In the thread about how a make a fiddle not drown beside Scottisch Highland Pipes, there were a lot of discussion about different kinds of microphones etc.
I think this is interesting far behind the starting question. How do you amplify your instruments (whatever instrument you play) and what are your experiences? Of course I'm mainly talking about band gigs and not sessions, but I'm sure that band gigs are a reality for most of us.
Zina was talking about a microphone (do you shorten it 'mic' or 'mice' or...) that was placed under the bridge. Someone else mentioned piezo-microphone. Aren't they the same? Anyway I have one installed under the bridge of my guitar and it sounds like crap! My band mate has one installed on his very expensive guitar whith preamp and equalizer and it sounds even worse. He has to use an ordinary shure-mic and go back to the "not moving 1 inch"-technique, which I doubt he thought when bying this expensive thing.
For my other instruments (I change between whistles, mandolin, song and percussion) I use the same average song/instrument microphone. I too has to stay with the 'totally still'-technique and I never know what goes out to the audience and what doesn't. Most unsatisfying!
So I need your advice. How do you make yourself heard? What are your bad experiences on the way? And please include the tech stuff (in a pedagogical way) 'cos we are many who don't know what the different terms like 'piezo' means.
Lars
My microphones are pretty old; i stick with them because they work, but i'd recommend checking out the new microphones, since there's a lot of new great products out there and they keep coming out with new versions of the "classics".
Go to any decent music store (no problem if you're in the US), tell them you'd like to buy an instrument microphone (don't use a voice microphone, it's a different beast). Grab as many as you can which are within your price range or a bit higher, and try them out (take your instrument to the store, to try them out). If they don't let you try them out, go to another music store.
The ones i use i selected through this process: I have a little Shure SM98 (condenser) that's very nice. That's a microphone that you can use on anything from a whistle to inside a snare drum, and it works great. Recently it started being a little noisy, so i'm not using it for recording, but it's still fine for performance.
These days i prefer a large diafragm condenser mic, so i'm using a Sennheiser MD421 (squarish thing, looks like an old-style phaser pistol).
Microphone positioning is another Pandora can of worms. Each person has a preference, especially for recording. I like to use 2 microphones on the flute: one above the blowhole, the other pointing about midway at the flute's body. So i can record in stereo and it feels like the flute is right in front of you when you listen to it. For performance i stick with 1 microphone and put it much closer to the 'hole than i would for recording.
With fiddles, i believe microphone positioning is much more important, since different parts of the instrument cooperate for the sound.
One thing to keep in mind is there is no perfect setup, and you make different compromises for performance than you would for recording.
My little ceili band has played several times on a stage here at school where, because of the horrible acoustics (all sound is swallowed), it was neccesary for us to use mics. We've played around with the setup a bit to get an 'acoustic' sound, not just an amplified sound. Here's what works best:
I'm the guitarist, so I was all set. Acoustic/electric is the way to go, although you have to take the time find a guitar that sounds good both plugged in and unplugged - not an easy task. I don't have a piezzo, but I really don't discriminate piezzo pickups and internal mics. If it sounds good it's right.
Our bass player has an upright with a piezzo pickup under the bridge. I don't know what it is, but it kicks ____ and has a very good sound.
We used lapel mics for the fiddles. The fiddlers just clipped them on their shirts beneath the fiddle and pointed them at the fiddle back. Surprisingly, the sound was very true and clean, not muffled.
Because we had nothng else, we used voice microphones for our harp, whistle, and bodhran (but, as Glauber recommends, don't do this if you can help it). The bodhran worked out sooo much better just having a voice mic pointed at the back of the head. We have, in the past, tried a lapel mic for the bodhran, clipping it to the shell, but it was not so great - it kept picking up funny harmonics and overtones.
Whistle was easy - just point a mic at the fipple and you're all set. After all, there's not much else that can be done in my experience.
Harp was super difficult, and I'm still not satisfied with our setup. We had to point the one mic we had left at the soundboard, but the quality of the sound and the volume of certain tones over others changed remarkable depending on where we aimed the mic and how far it was from the soundboard. It really baffles me how moving the mic one inch further from the soundboard combined with a one inch shift of the vertical position along the length of the soundboard creates a totally different sound.
Hope there's something useful in all that. Cheers!
