How do they do it?

[Guest]

Are any of you guys familiar with Nine Inch Nails,Ministry, or Marilyn Manson? How do these guys run such distorted vocals live without massive feedback? I've tried it with noise-gates and it isn't the greatest solution. They seem to switch in and out of several variations of distorted and compressed vocal sounds. How is it done?

[suremann]

Now don't shoot me, I could be very wrong on this.

 

I've done a few shows where an ADAT or DA88 track was used to feed a SMPTE signal to a Whole Hog II or an ETC Expression in order to sync the intelligent lighting to the music and coreography. The tape would also have a click through the entire show -- as well as tracks for all of the instruments / vocals on stage. Given this type of set-up, you'd only need a live mic on stage when they say "Hello Cleveland!"

 

They may be using in-ear's, without any vocal in the wedges.

 

Maybe try it without effect in the wedges, or ring out the hottest frequencies in the effect / wedge combination.

 

I hope this helps, although my guess is you've tried this already. Thanks for your time,

Chris