Karaoke Forums

This is what I am going for.

If I turn in recordings that are not "up to par", most of the companies I am working with will tell me. If any more classes or equipment need to be purchased, I can find that out and eventually do it.

Also, I learned on active duty not to put out something that you really want to keep, esp. don't hand a nice mic over to someone when you don't even know where they live.

BTW- sound engineering can go out the window when the bar owner says "Put them speakers over there."

Exactly.  :(



In such a case, you essentially have people plugging for you, you basically HAVE soundmen or borrowed "ears"...


Thing is Chuck,  I wouldn't want a prospective boss to be the one to instruct me I need the acoustical engineering courses.... That would shatter me...  If I can't discern between a poor sound, but someone in the audience must tell me, first... I haven't fooled "enough of the people, enough of the time" to pass IMO... Like Bigdog stated,  "word of mouth" matters,  you MUST do what you do well... IMH... Learn about it before submitting it, however this is JUST my own opinion.

I don't want to find out from singer's showcase my work is a 6 (which of course would never honestly happen anyway.. Thing is, it STILL is a 6 despite the BS),  I want to have a very good idea my material is a "9" before I ever submit it...

That's just me
However this is NOT a function of owning good equipment.  You must have the ability and knowledge of how to use it first, under ALL conditions...

So:

#1-  Learn how to optimally use what you have !

This is my opinion... (and this is NO easy task) especially as we get older, and start to lose some of our ability to hear certain frequencies).  My lows are shot in both ears now..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Good points there. I do have some leeway where this is concerned. If they don't like the quality they don't hire me.  These companies want piecemeal (sp?). They pay for recordings that are usually downloaded using MP3 format. They haven't even upgraded to MP4 or AAC.


Here is the setup, I record through a mic that is plugged into my Alesis 8ch mixer. This goes to my PC and is recorded using a good software. I save the original in high quality format to be determined very soon, and then cut it down to MP3 at upwards of 160kbps. The mic might need to be nicer as there are tones in my voice that might need a nicer mic to record. The soundcard may need to be replaced but I doubt that my mixer will need to be replaced.

I also have to be concerned that they can decode a higher bitrate of MP3. If I go above 160kbps, I might miss work just because they can't open it. The work-around will be to upload a few for each performance to my website and let them choose which they want to use. After a while I will have a feel for what they want.

Some will want it on CD, those are the ones I will stay away from initially.

You folks have ANY idea how tough it is to optimally just set up your living room surround system ?   It's rediculously complex....  I'd go into the audiophile rooms, and they'd tell my by JBL 4311B's were monitor speakers and must be placed at ear level, and the voicings were no match for the rear Klipsch speakers....and I'd lose mid-range rising due to room bounce, and muffling, yadda yadda yadda...

So naturally I did the right thing and said.  "Oh yeah,  well of course all that goes without saying",  and I never again returned..

This is physics.  It aint easy.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

I understand what you are saying Chuck..  It's no place I ever wish to be however, especially if I can avoid being in such a position... As a musician, I would hope my sound can please MOST of the people, most of the time... otherwise, I don't belong there, and I don't want others to be the ones to inform me of that...

JMO

This is JUST my perspective,  it's not "correct" btw, it's coming from someone who's trying to minimize chances of rejection.  or  "Be prepared before turning in the paper" as opposed to getting it back with a C-

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

I thought my ear was good, until I met true soundmen !  They not only have the great ears,  but they can do things with poorer grade equipment just by it's placement I never thought possible !

Here's something interesting,  It's often discussed in the audiophile rooms... For cable music,  and CD music... How good does your equipment really need to be ?

You'd be surprised at the answer....

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

I agree with this.

There is a chance that I will never make any money at in this venture. It is highly competative, very highly.

Yeah Chuck, but I also agree with what you are saying.  It's important to understand there IS risk, and sometimes you will be rejected... Just because they tell you "it's your sound", might not make it the case,  they might just not like you for some other reason.... However this is yet ANOTHER reason *I* want to know I've done absolutely the best presentation I can possibly do....allowing for human error such as crapping in my pants and stuff...

ADDED IN:

Assuming a $600 dollar microphone has certain features that ARE outstanding in such a venue, assuming it does something better than the other microphones making it more of a convenience,  I also concede my point..

I was just informed that some of these better microphones do have convenient features, and do certain things better in some cases...

What I never took into consideration was $600 for both the microphone and wireless receiver,  so I will go eat crow now  LMAO

For both components, that's not costly..IMHO
Not for a good true diversity wireless rig....

I'm still back in the stone ages in some ways...