For high volume situations using acoustic instruments - a mic/pickup combo does the trick. The baggs bridge
pickup works great for violins and there are several good choices for guitar. Just a little real mic does alot to
make a pickup sound good. Most of your volume comes from the pickup but the mic colors the tone and helps
it sound acoustic. The mic can be "on-board" or on a stand - the result is similar. A very fancy
setup is to have both the transducer pickup (or piezo) and the mic installed in or on your instrument. Then a jack jack
can connect the two sources to two channels in the pa or an amplifier or whatever. The big
drawback is that you have no volume control. Having the mic on a stand allows you to step away
for re-tuning, practicing the first few notes or whatever.
For high volume situations using acoustic instruments - a mic/pickup combo does the trick. The baggs bridge
pickup works great for violins and there are several good choices for guitar. Just a little real mic does alot to
make a pickup sound good. Most of your volume comes from the pickup but the mic colors the tone and helps
it sound acoustic. The mic can be "on-board" or on a stand - the result is similar. A very fancy
setup is to have both the transducer pickup (or piezo) and the mic installed in or on your instrument. Then a jack jack
can connect the two sources to two channels in the pa or an amplifier or whatever. The big
drawback is that you have no volume control. Having the mic on a stand allows you to step away
for re-tuning, practicing the first few notes or whatever.
I use a Baggs transducer for mandolin and bouzouki, with the dedicated pre-amp and I dont have any difficulties. I think if you are playing in a purely accoustic band, mikes are fine, but if you introduce a drummer or an electric bass, you will run into major problems. I'm no expert but I think the mixing desk you use is a big part of the equation here. If you know a sound engineer, he/she willbe able to recommend the best setup for you. I believe you will never replicate the true session sound in an amplified situation, so you may have to compromise a little in order to be able to play in a comfortable and relaxed way.
Frank
I have a Seagull electric-acoustic guitar that sounds fine for performing live; for recording, I mic about 6-8" from the soundhole and about the same distance off the 5th fret - the combination picks up a surprisingly close approximation of the harmonic structure of the sound. In perofrmance, I tend to use my Yamaha electric fiddle, it just carries better, it doesn't feed back, and in a noisy pub no-one can tell from nuance anyway. Besides, it looks cool! My harpist is still working out live miking of her instrument - you really need more than 1 for a harp. A larger harp can easily use 3 placed near the bass, mid and treble strings.
In my experience most "Irish" pub band guitarists in New Zealand (!) go for a bridge pick-up, preamp plus effects (such as a bit of "chorus effect") to imitate an acoustic sound in a band situation. One problem with having lots of mikes on stage is that they tend to feedback, especially when monitors are involved. Good music shops should easily be able to help you with this one, as they have a lot of experience of guitars.
On the other hand, I always found it difficult to find a pick up that gave a true sound for banjo. I tried many expensive pick ups, and ended up going back to a cheap NZ$30 stick-on pickup. If anyone knows a good way to amplify a banjo for a band situation, I'd be interested!
Here's a brief pedagogical/pedantic introduction to acoustic amplification. Part one, the undersaddle pickup and preamp.
A piezo-electric element is a device which generates a bit of electrical current when squeezed. Put one of those between the saddle and the face of your guitar, or under the feet of your fiddle bridge, and it'll be squeezed by the pressure of the strings and the face, generating an electrical current corresponding closely to the vibration of the face. That's called an "undersaddle pickup" (or "undersaddle transducer" - "transducer" means device for converting one form of energy to another, in this case mechanical motion to electrical current)
If you plug an undersaddle pickup straight into a soundboard or amp, it'll usually sound pretty bad, but if you use a pre-amp to condition the signal, you can get a good sound out of them, good enough for bars at least . A pre-amp is a specialized amplifier designed to bring bring a signal to the right level for the mixing board/amplifier to deal with it. They often do other things to your signal as well. The best bet if you're asking these questions is to get an LR Baggs Para-acoustic DI for $100-$150. They'll take any undersaddle (except the B-Band, which is a special case) and make it sound tolerable if that can be done at all. There are more specialized preamps and DIs available, but the Baggs will do you well for cheap.
