OT anti-feedback rental

[Cary B. Cornett]

Does anyone know if/where I can rent a feedback eliminator (Sabine, Behringer, etc.) in the Detroit area? I've got 4 singers on stage wearing "body pack" mics (omni, of course), and the feedback keeps me from being able to get even close to a decent stage monitor level.

thanks

[dhise]

Many, many years ago I used to rent a few things from Huber and Breeze. I haven't been there in so long that I couldn't tell you if they still do that or not, or even what products they carry anymore. I have always heard those devices don't really work all that well, so I never really considered trying one.

You could always go to the Guitar Center, buy one and take it back the next day... For all the grief they put you through for visiting their store that would be a good payback!

If you get ahold of one, let us know how it works out for you. I haven't encountered any horrible feedback situations that couldn't be eq'd, but am curious if those devices can tame the beast if the need arises.

-Doug
www.bigbblues.com

[AudioAstronomer]

Yeah, just buy one and pay the 15% restocking fee ;)

[Cary B. Cornett]

After calling around, I found that the cheapest rental rate was at least double the cost of simply buying the cheap Behringer unit, which has now been approved, as it was the only option that fit within the budget limit.

I'm off to GTC soon to get it.

It will be interesting to see how well it works, given that I cannot give each mic its own channel. BTW, the sales guy told me that I should use the graphic eq that we already have first, then add the Behringer after it.

[studio-c]

Does anyone have any feedback (okay, I didn't mean that) on these? I do some location stuff with lots of wireless lavs running around IN FRONT OF THE SPEAKERS, WOULD YOU GET A CLUE YOU MORONS.. excuse me, I just had a flashback.

Anyway, a guy at one big sound company said he hated how they colored the sound. Someone at another company said they were a life saver. I've just always used 32 band graphics, but for the dopes that insist on walking in front of the speakers with a live mic, you need the big guns.

While I'm venting, I really enjoy the FOLKS THAT USE THE WIRELESS HANDHELD MICS TO POINT AT THINGS WHILE THEY'RE TALKING. COULD YOU PLEASE JUST GET A FRIGGIN' BRAIN... oops. Ahem.

But really, any opinions? They're getting pretty inexpensive and might be a big help in the unpredictable world of corporate shenanigans.

[Naturally Digital]

Does anyone have any feedback (okay, I didn't mean that) on these? I've heard good things about the DBX unit http://www.dbxpro.com/AFS224.htm

No hands-on use myself but my source is very reliable with much theatre and corporate experience. 24 filters is nice. He said it responded very quickly.

[Tim Miskimon]

Does anyone have any feedback (okay, I didn't mean that) on these? I do some location stuff with lots of wireless lavs running around IN FRONT OF THE SPEAKERS, WOULD YOU GET A CLUE YOU MORONS.. excuse me, I just had a flashback.


While I'm venting, I really enjoy the FOLKS THAT USE THE WIRELESS HANDHELD MICS TO POINT AT THINGS WHILE THEY'RE TALKING. COULD YOU PLEASE JUST GET A FRIGGIN' BRAIN... oops. Ahem.



Yeah that's right - those stupid bast%!@# get on my nerves too!!!
If I had a rocket launcher some son of a b.... would pay... :D

[mako]

>snip<the sales guy told me that I should use the graphic eq that we already have first, then add the Behringer after it.

Yes I agree - that's the way I did our Theatre Restaurant this year.

Get the room out of the equation as much as possible then let the Behringer deal with whatever else comes up.

I doubt that it would prevent the "mics in front of the speakers" problem though - generally, it's not fast enough.

Good luck

mako

[Bill Park]

Does anyone know if/where I can rent a feedback eliminator (Sabine, Behringer, etc.) in the Detroit area? I've got 4 singers on stage wearing "body pack" mics (omni, of course), and the feedback keeps me from being able to get even close to a decent stage monitor level.

thanks

The inverse square law says that you will never get a decent stage monitor level when using lavs. They are not designed for this. Laws of physics, babe, give it up.

The best results will be with good mics with high gain-before-feedback designs, like the Sennhieser MKE 2, or the DPA all gold copy (The DPA won't sweat out.)

We often have 25-30 singers running around with lavs, but the stage is 90x150, the grid is 85 feet up (the ceiling another 15 or so above that). So we can get lots of gain up front, but the laws of physics are tough to break, and you just can't get much monitor on stage.

