NTG-1 and feedback with monitor speakers..

[Mike Costantini]

Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. I bought a Rode NTG-1 mic which I have mounted on a boom above and in front of the subject's head (stationary) I have the main out of my mixer going into the camera and the monitor out going to two high quality Ramsa PA speakers. The problem I am having is that when I turn up the monitor volume from the mixer, it creates that waaaaooo feedback sound. How does one overcome this?

[Edward Carlson]

Move the mic away from the speakers, or move the mic so it isn't pointing towards the speakers. Are the monitors for the talent to listen to, or for an audience?

[Mike Costantini]

The mic is pretty far away from the speakers, about 8-9 feet away. Also, the mic is pointed toward the subject and 180 degrees away from the speakers. The speakers are RAMSA WS-A80 http://www.da-av.com/DA/WS80.html and I even tried turning the speakers 180 degrees from the mic too. There's no audience but he has to hear what's coming out of the speakers during recording...

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Mike Costantini

...There's no audience but he has to hear what's coming out of the speakers during recording...

For that you should set him up with headphones.

[Mike Costantini]

No go on headphones, he doesn't want to do the headphones thing, and he's making an instructional DVD, would look silly...

[Chris Soucy]

I think the only way out of this is to fit the guy with a wired/ wireless earpiece linked to the mixer O/P - reasonably unobtrusve and solves the feedback problem once and for all.

Shouldn't be too hard to lay your hands on one.

CS

[Mike Costantini]

What does the earpiece do, or what is it for? Do you have a link to one, a brand or model? What is "O/P"

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Mike Costantini

Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. I bought a Rode NTG-1 mic which I have mounted on a boom above and in front of the subject's head (stationary) I have the main out of my mixer going into the camera and the monitor out going to two high quality Ramsa PA speakers. The problem I am having is that when I turn up the monitor volume from the mixer, it creates that waaaaooo feedback sound. How does one overcome this?

What is it that he has to hear through the monitor speakers? At the very least, why does the mic have to be included in the mix that goes to the monitors? Can't you just leave the mic out of the monitor mix while leaving it in the main? I don't know what you're using for your mixer but with many of them setting up a "mix minus" or independent monitor and main mixes is no problem.

How about a rundown on the full recording situation you're trying to resolve - what you're recording besides his voice and how you're setting it up - we might be able tro offer some suggestions. I'm trying to figure out what the situation might be where a sole performer with an acoustic intrument and no audience needs PA speakers to hear what's going on when he plays while making an instructional video and I can't come up with a scenario where you couldn't just ditch the speakers altogether and have whoever is responsible for sound quality monitor through headphones during each take. A little more detail of the problem you need to solve would help us help you.

I don't see how it would look silly for him to monitor through headphones while on an instructional DVD - after all, 'phones are the way muscians have monitored their own performances in just about every studio recording session that's been held since recording began and so for him to use 'em while recording on-camera, putting them on while playing and taking them off while narrating, would look totally professional and be perfectly logical. But that's just me.

The earpiece Chris was referring to would be an in-ear monitor, also called ear-canal headphones, used instead of regular headphones. (NOT the same thing as consumer earbuds, BTW.) Shure makes a selection of 'em and I've heard very good things about the Etymotics brand - check out their website. Very common in live performance these days in lieu of or in addition to on-stage monitor wedges to provide feedback to the performers while also providing them hearing protection. When used in film and video, they're often used either wired or wireless in conjunction with what's called the "IFB" or "Interruptible Foldback" system to unobtrusivly provide a mix-minus feed to the talent. They're the ear pieces you'll see on a lot of news anchors if you look closely. See "IFB" on Wiki.

[Mike Costantini]

He has to hear his guitar, as well as background music through those monitor speakers. The mic has to be included because the mixer sends everything through the main and monitor outs.. I like the NTG mic, we bought it to overcome all the hell that comes with a lavalier and it's doing well but now this other problem has come up...

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Mike Costantini

He has to hear his guitar, as well as background music through those monitor speakers. The mic has to be included because the mixer sends everything through the main and monitor outs.. I like the NTG mic, we bought it to overcome all the hell that comes with a lavalier and it's doing well but now this other problem has come up...

What brand/model mixer do you have, does it have an AUX bus you can use? What other mics are you using beside the shotgun for his voice?

You're not trying to use the same mic and mic positioning for his voice and to pickup the guitar are you? Can you keep the monitors off while he's talking, then fade the mic down and bring the monitors up when he switches from talking to playing? (I don't see why he should need to hear himself in the monitor even if he is playing to a pre-recorded backing track.) Or perhaps better, cut between and do the talking and record the playing from different setups altogether? Trying to do the whole thing in one take so the entire lesson is from one camera position and with one framing doesn't seem like a visually very interesting approach anyway.

[Mike Costantini]

It's an Alesis MultiMix 6FX
http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=36

(It's in a compact rack type situation) To answer your question, I wouldn't be able to fade the monitors in and out because it's an instructional video. There's talking and playing, sometimes simultaneously. I probably should have specified all this when I started the thread, sorry =)

I have a channel for Guitar, Mic, Background MIDI track. The main out goes to my video camera, and the monitor out goes to those RAMSA speakers...

