Going Electric

[Jon Arnold]

I have been sitting in with a rock band and I am interested in "going electric." I am looking for suggestions as to what equipment to buy to help me get the effects I am looking for. I am thinking about the Yamaha Silent Brass studio among other things. Please share your suggestions and expericnces with me. Thanks in advance.

[Ed Lee]

The Yamaha Silent Brass system IS NOT designed for electronic performance audio. Its design is solely for practice without disturbing others.

Ed Lee
Jackson NC

[Jon Arnold]

I heard somewhere the silent brass performance studio module has effects in the module and could be hooked up to an amplifier. I am not talking about the standard Silent Brass system. Adam Rapa did some recording with it.

[mpo]

Why not just use a regular mic and go into a guitar effects pedal or vocal effects box? The sound quality will be far superior.

I use an Audio Technica Pro-35 clip on that goes into a Nady pre-amp. From there, I take it to a Digitec Vocal 300 effects box where I make my own effects based off of presets. Then I take the output and go direct into a mixer.

Keep in mind this does take patience. Most effects will not work "out of the box" with something as dynamic as trumpet. All in all, the whole thing is somewhat a pain in the ass. Be sure that you really want effects before you start dropping money into this.

[razeontherock]

I think the Silent Brass mute is simply one way to have a stable mic, to get your signal to your processor(s). I was surprised to see Adam Rapa doing it that way! Curious about details of "standard vs studio" Silent Brass, use of on board effect(s), and other processors.

I cringe reading about people using guitar distortion but hey, whatever works. I'd think a vocal processor might be more trumpet friendly but haven't tried it.

The main advantage to the Silent Brass route I see is you don't have to get louder overall to add effects. Am I the only one that has that problem, even with a rock band?

[tom turner]

Hi Jon,

"Doing it right" does not have to be expensive . . . but "doing it right" is really the only way it will reliably work well on a stage environment with loud, electronic "competition."

Here's a photo of my inexpensive "rig," enclosed by me in a homemade rack-mounted case. I keep all the components wired up together and set up takes hardly any longer than plugging in a mic cable! I just pull a single electric cord from the back inside of the "rig" (actually the plug end of a surge-protected, mounted power strip) and plug it in to a receptacle on stage.

Then, you output your trumpet's sound via a mic-level Master Out send to the house mixer. They receive it as if it were just a mic . . . however . . . the "rig" houses a decent mixer along with a pair of Lexicon Digital Effects Processors. Thus, I mix my OWN effects and combine 'em with my outputted signal to the board . . . and the sound man can't monkey with my mix . . . other than turn me up or down! No more idiots ruining your sound!!!

Getting more elaborate when needing my OWN monitor mix on a loud soundstage, I many times also bring along my own power amplifier (not shown) and output a signal from the "Control Room" send to that amp . . . and hook the amp's outputs to MY pair of mini stage monitors. The "Control Room" send is totally separate from the Mix Out mix the house receives, so I can turn my "Control Room" volume up or down to give me the volume I NEED when playing with deaf guitarists/deaf drummers using amplified drums, etc.

You'll also see my AKG SR-80 Wireless Mic receiver in my rig, (as well as an "off-topic" CD burner/recorder used to record my practices and also used to record live music at times . . . including my combo). The AKG mic system is an incredible addition to my sound mix . . . and seems impervious to feed back problems and such. Sounds really great too! Ah but I digress . . .





Here's all you really need to start out (using my stuff as examples):

Mackie 1202VLZ mixer with Mackie accessory rack ears - if bought used on ebay, probably about $250 or so. (Note, my 1202 is not pictured. It is now my backup mixer to the 1402 that's pictured. My combo got bigger and sometimes I need the extra two channels the 1402 affords. I got the 1402 on ebay a few years ago too, BTW.

Lexicon MPX-100 Digital Effects processor (you only need one to start). This little discontinued processor sounds great and only costs about $100 bucks used on ebay.

AKG Wireless Mic system using the current AKG C-519 INSTRUMENT mic . . . I paid about $500 for mine new back in 2000. Well worth the investment. You can use a hard-wired stand mic until you can get your wireless mic rig and do just fine though.