The undersaddle pickup is the easiest and most generally useful method of amplifying a stringed instrument that I've run into. They will will not reproduce the sound of your instrument as well as a good microphone positioned correctly, but if you're playing in bars or at dances, the compromise to the sound will not be heard against the background noise if you use a pre-amp with decent EQ. I won't use microphones in a bar situation, due to feedback, lack of mobility, stage clutter, and extra loadout time. For concert situations, you might consider other options, like microphones or mic/pickup blends, or telling everybody to shut up.
Hope that's useful.
Re: Banjo Pickups - the best I have heard is a magnetic pickup that attaches to the coordinating rods
inside, under the head. The pickup is positioned within a business card's thickness of the head.
A small flat metal inductor is placed under the middle foot of the bridge. The pickup reproduces the
movement of this inductor and gives a surprizingly good reproduction of the banjo's sound. At high enough
volumes, it will feedback, but it still gets pretty loud. This is the set up world music star Bela Fleck used
to use. Elderly.com probably has them. They used to be called "Jones Acoustic Plus."
Regarding stage feedback with a mic/pickup combo: For maximum volume, don't put any mic signal in the
stage monitors. Use the pickup for this. You will hear the "bad" pickup tone on stage, but the
audience hears the mic or mic/pickup combo.
Joe
Hi - just thought I'd add to what's a fascinating thread.
I amplify my harp sometimes for sessions, especially where it's going to be noisy. This is not to drown out everyone else, but to make sure I don't shred my fingertips! I use a little battery-operated amp to provide the sound, and a small electret mic to pick up the sound. This is placed inside the harp about 2" from the soundboard, about 2/3 of the way down toward the bass end.
The weird thing is that I originally placed the mic VERY close to the soundboard (but not touching) thinking that it would stop any audio feedback from the speaker getting back into the mic - reasoning that the closer the mic was to the soundboard, the more "harp" it would pick up and the less "speaker" from the outside world. It didn't work like that; positioning it further away from the soundboard has almost totally killed any tendency for the thing to feed back at even quite high amplification. I've no idea why - and I thought I understood sound!!
For recording, incidentally, I use high-quality phantom-powered mics at about 24" away pointing near the top and bottom of the soundboard. A little "narrowing" in the mixer and some reverb, and it's great!
Re: Banjo pick ups
Thanks Joe for your advice on banjo pick ups. The Jones one worked well for me and gave a good authentic sound. Then the pub, where we had residency, changed the air conditioning system - after that a loud buzzing sound always occurred when I plugged in my banjo! I later found that this was the because the Jones pick up has a single coil in it which can be prone to electrical interference.
Jeremy - I think this thread would be great if divided into different instruments (banjo, fiddle, harp etc. ) for future reference.
For Guitar, Banjo and Mandolin I find the Fishman pickups excellent. I have a few Shure SM58's but I find that they are good for vocal rather than instrumental use. I wonder could anyone tell me a solution for miking uilleann pipes? Is there any known clip on ar attachable microphone?
Amplifiying pipes??!! This thread started out as a question about the best way to amplify other instruments so the pipes wouldn't drown them out!!! LOL - I know, Uilleann pipes aren't as loud as bagpipes, but I still found the question ironic. Maybe a woodwind pickup such as a flute or clarinet player might use?
Amplifing the uilleann pipes would be a nightmare, due to the large number of drones and regulators that stick out at weird angles. If i were setting up to record u.p., i would either record the piper alone in the studio or set up some sort of isolation with sound barriers, and surround the piper with microphones. Probably one from above, and at least a couple from different angles around the pipes.
As I recall, Tim Britton, King of the PA system where it comes to pipes, uses three pickups, or maybe that was one mic and two pickups, but I could be wrong. Dirk, do you remember what Tim used?
I could always e-mail Tim and ask him what he prefers if a piper out there is truly interested.
Dceol
You say that you use Fishman pickups. Are they of the kind that looks almost like an electric guitar pickup that is placed inside the soundhole (soundhole, what soundhole? the banjo says).
Lars
I use a Fishman pickup on my fiddle-the pickup has a tiny metal wedge that fits in the grooves carved on your average bridge (or you can have it permanently set into the bridge, too). It's nice because I can take off or put it back on whenever I please.
RE banjo pickups:
A humbucking pickup attached to the coordinating rods of the banjo would give you the same effect
as the Jones pickup. The tone will be a little masked (as per all humbuckers) and the rigging
may be a little diffucult but there is no hum!