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

$600 - For a cordless Mic
$800 - For a Mixing Board
$1000 - For 2 Passive Speakers
$1000 - For 1 Passive Sub Woofer
$2000 - For Mislc effects and stuff
$10,000 - For a 30,000 Song Library  

Receiving $150 CASH for the night PRICELESS

$600 - For a cordless Mic
$800 - For a Mixing Board
$1000 - For 2 Passive Speakers
$1000 - For 1 Passive Sub Woofer
$2000 - For Mislc effects and stuff
$10,000 - For a 30,000 Song Library  

Receiving $150 CASH for the night PRICELESS

 LMAO  LMAO  LOL  LOL  LOL

You see,  Now this I can understand !

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Kap, I think what you've been saying is finally beginning to sink in, at least a little.  

I have never approached sound reinforcement in the field from an audiophile's point of view.  First of all, I ain't one and second, an audiophile would probably commit suicide if he had to confront the challenge of producing high quality sound at your average bar.  

So I go for the best I can do, under the conditions, with the equipment at my disposal.  Sure that calls for a lot of compromise but I'm not able to dictate to the bar owners about the acoustic properties of their gin mills.  In my opinion (always offered, never humble) the majority of them do care whether the sound quality is the best or the best I can do.  

No I wouldn't take a $600 mic to a karaoke gig.  As I said before I haven't had the problem with theft that you have (maybe experience would make me more thoughtful) nor has anyone I've talked to in this area, so I haven't really given that a lot of consideration.  I will say that for the most part when we take our breaks I am never more than a few steps from the stage nor do I let people get too close to my stuff.

As an aside I wanted to respond to the statment that you made about "*I* want to know I've done absolutely the best presentation I can possibly do....allowing for human error such as crapping in my pants and stuff...".  Depending upon several variables such as amount of crap, height and width of the pile, consistency and confirmation, and finally, location of the pile, your sound quality could be affected.  I'm not in a positon to say whether that would be in a postive or negative way.  

Larry

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

If I could get a word in here between Steven and ATM....

You have to know what your equipment can do and how you can make it sound.   Every bar has a different set up.   Most bars are 50-100 years old.  They were not made for any type of live entertainment, no stage, no dance floor.  They were built to have a shot and a beer.    So now the speaker placement, is where they will fit and be out of the way and still be able to be heard.   So the mixing, from the live microphones becomes critical, to prevent feedback.   This is where being the best damn KJ in the world shines.   People are walking around singing or they always stand directly in front of the speaker.   You have to know how to control the mike and effects settings to keep the feedback down as much as possible.   If they point the mike directly at the speaker, the only thing you can do is shut it down, until they move it.   So basically having a sound engineering backgroud won't do you to much.   In an ideal setting yes, in an older bar setting, you do what you need to do and be lucky you got all of your equipment in and you have the job.

$600 mikes

Some people are happy with their new beetles and some like their new corvettes.

How do you want to ride through life?

Larry, Yes,  From this perspective I maintain what I was saying...  You are better off with the 75 dollar microphone, and cheaper equipment KNOWING how to optimize it in such a way, that to most it sounds better than the 20K rig you don't know how to setup, or can't optimize in your place of employment..  Knowledge of acoustics, and audio engineering should be a priority for MOST of us in the audio-related arts... IMO.

It wasn't until I started to learn about this, that I realized just how fallible my excellent ear actually is !!  Of course it wasn't until I took a piano tuning course that I realized how our ear can really ^*$( us up, and you tune by "beats"... A tuner's good ear more than not CAN drive him bizerk !  It's not usually an advantage... THere's sound physics involved in all of this, and WE ALL should learn some of it..  That's why I read the tech room.... I'm a complete fool when it comes to audio-engineering...

There's just no way around basic qualitative theoretical knowledge when it comes to this stuff.. It's like thinking you can play jazz piano without knowing some theory, and how to play a scale.....  There are just some things pro's in the audio industry that don't have soundmen can't afford not to have some knowledge of.. While I don't know (nor do I need to know) how to design a ported bass reflex cabinet given a certain type 15 inch speaker,  I NEEDED to know that taking my Peavey BW-15 out've my 115 BX cab, and replacing it with a JBL K series speaker was NOT a smart thing to do given bass applications, and speaker cabinet geometry, with the voicing of that JBL speaker and it's mid response...  This type of stuff we must know... IE...  Why one doesn't take celestions out've a Marshall cab, and replace the 1/2 stack with JBL's...  These are all things we need to know about...even without soundmen, as musicians we need to know something about our rigs..

Too learn all of this via hardknocks isn't the best way to learn... I did make the mistake of replacing a Marshall stack full of greenbacks with JBL speakers... .. Never occurred to me that you DO NOT want clean JBL speakers in a Marshall cab.. Save those for  something else.... NOT marshall quality sound..  I learned SLOWLY, and still know close to nothing...

but god, I'd love a nice pair of AL's for the twin reverb  :drool:

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

The last band I was in was run by the drummer.  We couldn't afford a soundman so he did all of the sound himself.  The console was right beside his drums and as we played he was constantly making adjustments that I was always certain only he could hear.

