The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #75360 Message #1322492
Posted By: Vixen
10-Nov-04 - 12:35 PM
Thread Name: I don't sound like me in the monitor...
Subject: I don't sound like me in the monitor...
This one's been an intermittent issue for some time, but mainly I can ignore it because we use a single-mic and no monitor for most gigs.
I know my voice sounds different to others than it does to me because of head resonance and such. Furthermore, I wear hearing aids in both ears, so the way I hear my voice is both "through the bones and voids of my skull" AND digitally processed through the hearing aids. Neither of those things cause me any trouble in performance.
What happens with a mic and monitor set up is that what I hear seems distorted and seriously off-pitch and atonal. Consequently I back off the mic to regain my bearings and pitch and so forth, AND I completely lose volume and confidence. I've had sound techs try to fix the situation by turning up my mic, but then I start to get feedback.
By which point, I've (temporarily!) lost track of the melody, harmony, chords, words, and my sanity, and want to run off and hide in a nice quiet hole somewhere far far away.
The only thing I've been able to come up with is to practice with a mic and monitor, but it sounds so awful! Reynaud tells me to "just sing as you usually do!" but since what I hear through the monitor doesn't match what I'm used to hearing, I seem to get worse and worse... He's even tried slowly incrementing the volume on the monitor while I'm not looking, but as soon as I hear myself, my voice goes way off.
It's getting critical, because we're going to be opening for another band, hence using someone else's sound, and sound tech, and I'm a nervous wreck about it.
Any suggestions?
V