Feedback Problems

[UsefulIdi0t]

Ok so my band has been practicing a few times lately and we're running into some problems. Our biggest problem is feedback. Were having to play in the living room of our drummers house and it's kind of a small space. We've been meesing around with different ways to have our stuff setup, but it seems like no matter what we get major feedback. Our guitarist and myself both use spider 2 112 combo amps that are 75 watts. We have to turn our volumes between 75%-100% volume to hear them over the drums. once they egt to about 50% and higher they start to get a lot of feeback.

This is our setup right now http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/usefu1ldi0t/jamsetup.jpg

I know it looks pretty bad and we have some stuff aiming at each other, but its really hard to have the singer be in the middle of the room and not have amps pointed at each other. How can we move stuff to mkae it better? Is there even another way to get rid of feedback?

My other question is about our PA system. We finally end up getting this Yamaha StagePas 300 - http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/proaudio/products/pa_systems/stagepas300/

Now we were told by our drummers friend who works at Guitar Center that this system would easily be loud enough over the drummer, but when we finally played with it, we could barely hear anything from the vocalist over the drums. We were wondering if we should take it back and get a better system or if we might have the placement of the speakers wrong so we cant hear them as well. The other guitar center employee kept trying to push the 800$ fender passport instead of the 500$ yahama we got. Im thinking were probably gonna have to spend at least 800 bucks now if we want a loud enough system.

Any help would be awesome, thanks.

[PremierManiac]

According to your drawing you have a PA speaker pointed at a mic. Feedback is when a mic hears itself, that could be your problem.

[UsefulIdi0t]

Well the feedback is mostly in the guitar speakers. The PA does have a bit of feedback, but we tried moving the speakers away from the guitars and mics and everything but no matter what it still has feedback.

*edit* how can we point the speakers away from the mic but also have the vocalist still be able to hear himself. the speakers have to point towards him for him to hear so it seems like a lose-lose situation.

[PremierManiac]

I don't know much about guitar amps, try the guitar forum for help.

Just put the singer off to the side so the speaker is pointed across his body but far enough in front of him so the mic doesn't pick up the sound.

[diesel]

For cutting the guitar feedback down, lean your amp back against a wall, towards your ears. You can turn it down that way, and cut back a lot of squealing.

For vocals, try using your speakers on the floor as monitor wedges. My doing that should let the mic reject most of the speaker's sound, and thus cut feedback there.

[kevbud187]

ya you'd be better of buying a rackmountable feedback eliminater at gc with that cash you've got. With your feedback out of the way you should be a ble to crack it a considerable amount more

[UsefulIdi0t]

ya you'd be better of buying a rackmountable feedback eliminater at gc with that cash you've got. With your feedback out of the way you should be a ble to crack it a considerable amount more

Do you have any recommendations? Would each guitarist need one or can multiple guitars go through one? It would kind of suck if both of us have to spend a few hundred bucks to get rid of it.


*edit* Also, my amp sounds like crap when its at a high volume. Is that common for the spider 2 stuff? Im guessing since it's not a tube amp it probably usually sounds bad when its louder. Im thinking about looking into a half stack or something with a head so it will sound better.

[moaner]

It'll be the use of mediocre qulity digital/ss amps at high volume and high distortion levels.

[kevbud187]

Lemme see. I htink Berhinger has one out for around $110 & it would probobly take specs and diagrams of your intire system to see if you'd need multipule. You probobly don't tho. Also If you are using single coil pickups for the guitars that might be like your whole amp problem.

[10571z]

turn the drive down on ur guitar amp... recommend maybe getting a bigger amp because if there really loud there gunna feedback

[UsefulIdi0t]

Yea I could easily tell that the amp sounds crappy at high volumes. So would a bigger and louder amp sounded better and have less feedback since it wouldnt have to be turned up to 100% like mine does right now? like a halfstack at 50% or less should have less feedback right?

Hey kevbud, how come it would take specs and diagrahm?

[kevbud187]

see if its ground loops and or resistance problems

[UsefulIdi0t]

see if its ground loops and or resistance problems

Huh?