When I started playing with that band they had the best sound system I had worked with before, or since.  Dave, the drummer, had the good sense to go out and buy top notch equipment.  He also wasn't shy about soliciting opinions and advice from people he respected.

But Dave wasn't satisfied with having a great sounding system.  There was always something he didn't like.  He bought noise gates, compressors, feedback eliminators, aural exciters, active and passive cross-overs, etc.  There was no end of gear that he didn't fool around with.  

Every time he changed something the quality of our sound deteriorated.  Much of the time he was trying to control feedback.  But we never had a feedback problem in the first place—until Dave added a new piece of equipment guaranteed to fix the "problem".

Then he would rip out the new piece of gear and we would go back to sounding great again for a couple of weeks until he started fixating on something else.

One thing he never understood was speakers.  I don't know how many times I tried to explain to him that cabinets are engineered for the speakers that are mounted in them.  Dave just never got it.  He pretty much thought that a speaker cabinet was simply a function of cutting up some plywood and nailing it together.  The funny thing was that he bought some Mackie mains and subs.  I don't recall the reason but he decided he wanted to get rid of them.  He then bought Sonic mains and subs (Sonic is a local speaker manufacturer that makes speakers for the "economy" end of the market.  In a move that Dave thought was really cool, he swapped the Mackie speakers into the Sonic cabinets before he delivered the Mackie cabinets to the dealer.  He did that because the speakers that Mackie was using were better quality speakers.  He did the same with the horns in the mains.  

Poor Dave, he never did figure out that the Sonics probably sounded better before the swap because they weren't engineer for the other speakers.  We still sounded good—but not as good as we could have sounded.

Anyway, I support pretty much everything you've had to say here.  

Larry

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"Life is too short for diet soda and lite beer"

Certainly not a Corvette at 45 mph... Those 60's model's are extremely uncomfortable and bumpy at lower speeds, not to mention gas prices... Other idiot's on the road, not having a garage to store it in, etc...See this is the thing,  there's always more consideration than just the "sport's car"..  Insuring a sport's car too, etc...  For the driving I do, I'd rather have the VW Beetle, it's just a more practical affordable car IMHO... easier for my purposes, but as you say, to each his own, and I agree, that's part of what makes this a great country... Only thing limiting us is our pocket book, and preference.



Somewhat balanced.
Extravagant is fine assuming I want to deal with extravagant... I try to not complicate things more than I already tend to ( at least with my toys), even instruments... I just don't think I'd ever drive the corvette to the sleezy bar parking lot and not worry about getting door dings...   Everybody knows,  Real men drive powder blue VW Beetles with fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror, and they have  Curb Feelers on the wheels too !  Chick's dig it !

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

What you dont have a RADIO SHACK MIC to go with your BEHRINGER GEAR CHARMIN???? IM ASTONISHED!! Espcecially you being from that little "TOWN" your from!!!  LMAO  LMAO  LMAO  LMAO

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Wanting our arse whupped friday night are we, hmmmm Kurt?

Keep it up, it may happen:)

(I could uh, HIRE someone to do it yanno)  :D

And no, for the record, I do NOT have any radio shack mics. I did once, long ago, in the early 90's in my "karaoke pioneer" days... but not anymore. And hey, they served their purpose. If you wanna sing bad enough, you deal with what you have. As a kid, I sang and recorded into one of those tiny little flat tape recorders... you know, with the square built in mic, and the whole unit was not much bigger than a VCR tape rewinder?  :whistle:  Worked for ME... Still have a few old recorded tapes too.  :D

.

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♥ Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain. Cherish the memories, ignore the pain. Love and learn, forget and forgive. Because you only have one life to live. ♥

I had to learn basic things that are theory, not just common sense..Without basic electronic theory, you can't make assumptions.... Without knowing Ohm's Law, how do you match speakers to an amp ?  Without knowing about electronic's how do you know about danger's of transformers long after the amp's unpugged ?... Series, parallel wiring of a 4X12 cab...Who'd think that underpower speakers is more dangerous than slightly overpower them ?  Clipping isn't something you just make an assumption about... I'm learning a little bit of this type thing all the time..  Much of this stuff isn't logical, you can't just start unscrewing something without knowing principles of amp technology, etc.... it's dangerous and expensive if you don't have a basic foundation in electronics...

Damn, I even forgot why you don't use a musical instrument cable for PA Head-->cab conductivity,  and I don't remember if it's OK,  or not OK to use a speaker cable for guitar... .   I should have this down...

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".