My friends and I are starting a band and it's the first time for all of us. Right now we're just playing in a basement and figuring things out. We just got a mic and quickly realized vocals sound BAD without reverb and possibly other effects that are unknown to me. What should I get to make the vocals sound decent? Also probably need help on how to set up the signal chain. Right now the mic is plugged directly into a Roland KC-550.
Also, recommend some bass pedals that won't make me homeless if I buy them. I currently just have a P-Bass going into an Ampeg RB-108.
If you have an iphone get a camera kit, a cheap usb interface that has a mixer on it (get one with a send), and use effects from Valhalla. You'll need a host app for the plug in. Theres a few but one of them should be free and allow you to save your setup as a preset. Run the mic into the mixer and put the iphone on the send. Valhalla plugins should be wet. Don't bother with delay in a live setting. It gets too fucking messy. Use one of the Valhalla verbs. Set to 100 wet. Tweak to taste. If you have an iphone this setup is like 200bucks max used and is very stable. You also can add more effects down the line to your chain should you want to. Light compression/limiting can be helpful. Careful with eqing. If you are eqing vocals in a live setting the problem is your mic or how you are holding it. Do less with effects and focus on technique.
I adjust eq for every venue... And I have a nice mic and good technique. Different rooms absorb different frequencies and have different resonances.
Even with basic "low mid high", you can improve your sound a lot with eq.
I do agree that one should learn mic technique though.. Eq can't fix bad technique. It can kinda fix a subpar mic.
The venue should be eqing your vocals if it's not a coffee shop, basement, or just diy thing. You can do work with eq's but if you are running a mic through a keyboard amp you are not gonna get far. I've been there. They are not the worst but I would rather go right from my vox mix into a real PA. General rule of thumb I was taught for live sound mixing is "If a mic sounds bad without eq something else is very wrong". You may make sound better at a cost but it won't help that much. The roland amp has built in eq. Who knows where those eq lp, bp, and hp frequencies are tuned to though.
Compression, fuzz, distortion, overdrive, octaver
My super basic amp has no effects
Get a Muff and a Rat, maybe try to find an old Boss OC-2
Classic filthy bass sound
Your keyboard amp has eq already, I assume. If you haven't, I would adjust that, prioritizing the vocal quality over other instruments if all channels share the same eq. One benefit of a "real" mixer/PA is that each channel gets its own EQ. Reverb is the second most important effect, I'd say. And delay is optional, depending on the genre.
If your mic sucks, that also might contribute to "sounding bad." Does everyone agree the singer sounds bad on your system? If you aren't used to hearing your own voice objectively, you might be thinking it sounds worse than it actually does.
Look into mic technique. The basic idea is you have to actually sing directly into the mic (NOT over the top, and don't hold it like a comic facing straight upwards; it should point into your mouth), making sure you are following the polar pattern of the mic.
With a dynamic mic, there is something called the "proximity effect." The closer the mic is to the singer's mouth, the warmer the sound is gonna be, while farther away makes the sound thinner. But you have to pull the mic an inch or three away when you sing especially loudly or high pitch or you will break everyone's eardrums.
A good baseline distance is a finger's width or two between your mouth and the mic. If you sing very loud in general, 3 fingers might be appropriate.
And during mic check, don't just talk. Actually sing like you're actually planning to sing. Seems obvious but many singers just say check 1 2 but that's usually quieter and less melodious than singing.
Somebody once told me "air is the best mixer." What that means is if you're practicing in a small room, it's gonna sound shittier than a real venue, in terms of sound quality.
Oh, another pitfall is oversinging. If you can't hear yourself singing, the instinct is to sing louder. But this can make you sound shitty and lowers your stamina. Ideally you have a vocal monitor, but if not, position yourself so you can hear a little of what is coming from the amp. Without letting the mic feedback.
You can get by with the built in FX in any DAW. May I ask what program you are recording into?
