Distorting vocals live without feedback

Started by BTR, November 09, 2017, 08:07:01 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Foss

Something i tried with luck in studiosettings, but avoided except for a few times in a live setting because of the goofy look, is to use some cheap headphones as mic. They will have distorted sound, but still being cheap headphones they do not pick up the other sounds around just so easy.

Soloman Tump

So I just received my crank surgeon barky box and I am getting great sounds already just with some overdrive and a small amount of effects from the aux loop....

I now have a whole new world of learning how to mix vocals into my sounds

deutscheasphalt

Unless you are after the distortion response of a specific amp, I would advise against miking your vocals twice as it will only increase feedback. You have two options here of which one was mentioned already by Mikko (try to avoid over-saturation and/or multiple distortion pedals in a row). The other option is to take note of monitor/pa speaker placement as the amplified signal coming through being picked up by the mic is responsible for the feedback loop (a certain frequency is picked up by the microphone -> gets amplified -> goes through speaker -> back to microphone ->...). If you want no feedback at all, ideally you would position the microphone in a way that monitored sounds are not at all picked up by its directivity area. If you want just a little feedback, you can direct the microphone more towards the speakers and experiment with that.
All of this also depends on the room you are playing in. I've had rooms where I was unable to use monitors cause feedback would interfer too much with my sound and other rooms where it was totally okay to experiment live with different feedback frequencies.