Chiff and Fipple Forums

My wife is playing in a band with acoustic guitar, bass, vocals, and her fiddle. We are having a difficult time getting enough volume out of the fiddle without feedback. Have used an AGK c2000 so far. Any advice?

One of our fiddlers uses a Fishman bridge pickup.
It's handy. No feedback problems. There are several
options for bridge pickups:

https://www.google.com/search?q=bridge+ ... 28&bih=966

Our other fiddler doesn't want anything like that since
he needs to also play in an orchestra. So he uses a
small clip-on mic that sits over an F hole. He feeds
back if he gets too close to the monitors.

But that's still better than using a cardioid mic like the
c2000. If you want to stick with a mic on a stand, you
might start with something more uni-directional so it
picks up the fiddle and cuts out surrounding noise like
what's coming out of the speakers. 'Fraid I don't have
an example handy, though.

Thanks!

I'm not sure we have our optimal solution, but last night I made a contact mic from a pizeo transducer ($3), foam, and electrical tape. She just pushes it under the tailpiece. The foam holds it in place. While it doesn't sound as good as a condenser mic, it's much less susceptible to feedback. The instrument still sounds like a fiddle, so we're going to try it out next time. I believe it's going to be a vast improvement over the last gig. We ran it through a tube pre amp and a little chorus.

It's not a sound that you'd really want for a solo performance, but in the context of guitar and bass I think it's going to work well. The mic, on it's own, is really nifty. You can hold it in the air in front of you and talk and it hears nothing, but put it on a vibrating surface and it records the vibrations.

Try using the transducer and the mic together. Keep more of the transducer sound in the monitors and send the mic sound out to front of house.
It may help!

Tommy

tompipes wrote:Try using the transducer and the mic together. Keep more of the transducer sound in the monitors and send the mic sound out to front of house.
It may help!

Tommy

Oh, wow, I never would have thought of that, but it's a good idea!

The fiddle players I know who play on stage are using the DPA violin mic, and one of them a transducer additionally, as described by Tommy. Works very well and sounds awesome. When EQ'd properly, the Skyinbow pickup available here also gives very pleasant results. They're a bit tricky to mount, though, you need a drill press and a flat-end mill cutter.