Base Bin for Karaoke

[Galway Karaoke]

Just a query,

Is there a need to use Base Bins for Karaoke, am currently using KME full range 300w tops with KME Base bin. I find that singers tend at times to drop the mike below waist level as they don't realise there is a bin present, and this tends to cause feedback.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Galway Karaoke

[willdoweuk]

To be honest at any event 'ive been to with karaoke, nobody really cares how it sounds. The novelty of having their voices amplified is usually enough.

[james141]

Maybe situate the singers away from the bass bin?

If possible a low cut on the mic channel (depending on mixer) might help slightly.

Or even a mic with a different pickup pattern.

Just some thoughts.

James.

[Galway Karaoke]

Cheers guys, Tend to agree with willdoweuk to a certain degree, that's why I'm trying to change things! (maybe too ambitious, time will tell) The main problem james141 is I generally don't have the room to situate singers away from the bin, besides having their voices amplified, they like to be where the action eminates from!

[Bobbsy]

I'd go a bit farther and say that, in Karaoke, it's all about the voices not the backing tracks. Too much bass and you'll be drowning out the singers (and I use the term very loosely) with the thump.

[pritch]

Too much bass and you'll be drowning out the singers (and I use the term very loosely) with the thump.

 

You say that as if it's a problem, Bobbsy! :P

[TomHoward]

At the very worst, if you are using the sub and are having problems with feedback from the mics, there's probably very little in the frequency range of the vocals that would be helped by being played through the sub anyway - so if you needed them (and at the risk of criticism I'm not saying you do) it may be worth seeing whether you can separate the backing tracks and the vocals, so that only the backing tracks (where there might be some bass / drum low frequencies) played through the sub, and the vocal mics were out of the sub entirely. Depending on your setup you may be able to do this by feeding the bass bins off an Aux output from your mixer or similar, to keep the vocals out of there.

[peza2010]

it may be worth seeing whether you can separate the backing tracks and the vocals, so that only the backing tracks (where there might be some bass / drum low frequencies) played through the sub, and the vocal mics were out of the sub entirely. Depending on your setup you may be able to do this by feeding the bass bins off an Aux output from your mixer or similar, to keep the vocals out of there.

mountain and molehill comes to mind....

 

Split the vocals and track? Why on earth would you do that?

As suggested above, just roll off the low end - thus not sending much of it to the sub.

[TomHoward]

If you're using a setup with active speakers and a spare Aux channel it may not be that difficult to set up*. Depending on the frequencies of the EQ on whatever the desk is the 'low' control may be fairly wideband (as I'm guessing it's not parametric) so given the kind of cut you're going to have to apply to stop feedback via a sub that the vocalist is standing next to, it seems possible you might lose more than you'd ideally want to. Removing the vocal mics from the sub is clean, simple and would tidy up the sub sound as well, without all the ambient LF and handling noise being amplified through the sub.

 

* 'not that difficult' in comparison to dragging the sub to the gig anyway - if you've decided you need to take all the effort to get it there, the additional cable needed might not seem that much trouble.

[J Pearce]

On any big rig I always run subs off an aux/matrix/mono bus, so that I can control what ends up rattling around down there.

 

For this I'd suggest a hipass on the mic would be worthwhile anyway to counteract proximity effect and generally clean up the sound and would probably resolve the issue as well.