[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

Bluegrass
bands using 1 mic re-emerged nearly 20 years ago, and by 10 years
ago they started drifting back to multiple mics. There are still
a few holdouts that freak out the stage and sound crews at
festivals, but they do just fine in rowdy bars where bluegrass
really should be played. .

On 10/10/2015 2:03 PM, Nil wrote:
I think some of it is a showmanship move. And it's effective - it
impresses me, at least! It helps visually highlight a soloist. It also
tells me that they are good at listening to each other, in order to
satisfactorily self-mix.

When I was going to bars to hear bluegrass bands in the 1960s, mostly
they had two mics, one at vocal height and one lower for the
instruments. The first "revival" band I saw that used one mic was Doyle
Lawson in the early 1990s. He's old enough to have seen bands working
with one mic because that's all they had, though the rest of his band
members at the time were perhaps 20 years younger.

Their setup (they brought it with them) was an Audio Technica 4050 mic
on a stand that they used a tape measure for to get it at the right
height, a Mackie mixer as a mic preamp, and a Sabine feedback
eliminator. They also had a small amplifier fed by a pickup on the
upright bass so they could hear it on stage. No other monitors. \

As they were getting set up, one of the band members gave a little
lecture about what they were about to do (make some feedback and let the
Sabine notch out the frequencies). He also talked a little about how
bands used to sing around one microphone but got away from it as PA
systems got more complicated and it took too much time to set up.

I talked with him about the setup a little afterwards, and what Doyle
said was that while they liked the showmanship, they had to rehearse for
about six months before they were happy with the sound they were
getting. Also, and most important, he said that they decided to go with
one mic because they were playing larger festivals and the sound that
they were getting both in the house and on stage was so bad that they
knew they could do better.


--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com