setting my guitar amp for vocals

snakebyte90

You know back in the 50's and 60's it was not uncommon to sing through guitar amps. I have a 1958 Premier Twin 8 amp that in addition to a guitar jack has additional jacks for microphones and even accordian! :D And back when I started out we used to sing through guitar amps all the time.

There could be several causes for the feedback you are getting.

1) Is your mic facing the amp?? That's a no-no. A microphone should never face a speaker. Put the amp out in front of you like a monitor. Let the back of the amp face the crowd. They will still hear it easily. Make sure your mic is aimed away from the speaker of the amp. This is the most likely cause of the feedback you are getting.

2) It's possible you have a cheap mic. Some tend to feedback easily. Solution... Get a better mic. You can pick up something like the Behringer XM5800 mic for only $20. It is a great mic, many say it is every bit as good as a Shure SM58. That is the most popular mic in the world.

3) It could be the room. If you are playing in a small area like a basment with concrete walls you can get feedback easily. The sound bounces off everything. You can soundproof the room. Hang up some old carpets on the walls. That works good.

4) I was going to say turn the amp down. But you say the mic feedsback at any volume. Some mics have too strong input. PA mixers often have a "pad" button to reduce this strong signal. On guitar amps usually the 2nd instrument input jack has less input than the 1st. So try plugging your mic into the 2nd input.

5) Try adjusting the amps tone controls. Maybe you have too much Mid or Middle. Mids like to feedback more that any other frequencies. Try turning Mid down and see if that helps. But any frequency can feedback. So experiment with them all. Turn the knobs slowly and listen for feedback coming on. This will tell you the frequencies that are giving you a problem.

I am really guessing that your biggest problem has been that your mic has been facing the amp's speaker. Try putting the amp out in front of the mic and see if that helps.

Let us know how it works out.

sounds like I am doing most of the no nos I am facing towards the speaker, but am pretty close since all of the rooms I can play in are small. Also where we practice currently is a basment.

I have a nady mic, I've seen some local bands using the same one I have so I don't know how bad of quality it is, (the old style one.)

The smaller amp I have has mid controls and I have turned them down somewhat, but my bassman has no mid control, I don't think they made hte in 68.

So I'll try to find a room where I can back up and stuff, thanks for your help though.

snakebyte90

Improper placement of speakers is the #1 source of feedback.

Go to the Home Page and do a search of Laz's (Dan Lasley) articles. He wrote a nice article about setting up a PA sometime ago that even has a diagram. That would apply to you too.

If you are going to sing through a distortion pedal I would turn the gain down as much as possible. Too high gain will certainly cause feedback.

But remember, never have the mouthpiece of a mic facing the speaker where vocals are coming out.

Yeah, I understand that if I face the direction of the mic to the speaker it will feedback no matter what. And I don't like a lot of gain anyway, just on harmonica. I'll check out laz's article.