McIntire makes a full range of stick-on transducer pickups that sound preety darn good. There is a
very expensive transducer called a Shertle (or something like that) which has a low inpendence output
and a beautiful sound on guitar, mandolin and fiddle. It just sticks on the outside of any stringed
instrument with some hi tech goo that can be used over and over. A musician friend of mine
actually changes instruments during a performance and simply sticks and un-sticks the pickup
from instument to instrument!
Joe
Amplifying the pipes isn't that ironic a question. One must remember that although the pipes may seem loud in a confined area they carry no further than something like an accordion in a performance venue that may be capable of catering for three to four hundred noisy people. Thanks Jeff for the suggestion on woodwind pick up though, i'll check it out.
Lars, if you check out the fishman website you'll find a new rare earth magnetic pick up designed for the banjo. it is excellent and clips on beneath the skin.
Dceol
I just noticed that Zina once asked me how Tim Britton mix his pipes. Well, I'm revisiting this topic, and I wanted to leave a link to his very good web site description of this very topic:
search in the following page for "micing methods for the pipes"
Amplifying your instruments
Amplifying your instruments
In the thread about how a make a fiddle not drown beside Scottisch Highland Pipes, there were a lot of discussion about different kinds of microphones etc.
I think this is interesting far behind the starting question. How do you amplify your instruments (whatever instrument you play) and what are your experiences? Of course I'm mainly talking about band gigs and not sessions, but I'm sure that band gigs are a reality for most of us.
Zina was talking about a microphone (do you shorten it 'mic' or 'mice' or...) that was placed under the bridge. Someone else mentioned piezo-microphone. Aren't they the same? Anyway I have one installed under the bridge of my guitar and it sounds like crap! My band mate has one installed on his very expensive guitar whith preamp and equalizer and it sounds even worse. He has to use an ordinary shure-mic and go back to the "not moving 1 inch"-technique, which I doubt he thought when bying this expensive thing.
For my other instruments (I change between whistles, mandolin, song and percussion) I use the same average song/instrument microphone. I too has to stay with the 'totally still'-technique and I never know what goes out to the audience and what doesn't. Most unsatisfying!
So I need your advice. How do you make yourself heard? What are your bad experiences on the way? And please include the tech stuff (in a pedagogical way) 'cos we are many who don't know what the different terms like 'piezo' means.
Lars
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by lars
Re: Amplifying your instruments
My microphones are pretty old; i stick with them because they work, but i'd recommend checking out the new microphones, since there's a lot of new great products out there and they keep coming out with new versions of the "classics".
Go to any decent music store (no problem if you're in the US), tell them you'd like to buy an instrument microphone (don't use a voice microphone, it's a different beast). Grab as many as you can which are within your price range or a bit higher, and try them out (take your instrument to the store, to try them out). If they don't let you try them out, go to another music store.
The ones i use i selected through this process: I have a little Shure SM98 (condenser) that's very nice. That's a microphone that you can use on anything from a whistle to inside a snare drum, and it works great. Recently it started being a little noisy, so i'm not using it for recording, but it's still fine for performance.
These days i prefer a large diafragm condenser mic, so i'm using a Sennheiser MD421 (squarish thing, looks like an old-style phaser pistol).
Microphone positioning is another Pandora can of worms. Each person has a preference, especially for recording. I like to use 2 microphones on the flute: one above the blowhole, the other pointing about midway at the flute's body. So i can record in stereo and it feels like the flute is right in front of you when you listen to it. For performance i stick with 1 microphone and put it much closer to the 'hole than i would for recording.
With fiddles, i believe microphone positioning is much more important, since different parts of the instrument cooperate for the sound.
One thing to keep in mind is there is no perfect setup, and you make different compromises for performance than you would for recording.
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by glauber
Re: Amplifying your instruments
My little ceili band has played several times on a stage here at school where, because of the horrible acoustics (all sound is swallowed), it was neccesary for us to use mics. We've played around with the setup a bit to get an 'acoustic' sound, not just an amplified sound. Here's what works best:
I'm the guitarist, so I was all set. Acoustic/electric is the way to go, although you have to take the time find a guitar that sounds good both plugged in and unplugged - not an easy task. I don't have a piezzo, but I really don't discriminate piezzo pickups and internal mics. If it sounds good it's right.
