Our transition from playing purely acoustic shows without benefit of amplification to performing in rock and roll venues hasn’t always been a smooth one (see plugging in, for example). Initially, Scott, Ryan, and I used pickups on the guitar, banjo, and mandolin. The tone quality was never entirely satisfactory. I found the loss of dynamic range to be particularly troublesome. After plugging in at bigger venues for a year and a half or so, we’ve been transitioning back to using microphones on our instruments.

This approach is not without its problems. The sound engineer has to know enough to keep the stage volume low, as the single most likely problem is feedback from the stage monitors. Many engineers don’t fully comprehend that they aren’t mixing a band with Marshall stacks and a twenty-piece drum kit, and set the stage volume way too high. That makes it difficult to prevent the monitors and mains from bleeding into the instrument mics and feeding back.

We tried using dynamic mics, such as the ubiquitous and incredibly useful Shure SM57 or the similar Shure Beta 57, on the mandolin and banjo. Dynamic mics are great for loud environments, as they can be turned up extremely loud before they feed back. The sound we were getting wasn’t great, though. These mics tend to have a very pronounced proximity effect, and this didn’t lend itself well to a natural acoustic instrument sound. I found the midrange to be too pronounced, and there wasn’t enough pronounced treble to enable me to cut through the sludge.

In addition to that, the 57 has a very limited pickup range. Sounds off mic tend to sound hollow. While this makes it ideal for micing loud souces like guitar amps and snare drums in noisy environments, it makes it tough to get a good, balanced rhythm tone when one steps off mic a bit to accompany a solo.

Because of this, we opted to start using condenser microphones on stage. More about that in part II.