The Steel Guitar Forum

There are many of these out now - auto feedback eliminators with from 4 to 24 filters that auto-lock and attenuate offending freqs.

The Behringer is only about $120! - seems like a good deal.

What other units do you have experinece with?

I'm looking for a 2 channel unit to kill feedback in monitor mixes. 2 separate mixes.
I think 12 filters are enough. Trying to speed and simplify PA setup. I ring it out manually with a dual 31band graphic/RTA now.

thoughts?

thanks - Chris

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Chris Kennison
Ft. Collins, Colorado
"There is no spoon"
www.book-em-danno.com

If you get one, I'd be interested in hearing a review of how well it works. I have yet to hear of a production company that uses one of these devices. Most that I've seen just use a 31 band EQ and their ears, some use a RTA.

I bought a Feedback Ferret II from my local Peavey dealer. I haven't got it hooked up yet but from all I've heard and read it's sposed to be the cat's meow. It is a dual channel unit.
Erv

I've got 2 of the Behringers. I never liked them. A graphic EQ was always better in my opinion. You want the Behringers? I'll sell 'em cheap.

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Ben
Zum D10, NV400, TubeFex, POD, G&L Guitars, etc, etc.

I'm with Ben, here. "Feedback eliminators" are really nothing but ersatz graphic equalizers. When I was having real feedback problems, I chose to address the cause rather than the resultant feedback. My advice is to get a good super-cardioid microphone, and your feedback problems will probably disappear.

thanks for the thoughts.
perhaps I'll stick with what I know.

With correct mic placment etc. I can make the graphic work nearly 100% of the time, but have also seen bands using these things (driverack etc.) and getting really good results. Which makes me curious to know if they may help.

Ben - what are some specifics on why you didn't like the beheringers? Do they kill tone?


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Chris Kennison
Ft. Collins, Colorado
"There is no spoon"
www.book-em-danno.com

Im a audio engineer for the daystar network, some of you may see us on cable or dish network or direct tv we bought a behringer because I have had really good luck with their truth monitors and compressors, the feedback controller is a piece of junk unusable, however some friends of mine the Perry Sisters, some of you may have heard of them have a sabine in their rack and it works and quite well but dont waste your time with the behringer

I have the Behringer Shark DSP110 it works a bit, it is really designed to work with mics. It is really bad as far as signal loss when run in line mode which bypasses the builtin mic preamp. The Shark is a cheapo copy of the small sabine SL-820 which it tries to look like but, they don't operate similarly.

Chris, It's been so long since I've even had them plugged in I'm going from memory here.

I do recall that even with them in use, we still had feedback issues, with mics, ac guit, and fiddle. And I do remember they REALLY muddied the monitor mix. I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) the way they worked was when there was a spike in certain frequency it would automatically bring that frequency down. Well, fiddle would take a ride and you had trouble hearing it in the wedge cause the darn feedback destroyer would kill all the frequencies. Just made everything sound like you were listening to the mix over a telephone.

I do have a Behringer compressor that I like. The tube preamp is good for a gain boost, but doesn't add much warmth, and an engineer buddy of mine really likes the mixers, wedges, and speaker cabs. So go figure, I think it's really hit and miss with Behringer, but what can you expect from gear that cheap.

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Ben
Zum D10, NV400, TubeFex, POD, G&L Guitars, etc, etc.

Ben, the Behringer stuff is made in China, and, while I've got a Feedback Destroyer, I haven't used it, for the reason you describe with fiddles, etc. But I do have an old Roland something-or-other, that I bought on closeout from Musician's Friend several years ago, that I'm crazy about. In our bluegrass band, we use one Audio-Technica 4033, and that little Roland unit leaves things clear as a bell.

A few posts up, Donny recommends getting a super-cardiod (also known as hyper-cardiod) microphone to reduce feedback problems. Beware that while hyper-cardiod microphones pick up less of the sounds coming at the microphone from the sides, it does pick up a significant amount of sound coming from directly behind the microphone. A regular cardiod microphone will pick up more of the side sounds but no sound from directly behind the microphone. You can see the different polar patterns at this site. For this reason hyper-cardiod microphones are often used with a pair of monitor speakers setup in a "V" configuration, while regular cardiod microphones work best with a single monitor speaker directly behind the microphone.