It seems like it worked better when I turned the main volume up to about 2 o'clock on the mixer (lowering the input volumes on my cam), and kept the volume on the mic channel lower. Then I was able to bring the monitors up where I wasn't getting that loud waaaaoooo feedback (if that's what it's called) sound AS much, but it's like right on the edge of happening which is rather annoying..

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Mike Costantini

It's an Alesis MultiMix 6FX
http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=36

(It's in a compact rack type situation) To answer your question, I wouldn't be able to fade the monitors in and out because it's an instructional video. There's talking and playing, sometimes simultaneously. I probably should have specified all this when I started the thread, sorry =)

I have a channel for Guitar, Mic, Background MIDI track. The main out goes to my video camera, and the monitor out goes to those RAMSA speakers...

...

The mixer has an AUX Send - a classic use of an AUX is to provide a monitor feed to the talent so try this. Forget about using the mixer's monitor outputs at all - they really are for a studio situation where the speakers are not in the same room with the talent anyway, that's why they're called "control room monitors" <grin>. Also, there's no need to provide him with stereo monitoring, mono should be just fine for this purpose. So instead of both speakers on the monitor output, connect just one of the speakers to the AUX Send output. Send the Rode mic plus the guitar plus the background track to the main just as you are now. Also send the guitar and both channels of the background track, but NOT the mic, to the Aux Send. Voila! The classic mix-minus to provide feedback to the talent yet no mic in the studio mix to trigger feedback howls.

As for talking and playing at the same time, that's where you need to step in and exercise your authority as the director - what might work in person won't work on video. No matter how expert he is on the guitar and on what works musically, you're the expert on what works in video. The audience can pay attention to what he's saying or they can pay attention to what he is playing but I'll guarantee they won't be able to do both at once and make any sense out of it at all.

[Mike Costantini]

Ahhhh interesting! I didn't even know about that AUX send, or at least pay any attention to it. I will try that tomorrow. Just to be clear, I'm reading the manual
http://www.alesis.com/downloads/manu...6FX_Manual.pdf

And it appears that in order to send a channel to the AUX send output, you do that by raising the AUX knob on that particular channel. So if I don't want to send the MIC channel out to the AUX, I would just lower the knob all the way down?

Also, I am now wondering about this:

"This knob controls the level of the internal effects and the aux
send. If the EFF/AUX switch is engaged, this knob controls the
level of the aux send, and if the switch is in the up position, the
AUX knob controls the internal effects send level."

Is this an either/or situation? Meaning, if I push the button down to send it to the aux send output, do I lose the effects? That was the reason this mixer was selected for this compact rack is that it has internal effects. So for example, the guitar - That IS something I want to send to the AUX send output so he can hear it. So I should press that button down and increase the fader knob. I'll have to see what that does to the effects being used on that channel for the guitar, I hope it works!!

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Mike Costantini

Ahhhh interesting! I didn't even know about that AUX send, or at least pay any attention to it. I will try that tomorrow. Just to be clear, I'm reading the manual
http://www.alesis.com/downloads/manu...6FX_Manual.pdf

And it appears that in order to send a channel to the AUX send output, you do that by raising the AUX knob on that particular channel. So if I don't want to send the MIC channel out to the AUX, I would just lower the knob all the way down?

Also, I am now wondering about this:

"This knob controls the level of the internal effects and the aux
send. If the EFF/AUX switch is engaged, this knob controls the
level of the aux send, and if the switch is in the up position, the
AUX knob controls the internal effects send level."

Is this an either/or situation? Meaning, if I push the button down to send it to the aux send output, do I lose the effects? That was the reason this mixer was selected for this compact rack is that it has internal effects. So for example, the guitar - That IS something I want to send to the AUX send output so he can hear it. So I should press that button down and increase the fader knob. I'll have to see what that does to the effects being used on that channel for the guitar, I hope it works!!

You are correct - turn up the Aux fader on a channel to send it to both the the Aux Send and the Main and turn it down to send it to the Main only.

I don't have one of those mixers but according to the block diagram in the manual it is an either/or situation with that switch so you can send the Aux feeds from the input channels either to the internal fx processor or the external Aux Send but not both at once. But unless you simply have no choice, NEVER record with any effects applied, other than perhaps light equalization if needed on a channel! Always record your performance dry! The time and place to add effects if you're going to use them is in post production where you can try out different mixes and change your mind if it doesn't work the way you'd hoped it would. If you do it when shooting, you're committed and there's no way to undo the damage if it doesn't work.

[Mike Costantini]

Hmm... Well what other choice would I have? The L&R outs from the mixer go into a direct box and come out as one XLR that plugs into the XLR input on my camera. So when I capture the tape, I have a video and audio stream (consisting of the guitar, mic, and tracks). Is there another way to do it? We've always just gotten the audio the way we want it to sound, then just record; didn't know there was another way? In addition, the guitar player won't want to play with a dry sounding guitar (no reverb), makes it difficult..