By the way, you are absolutely going to HATE what any feedback eliminator does to the sound.

And... these things are basically automatic eqs, with limited (narrow) bands (the number of bands varies with the model and design). Not enough bands to attenuate all the problem freqs when you put the mic in front of the speaker. If there were enough, then it would simply attenuate all of the audio. There is no way to put a mic in front of the speaker and get any gain. You can't get something for nothing.

The right answer (for pop/jazz/etc) is to move to hand helds. The right answer for plays and musicals is to make sure that the music is not so loud on stage, so that the singers can hear themselves.

Bill

[Lance]

I have the Sabine 31 band GraphiQ which after much research I had determined was one of the best ones out there... that being said, I rarely use the anti-feedback feature because it proved to be very difficult to control as the gig would go on. I used it primarily in my band's traveling PA system so I've used it in many, many rooms from small clubs to outside. I've used it now for over 2 years.

Setting up sound and ringing out the room with the 1/3 band eqs was very easy. But the problem was when you start putting signal through the monitors. Generally, the vocalists like to hear their voices crisp and fat. The way I began to figure it, judging from the differences in the sound at the end of the set, not just the night, but end of set, is that this vocal eq then created peaks in the frequency response which over time, the anti-feedback circuit began seeing as "hot" and would continue to notch it down. At the end of the set, the sound in the monitors was indeed flat sounding with no life. With the complete band mic'd through the system, cymbals become a problem to the system, as does guitar and organ. Anything which can sustain for a few seconds at a given frequency.

Now, I only attempt to use the anti-feedback circuit in extremely problematic rooms, and generally only the first time playing in that room. I get to know the room during the first gig and then handle everything with eq from that point forward.

Probably a more convenient tool would be a 31 band graphic with built in analyzer which lights up an led above the resonant band. I think that ART has a device like this, but I don't know about the quality.

Lance

[Cary B. Cornett]

The inverse square law says that you will never get a decent stage monitor level when using lavs. They are not designed for this. Laws of physics, babe, give it up.

The best results will be with good mics with high gain-before-feedback designs, like the Sennhieser MKE 2, or the DPA all gold copy (The DPA won't sweat out.)

I do SO wish there was the budget for gear like that, but this is community theater, and on a small scale at that (house with less than 300 seats). I would have preferred to go entirely with handheld mics, but with this show that is not possible... certainly I could not convince the director. In fact, they don't like the body pack mics much, but we DO need them.


By the way, you are absolutely going to HATE what any feedback eliminator does to the sound.

The right answer (for pop/jazz/etc) is to move to hand helds. The right answer for plays and musicals is to make sure that the music is not so loud on stage, so that the singers can hear themselves.

Bill

I think the amount of sonic damage depends on how agressively the box has to be used. I should know more about this tonight (last night a power interruption in mid-performance caused the processor to lose its mind, and I wasn't willing to re-initialize it in the middle of the show).

One nice thing about this particular show is that it does not require "rock concert" levels. I'm pretty sure that house SPL most of the time is below 85 dB (something else I will check tonight, if I remember). The show is also relatively simple, in that the band is only piano, drums, and bass. The band is upstage of the singers as usual for a concert (not in the "pit" area as usual for most musicals), so there is no need for any instruments in the floor monitors, just the vocals so that all the singers can hear each other. Stage levels are quite moderate. There is no amplifier on the "doghouse" bass (we are using pickup/DI for FOH feed), and the baby grand piano on stage has the lid just barely open, because it would otherwise be too loud by itself. The drummer is one who understands balance and dynamics, so he plays at a proper moderate level. All this means that the SPL requirements for the floor monitors are MUCH lower than for "rock" use, which MAY mean I can actually pull this off with the automatic filters.

If I can make it so that all of the singers can hear each other, everyone will be happy.

[studio-c]

Actually I forgot to mention this, but I have four Countryman over the ear microphones. Practically invisible, and they put the mic 2 inches from the performer rather than a foot away like a lav.

Here's something scary: I use these mostly for runway hair shows for Paul Mitchell, where the music is pumping and they've got their big scissors out and are wielding them like Benihana knives as they whack at the long blonde hair of these models. Well the wires on those mics are hair thin, and during the whole show I am thinking "four hundred dollars apiece if they slip." Been pretty lucky so far. Oops. I think I just jinxed myself...

