Do It Yourself Vocal Effects?
Meine liebe
Posts: 203
Would there be any "electrical repercussions" to my equipment if I hooked up a mic to a boss pedal in order to achieve some cheapo vocal effects? For instance, tremolo? My intuition tells me yes.....hence the question.
And any solid rules for "what not to hook to what" would be appreciated. Just so I dont have to ask in the future. Thanks.
And any solid rules for "what not to hook to what" would be appreciated. Just so I dont have to ask in the future. Thanks.
I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.
Mitch Hedberg
Mitch Hedberg
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Comments
If it's just your basic mic like and SM 58 you probably won't ruin it.
Don't go doing that with studio condensers and ribbons though.
as long as you have an XLR to 1/4 phone plug you will probably get some cool sounds out of it, I used to use, guitar amps for vocal distortion. It will sound really distorted but not likely hurt anything just start with the volume low to make sure everything is kosher with the speakers.
I have a cheapo mic that I can plug straight into the pedal and another MXL condensor mic that uses phantom power. The MXL is much better, but are you saying I shouldnt use that one since it is a condensor?
I also used an old guitar amp for vocal effects but I just moved and the old amp stayed behind.
Mitch Hedberg
First of all, the condenser won't work with guitar pedals, because condenser mics need phantom power, and the pedal won't supply that. You wouldn't break anything by plugging it in, you just won't get anything to work.
You can use a regular dynamic mic with an XLR plug. Like Paco said, you would need the cable conversion to go from XLR to 1/4". I would personally use a lo-Z to hi-Z converter, which is fairly inexpensive. You would then need a DI box after all the pedals to convert back to a mic-level lo-Z signal to go into the soundboard, recorder, etc. This is the best way to get passable sound-quality.
The other option is to use a hi-Z unbalanced mic, like the cheaper Radio Shack mics or a harmonica mic. Lots of people use the Shure Green Bullet mic for just such an application. You can plug any of those mics directly into guitar pedals, and again, just use a DI at the end to convert to mic-level lo-Z signal to the soundboard. These mics are pretty lo-fi, so don't expect studio-quality vocal sounds, but you can get some pretty cool effects nonetheless.
There are footpedal effects specially designed for use with professional XLR mics, but they're more expensive, so if you really want to do stuff on the cheap, then that's a less viable option.