Controlling the volume while performing at the mic?

[jbroad572]

Will a body pack give you the ability to turn yourself up and down? I found what I need to mute myself, but there are some songs I play where I don't want to be as loud playing the lead and want to fade myself in the background and play with the bass lines (performing on the sax).

 

[HangDawg]

Control the volume of what?

 

[jbroad572]

Control the volume of what?

Of my saxophone. I know the main level is controlled at the main board, but is it possible I can have the sound guy set the max volume I want to play at and then take the volume down by using a body pack or something similar? Am I making sense?

 

[HogansHiro]

Shouldn't any decent sound man be mixing your sound into the mix anyway?

 

[jbroad572]

Shouldn't any decent sound man be mixing your sound into the mix anyway?

Can I not just get a decent answer? Is it a possibility or will I just have to look for other options?
We don't have a decent sound man and the sound guy is new at what he's doing, but we use what we have. I can't go out in the sanctuary to see how I sound either, until I get a wireless mic, which sucks. I just know sometimes I lead and do fills and want/need to stand out, but on other songs I don't want to, because I am not playing a lead part.

 

[scrubs]

Is it a clip-on mic, or on a stand? If it's on a stand, just back up a little. For a clip-on, I don't know of any in-line volume dials (except on some wireless units).

 

[HogansHiro]

you need to rig a volume pedal somehwere before you mic gets into the board. if you're running a wireless setup that has 1/4 outputs then run the volume pedal between your rcvr and the snake(di box)/main board. A simple guitar/keyboard volume pedal will work fine but if you're working with XLR then I am not sure of the signal conversion to get into a line level because then you run into issues with getting that hotter signal into your previous mic channel.

make sense?

 

[jbroad572]

you need to rig a volume pedal somehwere before you mic gets into the board. if you're running a wireless setup that has 1/4 outputs then run the volume pedal between your rcvr and the snake(di box)/main board. A simple guitar/keyboard volume pedal will work fine but if you're working with XLR then I am not sure of the signal conversion to get into a line level because then you run into issues with getting that hotter signal into your previous mic channel.

make sense?

Yea, I was afraid of something like that. I have a clip on I was wanting to use. It's a Audio Technica atm35. I'll also be buying a Rolls PM50s (monitor) and a Cough Drop (monetary mute). They all operate with the XLR.
If it were a regular stand mic, of course the obvious thing to do would be to back up. If you guys have any other ideas please let me know.
Thanks!

 

[paddyponchero]

Hi J,

I have accomplished this with a programmable midi pedal and midi controllable effects unit. There are integrated solutions now

http://www.bananas.com/productdetail.asp/pid_481/productname_Digitech-Vx300-Vocal-Effects-Pedal

I'm not sure if you can mute using this but if so it would eliminate the cough drop from your chain. There are reports of the digitech pedal being quite noisy. For another 100 dollars you could probably pick up a midi pedal and something like the midiverb IV which would be far greater quality.


My only other suggestion is that you get a volume pedal and hack some circuitry into it.

[edit]

You might get usable results with a cheap pre followed by a volume pedal. The audio buddy is good and clean for little money, you could proabably hack the circuitry of it into a volume pedal for a neater solution. Or you could pickup an art tube mp for a few dollars on ebay, they suck but at their used price and for live performance I wouldn't be too concerned.

[/edit]

Shouldn't any decent sound man be mixing your sound into the mix anyway?

You can't expect a sound engineer good or bad to have an intimate knowledge of all parts of your music and to be able to predict any improvisation you may want to make. Can you see a guitar player asking the sound engineer to adjust the volume control on his guitar in the same way that he would the sound engineer is not responsible for expression

 

[Ape32]

Not to be a jerk (as always said before a jerky comment) but, can you play quieter when you want it quieter? Some sax players can do that pretty well. I guess you want to be able to play the bass parts hard so they are solid, etc?

Another cheap and easy - use you clip un for all normal playing and walk up to the "solo" stand mic and rip into that for your solos - this mic can even be narrower in freq. range, i.e. sm57 (cheap too) and that will layer with your normal nice sound and add more volume and a bit of subtle grit.

If this is church gig (every week, right?) the sound guy should be able to get used to pushing you for solos, I do it all the time in my sound gig when players take solos and they don't get sufficiently LOUDER (most do, and also make cool faces, stances)

_ A

 

[FALKEN]

put the mic on a stand and back off when you want to be quieter.

 

[EleKtriKaz]

put the mic on a stand and back off when you want to be quieter.

That is definitely the way to go. That would be part of the solution in a studio recording environment as well, so why not do it live. Especially if you're in a nice sounding hall.