Shure 520DX User Manual download pdf (Page 17)

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How#to#be#heard#

Although reducing the gain of your amp makes it more manageable, it will not perform miracles.

A Blues Jr sounds ear-splittingly loud in your living room. Yet you get on stage at a jam and

wonder why it can't be heard. So you turn it up until it is feeding back and conclude that you

have a feedback problem. But you don't. You have an amplifier problem. Said another way, just

because your amp doesn’t feed back easily doesn’t mean it is loud.

Mic#it#

One solution is to mic the amp or use its line out feature (if it has one) to connect the amp to the

PA system in use. This is effective and allows much more volume in the audience. Small amps

can have outstanding tone – and they’re less expensive. There is no free lunch, however. The

volume “out front” may be sufficient but if you can’t hear yourself, or the band can’t hear you, it

is very difficult to play well. And small amps can easily be drowned out when stage volumes are

high. The “normal” solution to helping people hear themselves on stage is to add some of what

the audience is hearing through the PA into the “monitors” – those speakers on the floor at the

front of the stage, facing the musicians. Unfortunately you’ll find that having much of the

harmonica sound in the monitors is a feedback nightmare. It is best to be able to hear your amp

itself.

If you’re playing at jams, you may not have the option to mic your amp at all.

Line#Out#

Some amps have a “line out” circuit – a jack that provides the amp’s audio at an appropriate

level to plug into another amp or the PA. The idea is the same as mic’ing an amp – just without

the mic. It has the advantage of being easier to connect to an amp on stage, and eliminates the

common problem of someone kicking a floor mic out of position. Good line out circuits are

driven from the amp’s speaker circuit and as such can have a very good representation of the

amp’s tone.

Maybe#you#simply#need#a#bigger#amp!#The#dB#defined.#

Without getting too technical, the decibel, or “dB” is the unit of measure for “sound pressure

level” or SPL. Because it is expressed on a logarithmic scale, it can be a little bit confusing. As an

example, a doubling of volume is not equal to twice the number of dB. Studies have shown that

most humans cannot detect a difference of volume of less than 3dB. Yet it takes twice the power

for a 3dB increase in SPL. Now here’s the thing. To double the volume (an increase of 10dB), we

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Shure 520DX User Manual Page 17