback stopped.