Edit: just realized you meant for live sound. Most decent mixers have vocal FX built in. EQ at minimum. Delay and reverb are next most important, but a little reverb goes a long way for live sound. You can also get a vocal effects pedal if you want access to change it mid performance. The info below is still useful though, understanding what delay and reverb.
Personally I found that my mixer's built in FX were more than enough for me, but obviously some genres have more peculiar needs. I do gigs with only eq pretty often. EQ will get you very far, and live rooms have natural delay and reverb just based on the geometry of the room.
I usually route vocals into a vocal fx channel and make that channel 100% "wet". This is so the unchanged vocal and the fx volumes can be changed independently. Typically I would use EQ and compression on the dry channel, then delay and reverb on the FX channel. Delay can be subtle or it can be very, very loud depending on what you want stylistically.
Dry means no FX, wet means effects only. Sometimes people will set the wet/dry slider to a number in the middle and have it all on one channel, but I don't like that because in that case, you lower the dry volume every time you increase the wet volume. A separate fx channel doesn't have that problem.
Delay is like if you clap in a big empty hallway with flat walls and you hear the clap again some fraction of a second later. It's a direct echo bouncing off the wall. Rockabilly is a genre that is known for having a very loud, apparent delay effect on the vocals. Other genres also use delay, but quieter so you wouldn't notice unless you're listening for it. See below for an example of delay
Reverb is the decay of a more complex echo as it becomes less distinct and blends together with itself. Like a sound reverberating in a cathedral or a concert hall. Although the reverb can be in a room of any size.
Here is an example of what delay sounds like when it's loud at two different delay times: https://youtu.be/FuStmPbG528
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Help me with setting this up in my mind. I'm looking at a picture of a Yamaha MG10XU. Mic goes into channel 1 and then crank FX knob? How do you split the wet and dry channels?
Also found an Allen & Heath ZED-10FX on craigslist for cheaper
The zed10fx seems to have aux levels in addition to the gain and fx knobs. This can be useful because the aux send can be used as a monitor mix which can differ from the main speaker mix (if you have a monitor). Seems a bit more versatile in that sense.
If it's all DIY, a mixer will be good to have. If you are performing at a venue with a sound person, they will handle it and you can just plug your mic cable into their system and tell them what you want (typically just a bit of reverb).
That stuff is for a DAW program (or a larger, more complex mixer), if you don't have internal sends you can't do it live. In-channel fx are fine for live and there is typically a separate FX knob anyway, which won't change the volume of the dry signal. On that mixer, you won't experience the problem I was describing because there isn't a wet/dry knob, there is a gain knob and a fx knob that don't affect one another. Sorry, I wrote that before understanding this was a DIY live situation.
If you felt the need for off-board FX, you could use the FX send with a patch cable, then after the pedal put it back into another channel. You won't need to do that in most situations.
For pedals, definitely check local guitar shops, facebook marketplace, Craigslist, Reverb, etc for used gear.
If there’s a guitar store where you can try pedals out, I would start there and just kind of figure out what sounds you like. For bass, you may not even want effects depending on the genre. Also, if you’re unaware, you can typically use a guitar pedal on a bass without any issues. Some circuits will kill the low end, and if you run into that you can put an EQ pedal at the end of the pedalboard chain.
My bass must-haves are a tuner pedal, a volume pedal, and some kind of fuzz, distortion, or overdrive (I put the distortion before the amp and the volume pedal first in my amp effect loop so I can crank up the distortion if I want without pissing off my neighbors). Delay and Reverb are good effects for basically every instrument and genre. I find I really like the dry sound of my bass most of the time, and the effects are just when I’m playing a specific genre or noodling some haunted house sounds.
I have a hard time recommending specific pedals because I’ve built most of mine, which is only cheaper if you’ve got the tools already (and even then I’ve bricked a few boards being careless). You can’t go wrong with Boss pedals IMO, and you can usually resell them for about what you paid, especially if you buy used.
If you’ve got a lot of time and interest, JHS Pedals has a good YouTube channel where they talk about effects in general and go over lots of classic and contemporary pedals.