[10571z]

yes if you have a marshall stack it will be turned up about a quarter and will not feed back so yes i would suggest get a new amp or turn down the drive on the amp.

[UsefulIdi0t]

bleh i really dont have the money for a new amp. i might spend like 1200-1400 on one, but can I even get a not crappy halfstack for that price? I haven't been very impressed with any of the marshalls i've played before so i'd probably go with something else. does anyone have any suggests for a head and cab around that price, or is that low of a price?

[ozzfest05]

yeah a new head with a built in noise gate is available...if u dont have the money for the head go for a noise gate pedal which looks like a distortion pedal but crunches frequency distortion at the source.... feedback......Fender MetalHead its a 550 watt head with a noise gate built in very low feedback extreme power it will wreck lives across the world at a flick of a switch,, im scared of it , dont even buy it cause u will just hurt people...serious....


pretty good price for the head to check it out

[UsefulIdi0t]

yeah a new head with a built in noise gate is available...if u dont have the money for the head go for a noise gate pedal which looks like a distortion pedal but crunches frequency distortion at the source.... feedback......Fender MetalHead its a 550 watt head with a noise gate built in very low feedback extreme power it will wreck lives across the world at a flick of a switch,, im scared of it , dont even buy it cause u will just hurt people...serious....


pretty good price for the head to check it out


Woah I didnt know they had noise gate pedals...maybe ill get one of those since i have money for one. Is there a specific one or brand that works best or are they all pretty much they same?

That head looks pretty awesome, im definitely writing that one down for the future when I do have the money.

[10571z]

bleh i really dont have the money for a new amp. i might spend like 1200-1400 on one, but can I even get a not crappy halfstack for that price? I haven't been very impressed with any of the marshalls i've played before so i'd probably go with something else. does anyone have any suggests for a head and cab around that price, or is that low of a price?

yes for a 1200 you can get a awsome amp. Go to you local shop take ur guitar and try em out..

[Aus_rock_god]

For cutting the guitar feedback down, lean your amp back against a wall, towards your ears. You can turn it down that way, and cut back a lot of squealing.

SH!T no! That makes the amp point directly at the guitar too! The best thing to do is have your amp BEHIND you.

You also want your monitors pointing pretty much at the butt of the mic.

Try getting your singer to stand kind of out of the room, with the speaker to the north of the map lieing on it's side pointing directly towards the singer, and the other speaker in that NE corner pointing towards the drummer.

Have everyone's amps behind their respective players and that should fix it.

Here's some stuff about feedback:

Feedback

The number 1 thing that pisses people off at a show is feedback. No-one ever really deals with it properly.

The problem all starts with speaker placement. The big (usually very powerful) front of house speakers should always sit at least 1m in front of the stage itself. If you set the speakers flush with the side of the stage microphones at the side of the stage will always feed back.

When you set up your foldbacks, it's always best to have them as forward of the vocal mics as possible. Vocal stage mics always respond best from sound directly to the front and slightly left and right of the mic. Most people set their foldbacks on the left and right of the microphones. It looks nice, but you can't have your foldbacks as loud as you can when they're more towards the front of the stage.

The drum fill should always be left of the drumkit, pointing slightly towards the back of the stage. Side fills should always be at head level.

If you're using powered speakers as foldbacks (mackies and eons in particular), press the 16k and 40hz cutswitches (only the 16k cutswitch on the drum fill). On stage you generally don't need to hear these frequencies, and they're the two frequencies that feed back the most.

Before anyone says "but a kick drum generally operates at a freqency lower than 40k", if you're on stage, you'll be able to hear the kick without the foldback, unless you're a drummer.

Now, here comes the long and tedious part. If you have the original boxes the microphones came in, it will help, because if you can see what the frequency responce is for each microphone is, you'll be able to flatten out all the peaks without thinking. If you don't I highly reccomend you get yourself a cup of coffee while you do this, because it somtimes takes hours.

When I talk about peaks, I'm talking about the freqencies that speakers and microphones are most sensitive to (the ones that cause feedback). Really really good equiptment has a very flat responce, with very few peaks. Sh!t equiptment has lots of peaks and vallys.

