Problems using mic for practice

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Steve3o

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I am playing in a band that plays together occasionally. We all have good setups and gear, however, we lack in our vocal department. We don't want to use this for live shows or whatever, we just need a good setup for practice.
Right now we have a Shure SM57 with a M-Audio DMP3 preamp. This goes through a nice 200 watt bass amp. We also have a choice of putting it through a Fender Super Reverb, but think the bass amp would work better. The only problem is, it won't get loud enough without feedbacking. Even though the singer could be 13 feet away from the amp. Any suggestions? Without having to purchase anything.

Sorry, I hope this can go here. And sorry for my horrible written paragraph :)
 
1st, make sure the speaker

is somewhere in front of the mic

pointing away from it



if it is an open cab

hang a blanket over the back



hang a blanket

in back of the singer

so wall reflections to the mic

are damped



turn down trebel

(and reverb if used)
 
Even a proper PA can have trouble getting "loud enough" in many practice type spaces.

Most people are dealing with guitar, bass and drums that are way too loud for the small space that they are in. Even with say a 20X20 foot space (I know many people are dealing with way less too) that's not enough space for a drum kit that is being hit hard and other instruments that are as loud and sometimes louder still to really sound good. Because sound is bouncing all over the place it ends up being muddy and hard to hear even though it is loud as all fuck. If the room isn't big enough to support the sound you put in it it will fight you. It's usual to think if you can't hear something that it needs to be louder still but often it's the other way around.

Next issues, a PA system will feed back at some point volume wise, that's just how it works.

The point of feedback is dependent on how close the mic is to the PA speaker, whether the mic's pickup pattern is facing towards or away from the speaker, and how the sound is bouncing around the room.

Eq on the amp is meant for bass guitar of course but it might help you somewhat with your mic. What kind of frequencies are most prominent with this setup? If you are lucky it's predominantly low end feedback because that should be easier to cut out while not loosing the mids you need for the vocal to be loud and audible.

You might want to try putting the amp on the floor but angling it upwards like a wedge monitor that you see on a stage with the backside of the mic towards the amp.

It would help somewhat to have more of a real PA system than what you have there but even if you had the cash to throw at the problem that still might not fix it all for you.

Getting a band to sound decent in what is more than too often a crappy too small room is tough and without fixing the real problems you can often throw a lot of money at it and end up making it only a little better.
 
If the amp has an effects loop or power amp in, plug the DMP3 into that, bypassing the preamp section of the bass amp.

As was suggested before, angle the amp upwards, or get it on something to get it up near ear level.
 
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