We did our annual music awards show last month. It's the one where we always
have problems with the lectern mic. This year was as bad as it has ever been.
The show owners insisted on using a Shure MX418 with an inline preamp. That mic
was WAY too much output. It constantly overloaded the mic preamp on the house
Yamaha digital console. Unfortunately, the FOH guy didn't know how to operate
the board, so when the idiot presenters got too close to the mic, it was really
distorted.
The FOH guy kept saying the mic was overloading internally, that the problem
could not be the board. Since I have little to no say, I just went with it. The
mics are all split with one feed going to the monitor/multitrack recorder and
the other feed going to the house. Towards the end of the show, I walked
backstage to listen to the multitrack feed. Even with the performers deep
throating the SM58 wireless mics, the feed was clean and clear. That's when I
knew the Yamaha preamps had to be overloaded. (The mics were rented from a sound
company. The theater provides the house sound and the "engineer". You'd think
they'd have at least spoken to each other before the show.)
On to my question. The Shure MX418 spec sheet says that the output level can be
set to 0, but it is shipped as +12. In looking at the spec sheet, it appears
that the gain changes require soldering surface mount resistors:
http://tinyurl.com/mx418
If I'm reading that correctly, it's at least a little misleading to suggest that
the gain can be readily changed. (They didn't say that, but that's what it
sounds like.) Heck, if you can open a U47 or a KMS105, you can change the gain
with a soldering iron and the right resistors.
These mics really suck for this application. If I participate in the show again,
I think I'm going to get my hands on an AKG D880 that Scott recommends. Or a
Sennheiser 421 that can take an idiot screaming into it.
Is there an inline XLR attenuator that passes phantom?