XLR to Mono jack converter and volume pedal issue?

Taz · Jan 13, 2009

With this new band, I find I have the age old problem of upping the volume for solo's. I know there are "Boost" pedals for guitarists (in other words, a pedal that simply boosts your sound without altering your tone)
My problem is that my mike has an XLR lead. Is there a way of easily and not permanently converting from an XLR to Mono jack simply to plug into a volume pedal?
What if any would be the down side of such a conversion?
And can anyone recommend a pedal or switch, that will raise my volume by a set amount with the click of a switch and not a progressive rocker type switch?
Thanks in advance for all the brilliant suggestions I know you lot are going to offer 8)

Pete Thomas · Jan 13, 2009

I don't think you can do it with a mic output, this is something that I think has to come after the mic preamp stage. (Which is normally at the input stage of a mixer or amplifier)

wavygravy · Jan 13, 2009

one of these will do it taz

http://tinyurl.com/a6ud2b

Pete Thomas · Jan 13, 2009

wavygravy wrote:
one of these will do it taz

http://tinyurl.com/a6ud2b

Watch out, that one is male to male. For a mic lead you'd need female to male, but I'm sure the same shop do them.

Give us more detail about what the mic is going into, ie PA mixing desk or small mixer amp.

wavygravy · Jan 13, 2009

sorry...i never noticed that.....Maplins do the female xlr to male Jack

http://tinyurl.com/8cm3vs

neil

Taz · Jan 13, 2009

The mic (which has a 9volt battery and an ear piece monitor) goes straight to the PA mixing desk. I just need the ability to up the volume for solos. Should I be looking at this from a different angle? I do have a small mixing desk of my own, could I incorporate that and manually turn up the volume?
How do others get around this problem without being "out mixed" by an engineer?

dooce · Jan 13, 2009

You've got an engineer? I'm impressed.

I try to set a level in sound-check that works for just chugging along with the tune, then stuff the bell over the mic and blow harder for the solos. I've no idea if it works - Pete, you'll know better than me having seen the band.

I've also got the scary footpedal-operated Digitech 300 which can be programmed just to boost volume - but that's probably overkill for your problem........

When's the first gig then Pete?

Jules · Jan 13, 2009

can't you just get your engineer to set your volume when you're about 3' off mike then get in really close for solos. playing rock & roll I always like to only just hear myself on solos- that way I play really loudly and aggressively (nothing's more annoying than playing at a level where, when you solo loudly, you drown out the rhythm section in the monitors and risk losing time- forced polite soloing in rock & roll- not good!).
what's you mouthpiece- these are absolutely critical for 'hearability' in loud gig situations...?

young_col · Jan 13, 2009

Taz
Apart from the other good advice about mic proximity and gain settings, what mic do you use? You said it has a 9v battery and monitor, so does it have a pre-amp built in? That might mean you could get round the issue that Pete raises, that you need some pre-amp before the volume pedal (to make up for possibly loosing a lot of signal in a passive one). You need to make sure the impedance matches as well - probably not a problem if the mic output after pre-amp is low impedance.

We'll have another think about it - my son did sound engineering at gigs professionally.
Colin

Taz · Jan 13, 2009

Sorry guys, I must have misled you, no engineer, hence the problem. I need to be able to up the volume just a tad, for solos. Bill how does your pedal work?
Ah Jules... a quantum is the beast of choice. Its a 10 with 2.5 vandorans and an eddie daniels II lig, should be screamy/honky enough to cut through, but this band is real loud
The first public gig is at the Draycot hotel on the 7th March. I'll try and find out about tickets if anyone's interested.

Chris98 · Jan 14, 2009

Hi Taz,

I built several attenuators a few years back to go between the speaker output on a little valve guitar amp I built and the speaker, it enabled me to overdrive the power stage of the guitar amp without blasting the windows out.

The advantage of a passive device is that it will be cheaper and no battery to run out of juice at a crucial time.

The potential problem with a boost device is that unless you set the mixer up with the boost engaged you are likely to overdrive the mic input when you stomp on it, which is likely to add considerable distortion. Guitarists often want the extra distortion the boost pedal provides.

All the best,

Chris.

dooce · Jan 14, 2009

Taz wrote:
Bill how does your pedal work?

Pete

You are welcome to borrow it. It's a multi-effect processor (whatever that is!) that can be programmed to do just about anything from reverb/echo, distort, to doubling up in any interval you want (dropping the doubled voice down an octave sounds especially good). It also does a nice line in alien voices....

It has about 8 programmable parameters, so you could programme it to work as a foot-pedal operated volume control. Just plug your male mic XLR lead in one side, female out to the mixer the other side - it has it's own power supply. It does make your mic extremely sensitive to feedback but you can overcome that by juggling with the gain on the processor before the signal gets to the mixer.

Give me a shout if you want to have a play with it.

Taz · Jan 14, 2009

Dear Chris,
Thank you so much for your response to my post. It was nice of you to mention your attenuator called Pad. Is that short for Padrick? He must be quite grown up now, especially to have blown out all the windows. Was he studying chemistry at the time. :laugh:

I'm sorry Chris, you've gone to a lot of trouble posting this response...trouble is I don't understand it!!!
I really appreciate the trouble you have gone to for me so I'll print it off and see if I can find someone to interpret it for me.
Thanks again for all your trouble!

Taz · Jan 14, 2009

Bill, that sounds like a real possibility. I may take you up on it if thats ok?

dooce · Jan 14, 2009

Taz wrote:
Bill, that sounds like a real possibility. I may take you up on it if thats ok?

Sure mate - you know where I am. Sunday would be good if you want to have a look at it.

Taz · Jan 14, 2009

Bill I got a gig Sat, dont supose you coud do any sooner :whistle: :whistle:

young_col · Jan 15, 2009

Taz
There's a thread on SOTW that shows how someone else dealt with it - http://forum.saxontheweb.net/archive/index.php/t-22184.html. Might be useful for you.
One point they make is that going from XLR to 1/4inch jack can introduce noise as it is an impedance change. That's hardly likely in just a plug/socket converter. What's more likely is that they used co-ax from the jack, which is unbalanced and likely to induce noise more than XLR which is a balanced line system (and balanced lines are far less susceptible to noise). Just thought I'd warn you not to worry unduly, just watch out if you do use co-ax.
Colin

old_git · Jan 16, 2009

Taz,
If you do have problems, Colin will almost certainly have odd lengths of 300, 400 and 600 ohm balanced feeder, various baluns and might even be able to match impedance with a coax trombone or other formation.

young_col · Jan 16, 2009

At risk of going off topic, Bill you will know that as you get higher in (radio) frequency, inductors turn from coils into bent bits of wire and eventually just strips of copper. There's some frequencies where a trombone slide would make a very good high power variable inductance - and some would say that's all they're good for (but I'm not one of them of course). Humphrey Lyttleton tended to decry crude use of the slide, but I think he was meaning in the face of Jack Teagarden's superior lip technique.

Sorry to hijack your topic Taz!

Taz · Jan 16, 2009

Young Col wrote:
At risk of going off topic, Bill you will know that as you get higher in (radio) frequency, inductors turn from coils into bent bits of wire and eventually just strips of copper. There's some frequencies where a trombone slide would make a very good high power variable inductance - and some would say that's all they're good for (but I'm not one of them of course). Humphrey Lyttleton tended to decry crude use of the slide, but I think he was meaning in the face of Jack Teagarden's superior lip technique.

Sorry to hijack your topic Taz!

Clear as mud 😉 :erm: :S 8|