My google searches have led me to look for “Howly Shit” or “Elly Minator”, but I can’t seem to find them anywhere.
Any help would be appreciated!
I have also found Waves X-FDBK, but I’m hoping to try something free before spending money on a paid plugin.
A pink noise generator, reference mic, RTA like Voxengos SPAN, and a parametric EQ on a submix bus.
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I’m not the FoH engineer; in this situation I’m the keyboardist and occasional singer, and I’m positioned almost in front of one of the main speakers. There is no option of changing the stage layout so I’m stuck where I am.
I run my vocal mic through GP so that I’m sending just a stereo feed (keys and voice) to FoH. When I turn up my mic I’m always on the edge of feeding back, so I’m thinking that a “set it and forget it” feedback-killing plugin on my vocal mic would be easier than trying to EQ it by hand.
I have seen a tutorial where a sound guy did it by putting an EQ on the microphone, displaying and rejecting frequencies where the feedback appears. No idea if the microphone still sounds well at the end of the process.
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You can try this
or this
What microphone do you use?
Maybe a mic with a diffrent polar pattern would help to better avoid feedback…
See: What is a Cardioid Microphone? | Chris’s Sound Lab (chrissoundlab.com)
So if you really are sitting right “behind” the main speaker (looking at its back), a cardioid mic would be best, and if you are positioned more sideways to the speaker a super-/hypercardioid would probably be the better choice.
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I didn’t mean to sound curt, sorry that was a short answer.
As the keyboardist and A2, I can tell you there’s no good solution here. Feedback is the mic “hearing” some part of the PA. Since you’re talking about the mains and not a wedge, you are kind of stuck into sucking the frequency out of the mic. If your FOH takes it from the mains, it affects the entire mix.
Feedback suppressors like X feedback can work, but can also be really heavy handed and sound artificial.
Since your vocal mic goes into GP anyway….
- Make everyone on stage shut up.
- boost your mic till it starts to feedback.
- have already inserted any RTA, and watch it for the peak.
- cut that frequency by 3-6 db with a narrow ish Q (1/3 octave or so)
- go back to step 2. Or 1 if your guitarist is already noodling,
Work to cut 3-5 resonant frequencies and then call it good. You might be able to cut more, but it could start affecting your voice and what you’re actually doing at that point is just turning it down.
-
if you start hearing multiple sine waves pop out together, you’ve reached “gain before feedback.” That’s the most your system can handle.
-
remember to turn your mic back down to a NORMAL level.
This is the tried and tested way. Gives YOU the control. Each room is different and your feedback suppressor would need to be adjusted anyway. With a little practice, you can do this in about 5 minutes.
I wish there was a better answer, but physics is a mean… friend… that we can’t get rid of.
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In the past, I used the DBX Go Rack as an automatic feedback destroyer. It worked well, was very clean in operation, had a very small footprint and was simple to use. Basically set and forget. However, they don’t make the unit any more. You may find a second hand unit on the Net somewhere. Meantime, I haven’t needed to use the DBX since I bought my Countryman H7 headset mic. I can stand in front of a speaker without any squeals. Hugely expensive (over $NZ1200 to import into New Zealand), but easily the best mic I have ever used. My sound levels are not over high as I play open air at farmers markets etc. But I do run a good level of sound through my HK 608i PA and don’t have any fb problems.
P.S. I just saw a couple for sale on EBay right now.
I’m using a Shure Beta 58, which (I believe) is supercardiod.
I appreciate the detailed and helpful reply, and I’m going to bookmark this for future reference! Thanks so much.
I hear what you’re saying about feedback suppressors being potentially too heavy-handed. I’m going to give X-FDBK a try and see how it does in my situation; according to the video tutorials, it’s possible to adjust the amount and the Q of each filter so hopefully I’ll be able to use just enough to fix the problem without affecting the tone of my voice noticeably. We’ll see!
Thanks everyone for your feedback (hah) and suggestions! Now that Waves is allowing purchases again, I’m going to shell out the USD$30 for X-FDBK and see for myself whether it solves my problem. Even just an extra 5dB of mic gain would make all the difference I think. I’ll report back.
Yes, I’m aware that there are hardware solutions (and I haven’t tried any of those yet), but as a musician who travels light (by choice and by necessity), I don’t want to add more physical gear to my rig. Right now I’ve got just a single 49-note keyboard, my laptop, my iPad (for sheet music), my audio interface, and my vocal mic, plus their respective cables and chargers, and already it’s a lot to lug around. And besides, what should a hardware device be able to do that a plugin can’t?
And please, come back here to give us your… feedback… 
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Using a plugin introduces latency.
So the hardware solution has no latency and will work better.
This is not the case: many plugins introduce zero latency, especially those designed for live use, and I can’t think of any application for feedback suppression outside of live use.
My initial review of X-FDBK is that it works great and it’s well worth the money.
I placed it on my vocal input pretty early in my signal chain (with nothing in front of it except for an instance of MRecorder) and I set it to do its thing automatically.
I can’t give a very detailed review because with the band I was playing with, I only sang on one song in one set that we played once every four days; therefore, I only had the chance to use it twice, and we didn’t have a sound check. On my next ship contract (I’m a musician on ships) I’ll be doing more singing, so I’ll get a chance to put it through its paces more.
Solomon
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Hi @Solomon, did you get that to work?
It seems like a cool plug-in for exactly this purpose, but since it is made by Waves, it may well crash Gig Performer upon loading.
I just had to force quit GP, after replacing FabFilter Timeless3 with Waves SuperTap.
Waves seems uninterested in supporting us despite the fact that we’ve demonstrated to them that the crashes and other misbehaviors are occurring in their plugins… We recommend serious testing by anyone wanting to use their plugins with Gig Performer.
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I have found Waves to be rather dismissive of 3rd party developers . I once created a WordPress plugin for a plugin reseller client that integrated with Waves’ 3rd party sales API for automated license code fulfilment. It worked like a charm and then the client pulled the project and decided they wouldn’t pay for the work.
I approached Waves to check if they minded if I promoted my plugin to sell it myself to other potential plugin reseller websites to try and mitigate the loss. They told me no such API exists. I described the API to them in excruciating detail and even quoted the API version reference numbers from the official documentation I had been provided with to facilitate the original project and still they refused to admit the API existed. They then bizarrely told me they won’t be responding to me any further because “they don’t sell 3rd party plugins” … 
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