Feedback How-to

[MrStitch]

I've got a Karaoke service, where inevitably, we get feedback at some point. Can't stop a drunk singer from walking all over the place, and causing problems. I've thought about feedback killers, but I've heard a lot of complaints about those as well.

However, I think I have a good starting point for equipment, but I don't know the best way to troubleshoot feedback on the fly.

I have an ART 31 band eq attached to the system. The main signal go's from the mixer, to the eq, then down to the power amp. I do this, cause not all karaoke cd's are mixed that well, and I like to 'tweak'.

The eq has, i think, low cut knobs and hi cut knobs... not even sure what I should be doing with these.

I also have a BlueTube pre-amp for two SM58's.

With so many different area's for gains, I can't tell anymore where the sore spots are most likely at. Anyone have any suggestions? Things that can be done BEFORE a show starts, without annoying the hell out of the existing crowd?

 

[SamIam89]

First off, is it possible to move the speakersforward and the singer further behind them? If not, keep reading.


There are "manual" feedback eliminators, or eq's with "feedback detectors". They're graphic equalizers with an led above each slider and when that frequency band gets too hot (or sometimes feedback), the light lights up aerting you to the location of the feedback. So what you can do is have someone walk around stage before the show with an overly hot mic and you can lower your common feedback frequencies. Just a thought.

As for the lowpass and hi-pass, these probably won't realy help you. They are for basically dropping all frequencies on both ends of the spectrum so your speakers arn't trying to produce sound higher and lower than is necessary.

 

[MrStitch]

Our mains are usually in front of the singer pointing away from them, so that helps. However, we do have a couple monitors on the floor pointing towards the singer... that way they can hear the track better, etc.

Our mains are on one channel of the eq, and the monitors are on another. Should I keep the hi's way down on the monitors, or simply adjust the overall volume sent to the monitors?

 

[TexRoadkill]

Usually you can roll of the highs>12K and lows<120 and sometimes have some severe cuts around 800, 3K,8K. Just don't cut more then you need to.

And stop using a smiley face EQ on the mains.

 

[dgatwood]

Our mains are usually in front of the singer pointing away from them, so that helps. However, we do have a couple monitors on the floor pointing towards the singer... that way they can hear the track better, etc.

Our mains are on one channel of the eq, and the monitors are on another. Should I keep the hi's way down on the monitors, or simply adjust the overall volume sent to the monitors?

How about throw a cheap $99 Behringer feedback eliminator on just the monitor feed? I mean, it's not like it really makes much difference if a frequency gets notched in your monitor feed. Heck, it doesn't even matter if the notch is done -badly-. It's a monitor feed....

Just a thought.