Our bass player has an upright with a piezzo pickup under the bridge. I don't know what it is, but it kicks ____ and has a very good sound.
We used lapel mics for the fiddles. The fiddlers just clipped them on their shirts beneath the fiddle and pointed them at the fiddle back. Surprisingly, the sound was very true and clean, not muffled.
Because we had nothng else, we used voice microphones for our harp, whistle, and bodhran (but, as Glauber recommends, don't do this if you can help it). The bodhran worked out sooo much better just having a voice mic pointed at the back of the head. We have, in the past, tried a lapel mic for the bodhran, clipping it to the shell, but it was not so great - it kept picking up funny harmonics and overtones.
Whistle was easy - just point a mic at the fipple and you're all set. After all, there's not much else that can be done in my experience.
Harp was super difficult, and I'm still not satisfied with our setup. We had to point the one mic we had left at the soundboard, but the quality of the sound and the volume of certain tones over others changed remarkable depending on where we aimed the mic and how far it was from the soundboard. It really baffles me how moving the mic one inch further from the soundboard combined with a one inch shift of the vertical position along the length of the soundboard creates a totally different sound.
Hope there's something useful in all that. Cheers!
TC
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by tccaucutt
Re: Amplifying your instruments
For high volume situations using acoustic instruments - a mic/pickup combo does the trick. The baggs bridge
pickup works great for violins and there are several good choices for guitar. Just a little real mic does alot to
make a pickup sound good. Most of your volume comes from the pickup but the mic colors the tone and helps
it sound acoustic. The mic can be "on-board" or on a stand - the result is similar. A very fancy
setup is to have both the transducer pickup (or piezo) and the mic installed in or on your instrument. Then a jack jack
can connect the two sources to two channels in the pa or an amplifier or whatever. The big
drawback is that you have no volume control. Having the mic on a stand allows you to step away
for re-tuning, practicing the first few notes or whatever.
Joe
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by Carrmuse
Oops
I left some words out of the post. "Then a stereo jack and cable"
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by Carrmuse
Re: Amplifying your instruments
For high volume situations using acoustic instruments - a mic/pickup combo does the trick. The baggs bridge
pickup works great for violins and there are several good choices for guitar. Just a little real mic does alot to
make a pickup sound good. Most of your volume comes from the pickup but the mic colors the tone and helps
it sound acoustic. The mic can be "on-board" or on a stand - the result is similar. A very fancy
setup is to have both the transducer pickup (or piezo) and the mic installed in or on your instrument. Then a jack jack
can connect the two sources to two channels in the pa or an amplifier or whatever. The big
drawback is that you have no volume control. Having the mic on a stand allows you to step away
for re-tuning, practicing the first few notes or whatever.
Joe
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by Carrmuse
Re: Amplifying your instruments
I use a Baggs transducer for mandolin and bouzouki, with the dedicated pre-amp and I dont have any difficulties. I think if you are playing in a purely accoustic band, mikes are fine, but if you introduce a drummer or an electric bass, you will run into major problems. I'm no expert but I think the mixing desk you use is a big part of the equation here. If you know a sound engineer, he/she willbe able to recommend the best setup for you. I believe you will never replicate the true session sound in an amplified situation, so you may have to compromise a little in order to be able to play in a comfortable and relaxed way.
Frank
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by Backer
Re: Amplifying your instruments
I have a Seagull electric-acoustic guitar that sounds fine for performing live; for recording, I mic about 6-8" from the soundhole and about the same distance off the 5th fret - the combination picks up a surprisingly close approximation of the harmonic structure of the sound. In perofrmance, I tend to use my Yamaha electric fiddle, it just carries better, it doesn't feed back, and in a noisy pub no-one can tell from nuance anyway. Besides, it looks cool! My harpist is still working out live miking of her instrument - you really need more than 1 for a harp. A larger harp can easily use 3 placed near the bass, mid and treble strings.
JeffK
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by JeffK627
Re: Amplifying your instruments
In my experience most "Irish" pub band guitarists in New Zealand (!) go for a bridge pick-up, preamp plus effects (such as a bit of "chorus effect") to imitate an acoustic sound in a band situation. One problem with having lots of mikes on stage is that they tend to feedback, especially when monitors are involved. Good music shops should easily be able to help you with this one, as they have a lot of experience of guitars.