I have really good luck with these on runway shows, but less on corporate things where people are used to the lav thing on their tie and don't want to feel like "Madonna."

"Performer suspicion" reminds me of just after the "We Are The World" video came out, and they were using those pantyhose/embroidery hoop pop-stoppers, which at the time were exactly that because you couldn't buy them anywhere. We were doing a jingle vocal session, and the bass singer saw that thing and would NOT go near it, thinking it was a practical joke. "You are NOT gonna get me to put my nose near some woman's pantyhose." We took it off...

Man, the coffee's good this morning. Have a good day everyone!

Cheers,
Scott

[Bill Park]

One nice thing about this particular show is that it does not require "rock concert" levels. ...

From what you describe, it seems as if you are in the ideal situation. This to me indicates that the singers should already NOT be having trouble hearing themselves or each other naturally. Geting just a little level goose in the monitors might be enough, and you should be able to do that with a standard 1/3 octave eq. Again, your success will be directly tied to the quality of the lav mics in use. Rather than sell a feedback eliminator to the group, sell better mics.

Here in town, even the smallest, low budget theater groups learned long ago that they may fudge on the recievers and belt packs and get away with it, but the mics are pretty much universally the Sennhiesers, with a scattering of DPAs and the odd Tram that shows up on occasion and generally is the last one used.

I'm a past owner of Countryman (I just gave mine to Lynn Fuston earlier this year) and though I agree that you cannot beat the convenience and the fact that it places the element in a great spot, the element itself did not sound near as good or musical as the Sennheisers. I'd still use them for industrials, but not for musicals, and if I had to pick but one, it would not be the Countryman. (Which is why I gavce mine away...)

Bill

[mako]

Yes I agree - that's the way I did our Theatre Restaurant this year.

Get the room out of the equation as much as possible then let the Behringer deal with whatever else comes up.

I doubt that it would prevent the "mics in front of the speakers" problem though - generally, it's not fast enough.

Good luck

mako

My apologies - I must restate some misinformation I've given in my previous post.

Others have stated - "you will hate what this unit does to your music" or similar.
That's been true for me in past years when I had the whole sound going through an EQ, then the Behringer; and, why, this year I revised my sound flow.

This year, on stage for the actors, we had 2 TOA bodypacks with lapel mics (worked very well) and one EV R200 with a Sennheiser MKE2 mic (lovely mic btw).
We also continued with our Shure SM81 as main stage mic.

For Vocal songs we had 3 Shure Beta 58's on stage and another 4 mics in the pit for myself, the pianist and 2 backup vocalists.

All signals went through the 31 band EQ.
The Behringer was an insert on the SM81 channel.

The SM81 channel was muted for songs so no "foreign" signal would interfere with the Behringer settings.

Stage monitors would be cut completely for acting scenes and pushed up for songs.

This setup worked really well until the last night with a very boisterous crowd and the A/C turned on.
Patrons at the back found it difficult to hear the dialogue.
I turned up our "mid to rear area" system which helped somewhat but was not entirely successful (it put a slight feedback ring in another area).

Nevertheless, at the end of the night we received a standing ovation with yells for more.

To recap - the only problem area was getting enough signal into the SM81.

The "song" system was excellent and the TOA's and MKE2 worked beautifully.

I hope this clears up some mud.

mako

[Leadfoot]

"You are NOT gonna get me to put my nose near some woman's pantyhose." We took it off...


what's wrong with that? imo, when that happens, generally things are going quite well :)

Tony

[Bill Park]

...Someone at another company said they were a life saver. I've just always used 32 band graphics, but for the dopes that insist on walking in front of the speakers with a live mic, you need the big guns.

While I'm venting, I really enjoy the FOLKS THAT USE THE WIRELESS HANDHELD MICS TO POINT AT THINGS WHILE THEY'RE TALKING. COULD YOU PLEASE JUST GET A FRIGGIN' BRAIN... oops. Ahem.



With this style of thinking, when people are pounding holes in the bottom of the boat; the solution would appear to be to follow behind, calking as fast as you can. A proactive response might be cheaper, sound better, and possibly be a little more sensible. (The funny part about this is I've got "Saturday Night Live" on in the background, and they just did a sendup of a corporate guy doing many of the wrong things with the mic and A/V presentation.)

