Eddie's Microphone
freealcibiades
Posts: 365
I did a quick search and couldn't find anything on this. I sing in a rock bank and have a Shure Beta 87A vocal mic, but after a recent performance at the Knitting Factory in new york city, the audio jockey suggested a mic that picks more of the low end. He said the Shure Beta 87A is a whisperer's mic.
Does anyone know what Mic Ed uses? Is it an Audix OM-7?
Does anyone know what Mic Ed uses? Is it an Audix OM-7?
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Yes, Live it's an audix OM-7 supercardiod pattern I believe and it's been so for quite a while.
Anyone in the city feel free to come down. It's here:
http://www.aceofclubsnyc.com
We go on at 8pm.
The most common unidirectional microphone is a cardioid microphone, so named because the sensitivity pattern is heart-shaped (see cardioid). A hyper-cardioid is similar but with a tighter area of front sensitivity and a tiny lobe of rear sensitivity. A super-cardioid microphone is similar to a hyper-cardioid, except there is more front pickup and less rear pickup. These three patterns are commonly used as vocal or speech microphones, since they are good at rejecting sounds from other directions.
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I've been singing a bit and the woman I'm singing with has a REALLY powerful voice. Mine's deep but not as loud. Haha,,, ok, not as loud is an understatement! Kind of like maybe Woody Allen singing with Janis Joplin!
I tried a Shure 57 and that worked pretty well because you don't have to be right on the mike to let it hear you but it's not picking up the lows as well.
The Om7 is Hypercardioid which means you have to be right on the mike while you're singing because it's picking up signal right from the mouthpiece, not from the edges. It's designed this way so the stage monitors and stage volume doesn't go into that sucker and feedback.
Edit! Have a great gig!!
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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It basically helps you control things better as a sound man, they can crank you up without getting feedback from all the other noise sources.
The gist seems to be that you have be fellating the mic at all times for best results. I'm not into the giving end on fellating, but for good sound - and in the words of George Carlin in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back - I'll take a shot in the mouth. Hahahaha.
Another big part of it is their monitor engineer & monitor tech (it's always helpful to have someone at the controls that really knows what they're doing).
* BIG ALSO, Rat Sound (http://ratsound.com/) has been doing PJ's monitors for years (they use really great monitors) - The cabs are a proprietary
design called an EAW MicroWedge 12 Stage Monitor http://www.ratsound.com/microwdg.htm and they are very expensive ($2400 a piece).
Eddie Uses several of these monitors, and you almost need to be Eddie to be able to afford these monitors. But at this level it's what separates the
boys from the men in the performance world - really good performance equipment usually costs a fair amount of money, and as you move up in this
game the performance curve increases incrementally. And with each step up to sound better and better it costs more and more money - this is why
the pro's are pro's, and it's usually why they have such good gear.
- Ian
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http://www.btinternet.com/~paformusic/mics.htm#Omni-directional%20or%20Uni-directional - Then click "Omni-directional or Uni-directional".
There you'll see a list of microphone polar patterns, an illustration of each pattern, and what each one does.
This helps you understand what each different kind of microphone is, and how you might use each one.
The actual blue Shure product catalog has very similar information and illustrations in the back.
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As everyone else said, it is a hypercardiod pattern, so it has an extreme focus on the front of the mic. This means if your mouth tends to wander in relation to where the mic is pointing, you will have issues. A Shure SM58 is the most forgiving vocal mic in this fashion (wider pickup pattern). Your Beta 87A is a supercardiod, which is similar to the pattern on the OM-7, so you should be able to adjust fairly easily. It doesn't so much matter how close to the mic, just that you sing directly towards the front of the mic. It bears mentioning that the closer you are to the mic, the more low-end (bass) you'll get, due to a phenomenon known as "proximity response."
The biggest issue is to set your monitor off to one side or the other, especially the tweeter (horn) of the monitor. I would suggest at least 45 degrees off-center from the mic's axis of alignment. Hyper/supercardiod mics are often chosen by artists who need two monitors up front, because the two monitors are arranged in a "V" in front of the mic, putting them off-center. It will look a little funny with just one monitor off-center, but the feedback issue is more important than stage asthetics.
So, to recap: Put the monitor off to one side, and sing straight into the mic.