The Steel Guitar Forum

Other than the conventional mike stand and boom sitting close to your steel,
what methods have you devised to somehow attach a "gooseneck" or small
boom to your steel so you can sing and fill in with your steel at the same time?

Thanks for your input........Wes

How about one of them headset mics..like the one Garth Brooks uses?

I tried that once. I used a podium gooseneck mount. They make them for churches and such.

It amplified every mechanical noise from the steel through the PA. Not good.

It looked like this one:
Signal Flex SF8040 Chrome Microphone Podium Mount

Wes, check out the Quicklok A107 clamp on boom arm available at www.zzsounds.com

I use and would highly recommend an Audio-Technica Pro Series headset mike. Gives you a lot of freedom of movement.

Wes,

I make some accessory clamps that will clamp the mike attachment to the legs. I beleive they are rigid enough to hold the mike apparatus, but you may need to use something such as rubber to insulate the sound from the steel.
Just a thought.

Don Blood

http://armrest.donblood.com

I have been using a audio tech headset mike for several years & find it to do the best job for me. The only problem I have ever had singing & playing backup at the same time is that I only have about 50% of my weak little mind applied to the singing & the other 40% applied to the backup playing, somewhere there is 05% left for watching the pretty girls, and 05% for trying to see if my wife is watching me watching!!

Ernie

Go into the drum department, and check out all the accessory clamps and things.

Hi Wes
As an electronics tech and singer/musician, I had trouble finding a suitable headset mic for when I play PSG and sing harmonys. I discoverd the Sennheise ME3 headset (I got one second hand) and I made a small battery supply with volume control on a belt clip. It works beautifly. I loath headset mics for lead singing as you cannot get the dynamics of moving the mic in and out, but for backing vocals it's fine. I don't play PSG if I'm singing lead, I use a conventional mic. I compared AKG, Shure and others and this was the only one I would recommend. I't is a nice sounding mic, not too boomy (Shure) or thin (AKG). I dislike radio mic systems (unless absolutely neccessary)and as you are stationary when playing PSG, you don't need one.
Sandy

Donny, your leg clamp seems like the answer. But it also seems like it might pick up some pedal noise. Is this a problem?

I use a drum accessory clamp and a small boom.The trick here is to get a shure mic isolator that goes between the boom arm and the clip.It's basically a rubber shock mount made to screw on the stand.Been using the same one for 25 years.

Donny: boy that beautiful MSA Classic looks just like my first MSA D-10, I went from a Baldwin Crossover to that guitar, kind of like dying & going to heaven back then. Still pickin my ol MSA S-12U Classic.

Ernie Pollock
MSA S-12U, Evans SE-150, Fender Steel King, Peavey Nashville [LeMay Mods], Hilton low boy vol ped, Geo L Stainless steel strings, BJS & John Pearse tone bar, thats about it!!

Mike Perlowin wrote:Donny, your leg clamp seems like the answer. But it also seems like it might pick up some pedal noise. Is this a problem?

No problems Mike. Or should I say no mike problems?

(Read my first post, though.)

So many great ideas and even photos coming on. Definite mobility advantage
with the head set idea but it seems from what you say there is a compromise
regarding the quality of the mike - let's say as compared to a Shure 58.

The type that clamps to a corner leg looks real good to me. At the moment
combining one of Don Blood's sturdy clamps with one of those podium threaded mounts that b0b suggested sounds pretty good..

Ernie Pollock (above) has a serius problem there. It's unlikely that any kind of
clamp of device is going to resonve his situation. Too bad Ernie!

More suggestions? Thanks.....Wes

Wes, I have a Crown headset, model # 311 if I remember correctly. It is wired, not wireless. I would say its every bit as good, if not better than a SM 58. $199 at American Musical

They make brackets ( about 10 bucks) that clamp on mike stands and are threaded to accept a standard gooseneck. Theyre pretty common for bluegrass setups to pick up acoustic instruments. they'll mount on your psg leg and I've never noticed any transmitted noise (pedal rattle etc). However a headset works much better. A wireless one is best.

Keep the microphone on a separate stand, or you run the risk of picking up noise from the mechanism and pedals.

I have tried this with both PSG and Keys and many mike types and it's just too noisy for me in the PA. Unless there is a mike out there I have not tried with excellent mechanical noise rejection, I think you will be disappointed.

If you use an old mike, you'll get lot's more mechanical noise. Reason: The mounts dry out and get hard in an old mike (they're made of rubber), and many people are ignorant of this problem. Also, if you play a cheap or worn out steel, you'll probably get lots of mechanical noise. I know lots of players who play steels that make so much mechanical noise that they sound like "silverware in a blender" when they're playing. A lot of steels out there should have been rebuilt or junked long ago.

Here's my holder, on one of my home-built steels

Ernie Pollock wrote:I have been using a audio tech headset mike for several years & find it to do the best job for me. The only problem I have ever had singing & playing backup at the same time is that I only have about 50% of my weak little mind applied to the singing & the other 40% applied to the backup playing, somewhere there is 05% left for watching the pretty girls, and 05% for trying to see if my wife is watching me watching!!

Ernie

That's a good one Ernie, I always had problems doing the singing and playing at the same time. To me it's like walking and chewing gum, and rubbing your and belly, all at the same time. My wife used to come to the gigs, but doesn't anymore. Sooo instead of the 5% of watching the pretty girls it about 25.LOL

Hey Richard is that a mica finish on your Steel?

I would like to revive this 3-year-old thread if I may. Has anybody tried to tape a headset mic to the steel? This would eliminate boom gear being clamped to the guitar, which is obstructing the view to the strings. Would that be 'the best of both worlds'? I have straightened the wire of a headset I no longer used and will try it at the next band rehearsal to see if a not-so-fixed distance between mouth and mic will be a problem or not.

Hans

I use a microphone stand devised by Al Risbeck that works well for my application(s). Al sells the clip-on part and then the player gets a boom (and in my case a gooseneck). I don't find that pedal noise is a problem as most of the time the ambient band noise is much greater than that introduced by the pedals. I also use an IPad and a program called "Gig Book" that organises songs in .pdf format so that I'm only shuffling pages on the IPad and not in a not-so-well organized notebook of songs to sing/play (my memory isn't what it once was).