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[bladeola]

Perhaps some of the live sound engineers here can help.

Ok, I own and use two mic's at the moment. I have a Standard Sm58 as my back up and my main is a Beta 58. I love Shure and don't need anyone going on about Sennheiser thankyou very much...my mind is made up on Shure

Anyway, I got the Beta about 6 months ago as reading reviews etc it pretty much got the thumbs up everytime and most said it was just like the normal 58 but about 3db loudr and didnt need as much playing with EQ wise. I have been delighted with it.

However, on our last wee jaunt down south we played Cheltenham and when we were soundchecking Dan was wayyyy louder and was using the clubs standard 58. The sound guy couldn't understand it then what we did was switched to my old standard 58 and the level was right up where it should be. The Beta was still putting out a signal and hasn't taken any knocks or anything. The sound guy was a nice guy and we chatted and he said that sometimes certain mics just dont go with certain PA's. He said it's unexplainable and there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to it. Id used teh Beta in Brighton the night before and it was fine.

Anyone got any ideas?

[soundian]

Originally Posted by bladeola

Perhaps some of the live sound engineers here can help.

Ok, I own and use two mic's at the moment. I have a Standard Sm58 as my back up and my main is a Beta 58. I love Shure and don't need anyone going on about Sennheiser thankyou very much...my mind is made up on Shure

Anyway, I got the Beta about 6 months ago as reading reviews etc it pretty much got the thumbs up everytime and most said it was just like the normal 58 but about 3db loudr and didnt need as much playing with EQ wise. I have been delighted with it.

However, on our last wee jaunt down south we played Cheltenham and when we were soundchecking Dan was wayyyy louder and was using the clubs standard 58. The sound guy couldn't understand it then what we did was switched to my old standard 58 and the level was right up where it should be. The Beta was still putting out a signal and hasn't taken any knocks or anything. The sound guy was a nice guy and we chatted and he said that sometimes certain mics just dont go with certain PA's. He said it's unexplainable and there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to it. Id used teh Beta in Brighton the night before and it was fine.

Anyone got any ideas?

An intermittent fault on either pin 2 or 3 of the mic cable seems the most likely cause from the info you've given. The Beta would still put out signal, just 6 dB less, my article here will hopefully be clear enough for you to understand why.
It's not uncommon for intermittent faults to manifest themselves then disappear for hours, days, even weeks.
Have you had any problems with the Beta subsequently? If you haven't, it looks like it was just a dodgy mic cable.

As for certain mics not going with certain PA's, no idea what he's on about there, I've checked the specs on both mics and their impedance is pretty much the same, so an impedance mis-match is ruled out. The only time I've ever had compatibility problems with mics was a desk not having enough oomph in it's phantom power to supply the swathes of BBC condensers it was trying to power.

[bladeola]

The chances are it is leads...alot of these places have terrible leads it seems. Where should I take my mics then as I'd like them both checked out?

Thanks for the info as well!

[soundian]

Originally Posted by bladeola

The chances are it is leads...alot of these places have terrible leads it seems. Where should I take my mics then as I'd like them both checked out?

Thanks for the info as well!

Yeah, the leads take a lot of abuse in most places and normally you'll get the same few cables used again and again for vocals because they're the only ones long enough to reach the front of the stage, so they get much more abuse than the rest.
You should maybe take your own cable to plug into theirs, tape the end of both down with a bit of gaffer tape and the only bit that moves is yours, so in theory even if their mic lead is dodgy, it should keep working properly because it's not being moved.

I've no idea where you could get them checked but I know how I'd test their signal levels using just a mixer, a constant noise source (e.g. pink/white noise) and a hi-fi/small pa.

I've just had a thought, it could have been engineer error, maybe there was shit loads of compression on the channel, which he didn't notice until you'd changed mics, and he decided to keep quiet.Not that I've ever done that

[bladeola]

Originally Posted by soundian

Yeah, the leads take a lot of abuse in most places and normally you'll get the same few cables used again and again for vocals because they're the only ones long enough to reach the front of the stage, so they get much more abuse than the rest.
You should maybe take your own cable to plug into theirs, tape the end of both down with a bit of gaffer tape and the only bit that moves is yours, so in theory even if their mic lead is dodgy, it should keep working properly because it's not being moved.

I've no idea where you could get them checked but I know how I'd test their signal levels using just a mixer, a constant noise source (e.g. pink/white noise) and a hi-fi/small pa.

I've just had a thought, it could have been engineer error, maybe there was shit loads of compression on the channel, which he didn't notice until you'd changed mics, and he decided to keep quiet.Not that I've ever done that

haha, possibly huh? I dunno, I might go into atmosphere as they are always helpful in there. Yeah I used to take my own cable with me but i just tended to break them.

If I went into Captain Toms, would someone there be able to tell the mics were working ok by looing at the signal?

[RF Scott]

Planet Waves - Cables and Connectors

You could try getting one or two of these, they are more pricey then other cables, but are guaranteed for life!

[soundian]

Originally Posted by bladeola

haha, possibly huh? I dunno, I might go into atmosphere as they are always helpful in there. Yeah I used to take my own cable with me but i just tended to break them.

And you wonder why the venues have mic cable problems

Originally Posted by bladeola

If I went into Captain Toms, would someone there be able to tell the mics were working ok by looing at the signal?

Should do.
Try this:
Position the mic close to a speaker, use something to measure the distance because you need to put the other mic in exactly the same position.
Play some sort of constant noise through the speakers, preferably pink noise but some held notes on a keyboard covering a fairly wide frequency range should do it.
Adjust the gain on the mic so the meter is at 0db on the pfl.
Put the other mic on in exactly the same position, don't touch anything else, it should be the same, or near enough (maybe you will see the 3dB difference in the Beta, maybe not, most meters at round about 0 dB measure +/- 3 dB but they're usually not calibrated very precisely ).

[bladeola]

Originally Posted by soundian

And you wonder why the venues have mic cable problems


Should do.
Try this:
Position the mic close to a speaker, use something to measure the distance because you need to put the other mic in exactly the same position.
Play some sort of constant noise through the speakers, preferably pink noise but some held notes on a keyboard covering a fairly wide frequency range should do it.
Adjust the gain on the mic so the meter is at 0db on the pfl.
Put the other mic on in exactly the same position, don't touch anything else, it should be the same, or near enough (maybe you will see the 3dB difference in the Beta, maybe not, most meters at round about 0 dB measure +/- 3 dB but they're usually not calibrated very precisely ).

Cool...sounds good...I shall give that a go this evening.

Thanks.

[IamScrooge]

Originally Posted by bladeola

The sound guy was a nice guy and we chatted and he said that sometimes certain mics just dont go with certain PA's. He said it's unexplainable and there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to it.

For example; a microphone with a lot of presence going through a system with a deficient high end will sound better than a duller sounding microphone, however, in a properly tuned system, the duller microphone may shine as the mic with a lot of presence appears to be very harsh/piercing.

Hardly unexplainable, but usually unexpected, especially when the cheaper mic sounds better because its making up for a deficiency in the (usually cheap) sound system.

[emergency72]

If you like those Shure mics you should invest in an SM7 for your studio work....these have got really popular with LOUD vocalists in the past few years for studio vocals as they have the definition and clarity needed for recording, plus the benefits of having a mic you can hold in your hand while you record, ie...you can act like you do on stage rather than trying to work up a convincing performance standing behind a pop shield and music stand singing into a mic that looks like its made for recording opera Dunno if it would be any cope live however...