On the other hand, I always found it difficult to find a pick up that gave a true sound for banjo. I tried many expensive pick ups, and ended up going back to a cheap NZ$30 stick-on pickup. If anyone knows a good way to amplify a banjo for a band situation, I'd be interested!
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by Al Baxter
Re: Amplifying your instruments
Here's a brief pedagogical/pedantic introduction to acoustic amplification. Part one, the undersaddle pickup and preamp.
A piezo-electric element is a device which generates a bit of electrical current when squeezed. Put one of those between the saddle and the face of your guitar, or under the feet of your fiddle bridge, and it'll be squeezed by the pressure of the strings and the face, generating an electrical current corresponding closely to the vibration of the face. That's called an "undersaddle pickup" (or "undersaddle transducer" - "transducer" means device for converting one form of energy to another, in this case mechanical motion to electrical current)
If you plug an undersaddle pickup straight into a soundboard or amp, it'll usually sound pretty bad, but if you use a pre-amp to condition the signal, you can get a good sound out of them, good enough for bars at least . A pre-amp is a specialized amplifier designed to bring bring a signal to the right level for the mixing board/amplifier to deal with it. They often do other things to your signal as well. The best bet if you're asking these questions is to get an LR Baggs Para-acoustic DI for $100-$150. They'll take any undersaddle (except the B-Band, which is a special case) and make it sound tolerable if that can be done at all. There are more specialized preamps and DIs available, but the Baggs will do you well for cheap.
The undersaddle pickup is the easiest and most generally useful method of amplifying a stringed instrument that I've run into. They will will not reproduce the sound of your instrument as well as a good microphone positioned correctly, but if you're playing in bars or at dances, the compromise to the sound will not be heard against the background noise if you use a pre-amp with decent EQ. I won't use microphones in a bar situation, due to feedback, lack of mobility, stage clutter, and extra loadout time. For concert situations, you might consider other options, like microphones or mic/pickup blends, or telling everybody to shut up.
Hope that's useful.
# Posted on April 23rd 2002 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Amplifying your instruments
Re: Banjo Pickups - the best I have heard is a magnetic pickup that attaches to the coordinating rods
inside, under the head. The pickup is positioned within a business card's thickness of the head.
A small flat metal inductor is placed under the middle foot of the bridge. The pickup reproduces the
movement of this inductor and gives a surprizingly good reproduction of the banjo's sound. At high enough
volumes, it will feedback, but it still gets pretty loud. This is the set up world music star Bela Fleck used
to use. Elderly.com probably has them. They used to be called "Jones Acoustic Plus."
Regarding stage feedback with a mic/pickup combo: For maximum volume, don't put any mic signal in the
stage monitors. Use the pickup for this. You will hear the "bad" pickup tone on stage, but the
audience hears the mic or mic/pickup combo.
Joe
# Posted on April 24th 2002 by Carrmuse
Re: Amplifying your instruments
Thank you Jon. You gave me some of the tech-info that I really wanted. Really appreciated it!
Lars
# Posted on April 24th 2002 by lars
Re: Amplifying the harp (clarsach)
Hi - just thought I'd add to what's a fascinating thread.
I amplify my harp sometimes for sessions, especially where it's going to be noisy. This is not to drown out everyone else, but to make sure I don't shred my fingertips! I use a little battery-operated amp to provide the sound, and a small electret mic to pick up the sound. This is placed inside the harp about 2" from the soundboard, about 2/3 of the way down toward the bass end.
The weird thing is that I originally placed the mic VERY close to the soundboard (but not touching) thinking that it would stop any audio feedback from the speaker getting back into the mic - reasoning that the closer the mic was to the soundboard, the more "harp" it would pick up and the less "speaker" from the outside world. It didn't work like that; positioning it further away from the soundboard has almost totally killed any tendency for the thing to feed back at even quite high amplification. I've no idea why - and I thought I understood sound!!
For recording, incidentally, I use high-quality phantom-powered mics at about 24" away pointing near the top and bottom of the soundboard. A little "narrowing" in the mixer and some reverb, and it's great!
