Xyz
Nope, the shure attenuator did not solve the situation (level did go down, but it still peaked at stronger snare shots).
What solved the situation and what worked always, was when I am using the analog mixer (zed12fx) at its -10db.
And yes: I want to use this for both live and recordings.
Xyz, the mic is positioned about 3″ from the edge of the head pointing towards the center of the head. It didn’t help moving it farther more (5 or 6″) still had the same too hot peaking signal, unless I used the analog mixer, zed12fx in this case.
Of course MikeC, but I meant IEM control on a gig. This setup is for rehearsals. When we get to play somewhere, the mixer won’t be close to me. Whoever does the the job with the mixer will send me my aux, but I’d rather have them send it to the Zed-mixer first, and through it to my IEMs. That way I get to control aux volume without communicating with the sound guy, plus I can manipulate the volume of my snare in the iems.
The way I see it: the only reason I can go for external phantom is to end up directing the mic signal into line in and not have a bulky another mixer by my side.
Then again, with a mixer near me dedicated for snare mic only, I could use that mixer for better personal IEM control, since it’s there, near me.
Reply to all:
– Earthworks dm20 is a condenser mic, I need phantom power for it. If I go through line in, I won’t have phantom power, right?
– I do have another mic (audix i5, and sm57) they both work ok for snare. They just don’t have the dynamic range of the dm20.
– I did try another input (and another cable, just to be 100% sure) and got the same result.
– The main pfl snare was in the green, and when hit just a tad harder (both normal hits) it jumps to red.
Well guys I double checked everything, and it wasn’t the fx. The fx only made it worse, but even without it, the hot peaking signal was still there.
So with less and less options to go for, this is currently my last resort, an assigned mixer for the dm20 mic, or snare only mixer 🙂
UPDATE:
Guys, I finally got the Shure attenuator, and the problems haven’t quite gone away;
this is what’s going on: with the attenuator the signal level was indeed lower (15,20 and 25db of attenuation) however, the distortion is still there no matter which of the three I set it to.
Here is how it sounds with all three sets of attenuation:
Now, what I tried to do was to start off with a clean scene and there was no distortion with the signal. Added some eq, still ok. But when I added reverb (one of the mixer’s fx reverbs) it then started to tear.
So, is there a way to setup/reroute how reverb/fx is positioned in the order of things of the QU-16, so I can avoid this from happening when adding fx?
Both of my cymbal setups, on my left side, have a crash cymbal that is way louder than hihats. I have experimented with my left overhead about 30-40″ directly above the hihat, so that it is offset in relation to the crash.
So far the sound seems balanced enough and I’m not using mics for the hats. I do have an extra i5 now, who knows maybe it can be used for the hihat, but that would be like.. the 8th mic for the set 🙄
I got audixes on all other components, d2, d4, d6, adxes…
This Earthworks beats i5 by far…
When playing ew dm20 vs i5, in order for them to sound the similar, I need to add overheads to the i5.
I am the drummer 🙂 and playing softer is not an option. The mic is Earthworks dm20 and it can withstand 150db of abuse. There is no distortion in the mic as it works ok with an extra -5db less (when using a&h zed12fx, since that mixer can lower the gain by -10db,while qu-16 goes as low as -5).
