Hi, I’ve been playing synth for well over a decade now, but I’ve never used a vocoder live. Any tips?
sm58 going into Gig performer via a 4i4. Inside Gig performer I’ve got a pretty aggressive gate and a compressor before it goes to the vocoder plugin.
Since I’m only using the vocoder in one song so far I was hoping to use the same mic I use for my backing vocals, splitting it to FoH with a Y cable (and a mute pedal so I can mute the FoH send when I’m vocoding). There’s probably a good reason not to do that, but I can’t figure out what. Ground loops maybe?
Any tips or pointers appreciated!
I also posted this is r/synthesizers, but I thought folks here might have some ideas as well.
I suppose another option is to always run the mic through Gig Performer (I would think in the Global Rackspace) and bypass the Vocoder plugin unless its is being used. Then you could use other effects, if you wanted to, and you avoid splitting the mic signal, but you have a bit more routing out to GP, etc.. (I don’t do this, so this is just thrown out off the top of my head).]
I just suggested something similar on Reddit where the op posted the same question.
As for only using in one song - why not just route the Mic through GP and for all songs other than the one that uses the vocoder, then just route audio input directly to audio output for your Mic. If your vocoder patch is in a different rackspace, then the muting will be automatic
Your FoH works for you - not the other way around — basically you tell them that in your setup, the Mic will be coming from channel X of your audio interface.
Ideally you should use an audio interface that has multiple channels so you can dedicate a channel to the Mic - that will make it easier for FoH to control volume/trim etc.
I’m not sure how easily the routing on the 4i4 can be controlled. I use vocoder on an average of 3 songs per night. I use an XR18 for both submix and audio interface. I send AUX 1 to front of house for my microphone. I run a second ‘vocoder’ send from AUX 2. Sometimes I use vocoder to augment my live vocal, so I am just sending from both AUX 1 and AUX 2 with AUX 2 always being vocoder only. When I want JUST vocoder but not my live vocal to go to FOH, I send a midi command to the XR18 to mute AUX 1. I don’t know if you can do something similar with the 4i4.
Additionally, I have a dedicated MUTE widget in my global rackspace tied to a button on my StreamDeck that allows me to mute/unmute my headset on demand. This definitely comes in handy with a headset.
Wouldn’t it be simpler to handle the routing and muting in gig performer rather than via midi control of the mixer?
Have you ever had techs complain that they don’t have control over the gain? I’ve heard techs bitching about that on facebook, regarding vocal FX pedals. However, I do find people are much more likely to complain online, but find solutions IRL.
I’ve been using this approach since before I started using GP with a host that wasn’t as flexible from a routing perspective. I ‘could’ change my approach, but I also don’t see a reason to add any latency to my live vocal when I already introduce latency with my wireless system. If I had use cases to add processing (other than vocoder) to my vocal, I might consider that approach.
I’ve never really had complaints over my gain and have found FOH engineers easy to work with if I need to change anything. Honestly, if I was thinking the FOH engineer needed control over the gain on my vocal channel on my XR18, they could always run the X-Air app or some OSC enabled app to accomplish this.