Mark
# Posted on April 28th 2002 by Mark Harmer
Re: Amplifying your instruments
Re: Banjo pick ups
Thanks Joe for your advice on banjo pick ups. The Jones one worked well for me and gave a good authentic sound. Then the pub, where we had residency, changed the air conditioning system - after that a loud buzzing sound always occurred when I plugged in my banjo! I later found that this was the because the Jones pick up has a single coil in it which can be prone to electrical interference.
Jeremy - I think this thread would be great if divided into different instruments (banjo, fiddle, harp etc. ) for future reference.
Al
# Posted on April 28th 2002 by Al Baxter
Re: Amplifying your instruments
For Guitar, Banjo and Mandolin I find the Fishman pickups excellent. I have a few Shure SM58's but I find that they are good for vocal rather than instrumental use. I wonder could anyone tell me a solution for miking uilleann pipes? Is there any known clip on ar attachable microphone?
# Posted on April 28th 2002 by Dceol
Re: Amplifying your instruments
Amplifiying pipes??!! This thread started out as a question about the best way to amplify other instruments so the pipes wouldn't drown them out!!! LOL - I know, Uilleann pipes aren't as loud as bagpipes, but I still found the question ironic. Maybe a woodwind pickup such as a flute or clarinet player might use?
# Posted on April 29th 2002 by JeffK627
Re: Amplifying your instruments
Amplifing the uilleann pipes would be a nightmare, due to the large number of drones and regulators that stick out at weird angles. If i were setting up to record u.p., i would either record the piper alone in the studio or set up some sort of isolation with sound barriers, and surround the piper with microphones. Probably one from above, and at least a couple from different angles around the pipes.
# Posted on April 29th 2002 by glauber
Re: Amplifying your instruments
As I recall, Tim Britton, King of the PA system where it comes to pipes, uses three pickups, or maybe that was one mic and two pickups, but I could be wrong. Dirk, do you remember what Tim used?
I could always e-mail Tim and ask him what he prefers if a piper out there is truly interested.
Zina
# Posted on April 29th 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: Amplifying your instruments
If you email him, ask what he does for flutes.
# Posted on April 29th 2002 by glauber
Re: Amplifying your instruments
Dceol
You say that you use Fishman pickups. Are they of the kind that looks almost like an electric guitar pickup that is placed inside the soundhole (soundhole, what soundhole? the banjo says).
Lars
# Posted on April 30th 2002 by lars
Re: Amplifying your instruments
I use a Fishman pickup on my fiddle-the pickup has a tiny metal wedge that fits in the grooves carved on your average bridge (or you can have it permanently set into the bridge, too). It's nice because I can take off or put it back on whenever I please.
# Posted on May 1st 2002 by Jessie K
Re: Amplifying your instruments
RE banjo pickups:
A humbucking pickup attached to the coordinating rods of the banjo would give you the same effect
as the Jones pickup. The tone will be a little masked (as per all humbuckers) and the rigging
may be a little diffucult but there is no hum!
McIntire makes a full range of stick-on transducer pickups that sound preety darn good. There is a
very expensive transducer called a Shertle (or something like that) which has a low inpendence output
and a beautiful sound on guitar, mandolin and fiddle. It just sticks on the outside of any stringed
instrument with some hi tech goo that can be used over and over. A musician friend of mine
actually changes instruments during a performance and simply sticks and un-sticks the pickup
from instument to instrument!
Joe
# Posted on May 1st 2002 by Carrmuse
Re: Amplifying your instruments
Amplifying the pipes isn't that ironic a question. One must remember that although the pipes may seem loud in a confined area they carry no further than something like an accordion in a performance venue that may be capable of catering for three to four hundred noisy people. Thanks Jeff for the suggestion on woodwind pick up though, i'll check it out.
Lars, if you check out the fishman website you'll find a new rare earth magnetic pick up designed for the banjo. it is excellent and clips on beneath the skin.
Dceol
# Posted on May 12th 2002 by Dceol
Re: Amplifying your instruments
I just noticed that Zina once asked me how Tim Britton mix his pipes. Well, I'm revisiting this topic, and I wanted to leave a link to his very good web site description of this very topic:
search in the following page for "micing methods for the pipes"
http://www.skep.com/britton/faq.htm
-Dirk
# Posted on February 6th 2007 by dirk