enough about gear-talk. let’s say your, and the band’s, equipment is ok. now what? what could happen if you turn up the mixer’s fader that controls your voice is feedback. so you turn it down again to a point without feedback and again you’re not loud enough. you figured it out with your bandmates, they were reasonable and turned down their gear but still it’s not enough. so you should focus on fighting that feedback. possible reasons for feedback are:

• wrong positioning of the speakers
• wrong positioning of the mic(s)
• bad interior of your room
• wrong handling of the mic(s)
• wrong handling of mixer or effects

there could be other reasons as well but dealing with those five should usually solve the problem. i’m not a physicist, so i won’t give any scientific answers (glad to hear that? yeah, me too :-) ). it’s all based on experiences, so maybe you’d have to mess around a little bit.

first of all, mics have polar patterns, usually a vocal mic is a dynamic microphone with a cardioid pattern (sometimes super- or hypercardioid), that means you should never point your microphone towards the speakers (monitors are speakers as well…). that is of course the side of the microphone that you’re singing into. if your speakers are behind you, so that you in a way have to point the mic at them, move either the speakers or yourself. the rule would be to point the mic as far away as possible. so check out your options regarding positioning of mics and speakers. certainly this goes for other microphones in the room as well (background vocals for instance). if the monitor is the problem, make sure you really need it at all. i have never been in a rehearsal room where monitors were necessary. people often do use them though… if you absolutely want to use a monitor because you want to look as cool as this guy (ego anyone?), be careful to never point your mic at it as well. the less speakers the better because each one is a possible feedback source. be sure as well to not set up the speakers too close to a wall, they should point into the room. google around a bit for correct positioning or read/ask in forums. don’t forget to post a picture of your room with your question. the problem could also be wrong positioning of guitar or bass amps, because if there’s a muddy soundsoup instead of a clear sound separation, problems are preassigned already.

the treatment of the room itself is also important. naked concrete walls may be exactly to your gusto, but soundwise it’s…uhm…kind of subperfect… again google around. just pasting carpet to the walls is not really a solution. a wall-air-carpet-sandwich could work fine though. use wooden battens (if that’s the correct word….) to create a layer of air (about 4-5 inches thick) between the wall and the carpet. try to make the wall patchy and uneven. but this depends very much on your specific room so no one-fits-all-recommendations here, sorry. that’s what internet forums are for…

now about the handling of your gear. first, read the manuals to be able to use the mixer correctly. this should be a no-brainer but people operate mixers wrong quite often, so make sure not to be among them. the same goes for any additional equipment like reverbs or delays for instance. there are feedback destroyers out there and some of them work nicely but it’s always better to solve the problem than to keep it at arm’s length. feedback destroyers could for example cut frequencies that you do want and therefore create unwanted sound changes.

one more thing that always reminds me of action movies in which people hold guns horizontally to look cool. they wouldn’t hit the target if it would be more than, like, five feet away, but who cares if cool-looking is involved ;-) . anyway there are people who hold their microphone by closing their hand around its head (the ball-shaped thing at the top). this is the part you should sing into. smart designers created handheld microphones with a haft which can be used to hold it with the hand. so please do so. i once was part of a ‘support’ band that played the songs to which contestants sang in some kind of singer’s battle. we did rehearsals with all of them before and about 80% of them held the mic the wrong way. what a feedback party! and check this out, we had a feedback destroyer back then and because of the massive feedbacking it shut down frequencies our guitarist needed (he was playing through the p.a.) for his sounds. so i gave this advice about a hundred times in three days: hold the mic where you’re supposed to hold it. good thing i had my earplugs then already – i might be deaf by now….

cool, now we had own gear, band equipment, the room, positioning of various things, handling of mics and other stuff as well as a bit of egos and dealing with feedback. maybe there’ll be a part V, i’m not sure yet…