Bill

[John Hernandez]

Hello Cary, group,

I purchased a Behringer feedback eliminator a few years back for a children's musical theater production I was working on. The thing did a lousy job for me at eliminating feedback (but then again, it could be chalked up to user error :p ).

Thankfully, I was able to return the unit to GC prior to the initiation of the 15% restocking fee gig.

Blessings,

[Craig Allen]

I use two of the Behringers with mixed results. I play in many different venues and it's not possible to ring them out before hand, so I leave them in auto mode and forget about it. When I got my first one, the first test I did was hook up my monitor rig with it in the chain, and pointed a mic at the speaker. It did exactly what it was supposed to do - clamped down on the feedback. I did that a dozen or so times, and it worked every time. Later I bought some new subs and fed them sin waves to see what they could do and find any resonances, and the feedback destroyer that was in the chain started killing the signal I was feeding it. Obviously I'm not playing back sin waves when performing, but it made me think - a singer or guitarists hits a single note and holds it, I bet it's notching it. I notice a change in our sound at the end of a night when compared to a soundcheck, but the sound still isn't bad - just not as good (usually in the high end). I ended up using the auto preset on it that will overwrite banks once all 12 are full hoping that maybe if a bogus notch is made during the night, it'll be overwritten at some point by a real problem frequency. And I still use them because I feel the changes it makes compared to feedback is the lesser of two evils. Of course if I had a dedicated soundman, I would have them use the SAW Frequency Analyzer in conjunction with the JMS EQ to battle feedback since I use SAW to mix with. I've used this method in a particularly difficult venue and it worked like a champ.

[Leadfoot]

I've been doing a lot of live sound over the summer, mostly festivals with medium to large setups, multiple bands at concert levels. I can't remember having any feedback problems(that weren't directly related to the occasional singer pointing the mic into the monitor, nothing i can do about that). And every time I came across a rack that had feedback eliminators in it, they totally trashed the sound, so I took 'em out of the chain. For me, I'm much better, and faster with real eq's that I can get my hands on, not digital ones that I have to go thru menus and pages with. If it was a permanent install, it would maybe be a different story. In ears are great, but the singers sing a lot quieter when using them cause they hear themselves so well they think they're singing too loud. Oh well, always something.

Tony

[Bill Park]

.... In ears are great, but the singers sing a lot quieter when using them cause they hear themselves so well they think they're singing too loud. Oh well, always something.

Tony

If this is true, the IE are too loud.

Bill

[Cary B. Cornett]

I picked up the Behringer unit, and have now run it through two performances. I have to say results are mixed.

First, what I did:
I had a graphic EQ which I put ahead of the Behringer, and I started with the graphic set "flat". One channel of this processing went into the main out insert for FOH, and the other went between the monitor mix out and the amplifier. Before sound check, I "rang out" the system until about 7 of the filters had set themselves (did this once for FOH and once for stage). I then read the settings from each filter and set up the graphic EQ using the nearest correct bands. Next, I reset the Behringer and rang out the channels again, so that it would concentrate on what the graphic EQ missed.

The interesting part was that, while FOH sounded just fine, the singers were not happy with the unnaturalness of the resulting monitor sound, and they opted to just do without stage monitors.

I think the unit was helpful, but I am not confident that I could give it a "ringing" endorsement ;)

[Lance]

The interesting part was that, while FOH sounded just fine, the singers were not happy with the unnaturalness of the resulting monitor sound, and they opted to just do without stage monitors.



Yeah, this is exactly the problem I had, the process starts to suck the life out of the sound and it is uncomfortable to sing against in the monitors.

Lance

[Craig Allen]

This is an old post, but I thought I'd add my recent experience with the Behringer. This weekend, we played a place that had a horrible room - square with lots of glass and low ceilings. I thought I had gotten all the feedback notched at soundcheck, but when we started playing, the drummer said something louder than he had checked and the mic started ringing. I put in both Behringers that I usually leave bypassed all the time - for FOH and monitors. This is why I had the Behringers in the first place - hard to tune rooms and little time. Anyway, as the night went on I noticed the kick disappeared (we have 2 JBL 18" subs, the kick doesn't have a problem ever being heard). I checked the channel, and everything looked OK, and then discovered that the Behringer actually notched it out - almost the entire kick sound! I ended up bypassing the FOH Behringer, but left the monitor rig one in place.

So, anyone want to buy a Behringer feedback destroyer? I have one for sale, cheap! :D