First, get a SINGER to test the vocal mics. It is important that you flatten all the peaks out of the vocal mics first, because vocals are the only instrument that can't be heard without a PA, therefore, by murphy's law, they will always feed back the most. Get the singer to sing scales at a volume they'd perform at.

As soon as you hear some feedback, your natural instinct is to turn the volume down. DON'T! Leave the tone there. The singer will stop him or her self (which they're supposed to anyway, because it's better to deal with one tone at a time), but if they keep going, throw a shoe at them and tell them to shut the fu*k up.

When I talk about eqs here, I'm not talking about the eq on the main output, that's for somthing different altogether. If you an eq (or eqs ) you can plug into the insert, put one in the lead vocal channel, it will help immencely. The priority for individual equalisation should be:

Vocals
Overheads
Toms
Guitars
Bass
Kick

If you have more that one eq, plug them into channels like that. If your vocal mics are the same, plug all the mics into the same eq.

If working without an eq plugged into the insert:

On each channel, there's a 3 band eq, High, Mid and Low. On most sounddesks, there's a freqency selector for the mids. Turn the mid freqencys up all the way, and turn the freqency selector knob from left to right until you find the freqency the feedback is at (you'll know when you find it, because it will get much worse). Then all you have to do is turn the mid down, and vola! no feedback!

Get the singer to sing through the scale again. If you only have one freqency selector knob you'll probably only be able to kill the 3 worst freqencies. If there's high pitched feedback, turn the high knob down, if there's low pitched feedback, roll the low knob back. If there's any more feedback, and you've used all three bands, you're just going to have to turn the foldbacks down until the feedback stops.

Repeat this for each intrument.

If you're lucky enough to have an eq plugged into the insert (rich bastard ).

Get the singer to sing through a scale. They can go right through the scale if they want, even if feedback starts.

Turn each band on the eq up, then back to 0, one at a time, until you find the freqency the feedback is at, then turn it down till it stops. What you're doing is trying to find all the peaks in the mic.

Remember: The best way to stop feedback is to make it worse first.

[ozzfest05]

well theres a couple different brands out there, you can get rackmounts or pedals, right now im using a ISP Noise Decimator , check music 123 type in ISP in the search bar youll get it, well theres not much to say we will be in a room and people wont even know an amps on and its krank too full so to scare the **** out of my friends ill quickly pluck a pinch harmonic and basically destroy them its fun.. other brands like MXR make to my knowledge a good pedal but never tested out, Hush Rocktrone is supposed to be good but its old school so i dont know if it could stand up to modern metal tones or drops,mine set up is guitar patch to my distortion pedal, 4 inch banana patch to the ISP Noise Decimator 10 foot to amp .


cool hope this clears up some stuff, i have other equipment so if theres questions u have in regards with other stuff i might be able to help

[UsefulIdi0t]

well theres a couple different brands out there, you can get rackmounts or pedals, right now im using a ISP Noise Decimator , check music 123 type in ISP in the search bar youll get it, well theres not much to say we will be in a room and people wont even know an amps on and its krank too full so to scare the **** out of my friends ill quickly pluck a pinch harmonic and basically destroy them its fun.. other brands like MXR make to my knowledge a good pedal but never tested out, Hush Rocktrone is supposed to be good but its old school so i dont know if it could stand up to modern metal tones or drops,mine set up is guitar patch to my distortion pedal, 4 inch banana patch to the ISP Noise Decimator 10 foot to amp .


cool hope this clears up some stuff, i have other equipment so if theres questions u have in regards with other stuff i might be able to help


So that ISP doesnt let feedback get through> By reading the discription of it, I wouldnt think it helps with feedback. Although I wouldnt think that from any of the pedals since they dont really say anything about feedback, but they do actually stop it? I think I might get the MXR if they have it at guitar center when I go there tomorrow, so hopefully it works cuz I dont wanna get one and have it not stop feedback.

[ozzfest05]

well the isp is design perciously to get rid of feedback and read the customer reviews they say this is all u need dont even get the mxr, and i would say the isp is the best ive used

but do what u please

[Aes820]

The most effective way to get rid of feedback through your guitar amp is to turn down your preamp gain.