BOTTOM LINE . . . my stuff is whisper quiet, affordable and very dependable. I've used it trouble-free for years. You could probably get a used Mackie, a DSP and build yourself a small cabinet for under $550.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

Tom

[DrBones]

http://www.patchmanmusic.com/mdt.html

This is what you need!

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[Jon Arnold]

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to respond to my post. I appreciate it very much.

[Papaghanoush]

I use a sure SM-57a beta microphone into this

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/TC-Helicon-VoiceTone-Create-Vocal-Pedal?sku=180118

It has a really nice microphone preamp that makes you sound fuller and smoother even without the effects. The effects are good for adding delay, reverb and some modulation effects. The connectors are really nice too. Standard XLR microphone jacks (mono in and stereo or mono out). The only draw back is there is no volume control and no high pass filter which is really nice if you are in a loud bass heavy environment. To handle that I use one of these

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Mackie-402VLZ3-Compact-Audio-Mixer?sku=630342

The low cut works like a champ, the eq is effective for smoothing out my kind of harsh mic and the head phone out can be used to drive a powered monitor or head phones so you can hear your self. The only draw back here is it doesn't have an aux send so you can't easily mix other effects into your sound at the mixer. If you want to do that you might consider the next model up or something like this

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Peavey-PV6-Mixer?sku=631366

I like to keep my set up as small and portable as possible. The mixer and voice tone box are just sitting on a small clap on tray on my microphone stand.

This is a good cheap way to get started. If your band already has a mixing board with an aux send then you could also insert effects there and just run a pair of cables over to where you stand so you can control the effects. We usually plug into the house PA so I can't depend on that.

PapaG

[Jon Arnold]

Tom. What materials did you use to make the rack? I am bidding on an effects processer on ebay.

[tom turner]

Hi Jon,

I used some 1/2" cabinet-grade plywood I had just sitting around in my garage; braced some inside corners with (IIRC) some 1x1 wood and screwed and glued the blocks in. I also had enough rack mount metal laying around to mount my racked equipment in.

The only thing I had to buy was a set of Mackie rack mount ears for the mixer, and some thin carpet that I bought at an Auto Zone. The carpet was glued on with some 3M headliner/carpet glue that was also bought at the auto supply store.

Hope this helps,

Tom

[Jon Arnold]

That helps a lot Tom. I already have most of the materials I need laying around out in the garage. Thanks again.

[Richard DeCrosta]

I play thru an SM57 to a VocoLoco preamp which allows an effects loop of various effects pedals- or other, then to the board. All on an effects pedal board, cpmpact and light. The VocLoco allows your mic to easily return to a dry, no effect sound and not lose the signal strength.
_________________
Richard L. DeCrosta, trumpet, flugelhorn, vocals and percussion.

[Daniel-J]

You gave me amazing information, I didn't even know this tool existed like this. It will allow me to significantly add practice without disturbing others.

[mrhappy]

[rbeasley]

http://www.horn-fx.com/ is a great resource for anyone looking at effects pedals. They rate each pedal on how it performs in multiple categories, specific to horn players, and you can view pedals based on type (delay, harmonizer, etc.). I have found it to be very helpful.

This video is also instructive. Aaron Janik and Sean Jones demonstrate different kinds of pedals and talk about how to set up a board.
https://www.facebook.com/seanjonesjazz/videos/10154463132941157/
_________________
Robert Beasley
robertbeasleymusic.com

[BraeGrimes]

Though the Silent Brass wasn't designed for performance applications, there have been many who use it for this application. The benefit is that you can get 100% wet mix from the horn into the amplifier, which in very loud situations means no bleed. If you're going to be running it into a bunch of effects anyway, the pure trumpet sound won't be as important.

HOWEVER, I prefer to run a mic because I like to have a decent trumpet sound with minimal FX processing for performances; if I was running fuzz/distortion/modulation all the time, I'd consider a silent brass, but ultimately I think that a mic + FX is preferable. If you already have a SB7/7X though, you may as well try it with some pedals and FX and see what you'd like to do from there!