Getting a deep voice heard live when the band is loud

[WarmJetGuitar]

Honestly I don't know if this is the right forum as this is mostly a problem in live situations.

The thing is that I occasionally does live sound enginering (not very good at it, prefer the studio). I often find that deep male voices don't cut through the mix at all, and feedback becomes a huge issue when just turning up the volume. When the same voice is singing in a higher pitch I rarely get any trouble. What should I do? Using a gate?
Got the same problem when playing with our band. On medium sized venues it's rarely a problem, but in small venues with crappy equipment my voice is drowning when going down low.

Usually working with genres like various kinds of psychedelia, shoegaze or noise rock asking the band to turn down their amps would be bordering blasphemy and destroy their performance so that's not an option.

 

[Phrasemaker]

I have a deep voice, which basically means I pitch my musical arrangements so that my vocal is not competing with too many instrument notes which are within the same octave as the vocal notes. There are other ways to get the vocal to cut, using various vocal treatments like vox doubling and applying amounts of chorus to get additional harmonic tonality in respect of the vocal. I think it's fair to say that the original bands whose music you might cover would have considered their vocalists sound when composing music for a song. I work mostly with my own originals and allowing for my vocal range is critical in that process, something I learned very quickly after laying down a few tracks and then having to sing along with what I'd played. Using a gate will have no effect other than keep out the crap either side of a voice reaching the level required to open it. Vocal processing with thoughtfully applied compression is certainly worth a shot prior to re scoring your instrument parts to make space for the vocal to poke through.

All the best

Tim

 

[RawDepth]

...asking the band to turn down their amps would be bordering blasphemy and destroy their performance so that's not an option.

As long as you all believe that, the problem will never go away.

So the question seems to be: "How can I put a quiet voice in the middle of extremely loud noise and have it not be lost?" Wait! That's almost the same problem as: "How can I put a needle in the middle of a haystack and have it not be lost?"

I can only think of three possible ways to make the voice be heard.

 

[DavidK]

I can only think of three possible ways to make the voice be heard.

1. Turn down the band.

2. Turn up the vocals.

3. Construct the arrangement so that 1 and 2 don't interfere with each other as much.

 

[rayc]

David has it in the simplest terms - but it is what has been said by others above.