Performing on Zoom

[Gary Blanchard]

I am going to do a church talent show on Saturday evening as a prelude to maybe doing some other online music. I am thinking of using my small Bose PA just to give a bit of reverb on the voice and guitar. Has anyone done this, and do you have any tips? My guess is that I need to keep the volume pretty low, but I don't want to go without some sound modification.

 

[Mark Wein]

I would do a test run on your own. It's really easy to distort the live stream if you aren't careful. Exhibit A, my stream from last week. I'm playing guitar direct into my interface with a Strymon Iridium, which usually sounds great and I play with a pretty clean sound but I raised the input gain into my interface a little TOO much:

 

[bsman]

I have a good friend in SF who's a singer, and she wants to record a couple of songs together via Zoom. We're gonna give it a try to practice on Saturday and see what comes out of it. Since her oeuvre runs to torch songs (particularly Mexican/Spanish ones) and mine runs to punk, folk, and rock, it's going to be interesting!

 

[smorgdonkey]

I don't know what sort of camera and mic you will be using but it sounds like just about what I did for this video:



You can see the SM58 is set 'way back' so there is no proximity effect and the guitar is going through the same acoustic amp as the vocal. This set up isn't utilizing anything direct though and the delay is set the same on both vocal and guitar. The mics for recording are at the lens (Zoom Q2N-4K).

This set up allows a little more effect if the voice is directed more linear to the SM58 (or more powerfully exerted) and the level of the acoustic amp is set to balance well with the room voice & room guitar level. It is definitely in the vein of using the effects to enhance what is there and rather even leaning to the goal of the effects not being noticed. Most musicians will notice some but many non musicians wouldn't take note. There are some situations in which one wants the effects to be a major component but often subtlety is the best policy.

I would say that a few test recordings will get you where you want to be for levels and strangely in the subtlety vein, the room sound generally has to sound a bit wetter than you want it as recording tends to come out a little more dry sounding than the room (in my experience anyway).

 

[Gary Blanchard]

Thanks, smorgdonkey. I will probably be setting up tonight or tomorrow afternoon and will do some test videos that should give me an idea of how it will turn out. Maybe I'll post the test videos to YouTube if they turn out okay.

I don't want the effects to be too much, but I always prefer some amplification to allow for EQ and such.

 

[smorgdonkey]

I think you probably want the speakers for your amplification source the same distance from your recording mics as you are. That is if you are recording room sound because if it's too much different it can introduce another delay which can sound ugly.

 

[Gary Blanchard]

I think you probably want the speakers for your amplification source the same distance from your recording mics as you are. That is if you are recording room sound because if it's too much different it can introduce another delay which can sound ugly.

Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

 

[rickenvox]

I don't know what sort of camera and mic you will be using but it sounds like just about what I did for this video:



You can see the SM58 is set 'way back' so there is no proximity effect and the guitar is going through the same acoustic amp as the vocal. This set up isn't utilizing anything direct though and the delay is set the same on both vocal and guitar. The mics for recording are at the lens (Zoom Q2N-4K).

This set up allows a little more effect if the voice is directed more linear to the SM58 (or more powerfully exerted) and the level of the acoustic amp is set to balance well with the room voice & room guitar level. It is definitely in the vein of using the effects to enhance what is there and rather even leaning to the goal of the effects not being noticed. Most musicians will notice some but many non musicians wouldn't take note. There are some situations in which one wants the effects to be a major component but often subtlety is the best policy.

I would say that a few test recordings will get you where you want to be for levels and strangely in the subtlety vein, the room sound generally has to sound a bit wetter than you want it as recording tends to come out a little more dry sounding than the room (in my experience anyway).

The voice sounds good. You're just using delay? And it's going through the acoustic amp?

 

[smorgdonkey]

The voice sounds good. You're just using delay? And it's going through the acoustic amp?

Yes, it is a stereo delay on a Traynor Acoustic Master (like this one):

I got it in a trade and was going to sell it but it's just so convenient.

Now, the stereo part of that delay is not really obvious because #1 the speakers are pretty close together and #2 the unit is off to the right in the field of view. It makes the vocal smooth out quite a bit and I have the same effect on the guitar but a little more dry and that channel is lower to balance it or slightly peek over the room/natural acoustic output of the guitar but you can definitely hear it in the slight pauses at the very beginning of that song. If I were to sing close to the mic the level of the vocal would be way too loud and the delay would be extremely obvious.

All about adding some polish so to speak instead of having cavernous reverb or something (which is great for some things...just not this one).

It bugs me a bit that when I played frequently, I could nail this song and absolutely rip the vocal - I haven't played much for 3 years and have already played more since the virus thing began than I had in those 3 years.

 

[Deep Eddy]

Yes, it is a stereo delay on a Traynor Acoustic Master (like this one):
View attachment 56147

I got it in a trade and was going to sell it but it's just so convenient.

Now, the stereo part of that delay is not really obvious because #1 the speakers are pretty close together and #2 the unit is off to the right in the field of view. It makes the vocal smooth out quite a bit and I have the same effect on the guitar but a little more dry and that channel is lower to balance it or slightly peek over the room/natural acoustic output of the guitar but you can definitely hear it in the slight pauses at the very beginning of that song. If I were to sing close to the mic the level of the vocal would be way too loud and the delay would be extremely obvious.

All about adding some polish so to speak instead of having cavernous reverb or something.

It bugs me a bit that when I played frequently, I could nail this song and absolutely rip the vocal - I haven't played much for 3 years and have already played more since the virus thing began than I had in those 3 years.

Great performance. Really nice job with the vocals (even if you feel that the vocals don’t live up to a prior standard)

 

[smorgdonkey]

Thanks Eddy, I appreciate that.

Thanks to rickenvox as well.

 

[Steverino]

We’re using MS Teams at work.

 

[Gary Blanchard]

I ended up using my tablet, the small PA, and going without the thumb and finger picks; it seemed to go well. Next I will try an online open mic. Maybe I will eventually do an online solo show. It's not the same as being in the room with an audience, but it was nice to give a couple of me new songs a live debut. I'll post a test video later.

 

[shoeless]

On zoom huh? Is that what the kids are calling it now?