Can I plug a mic into a guitar amp?

OLP

hey, i've finally got a band together, i'm just trying to sort out a mic for the singer so he can actually still talk after a practice, and I was just wondering would it be alright if i got a mic and ran it through a guitar amp? and what kinda power would the amp need to get him heard? i was thinking of something like this.

http://www.thomann.de/thoiw6_akg_d880m_emotion_serie_prodinfo.html

http://www.thomann.de/thoiw6_cae_17593_prodinfo.html

http://www.thomann.de/thoiw6_fender_frontman_15_prodinfo.html

cheers.
Chris.

carpothepunk

We play a mic through an amp and its fine,but im not sure on the specifics,just wait till fey gets here

Rustar

My band just got back together recently and we don't have a PA yet....but the singer has a 75w guitar amp that we're going to try....I'll let you know how it goes!

Might work just fine for practice, but I don't know if 15w is gonna cut it.

Have you considered something like this powered speaker?

OLP

Hey, thanks for the replys. i havent looked at any powerd speakers, would they do the job?

Eoin Madsen

A guitar speaker only has a frequency response of about 75-5000hz. Which is grand for guitars, but woefully inadequate for a vocal. The most important frequencies which dictate clarity and intelligibility are all above this range. You definitely need a full range speaker.

This might do it: http://www.thomann.de/thoiw6_the_box_pa110a_prodinfo.html

But one of these would be better: http://www.thomann.de/thoiw6_the_box_pa302a_biamped_fullrangebox_prodinfo.html
http://www.thomann.de/thoiw6_the_box_pa502a_aktives_fullrangesystem_prodinfo.html

These are all powered, so you don't need a power amp to go with them. They also have single input mic preamps, so you won't need a mixer. Put on the floor like a stage monitor is the best way of placing in terms of feedback threshold, so you shouldn't even need a speaker stand.

Also, if you're going that direction, get this mic lead instead: http://www.thomann.de/thoiw6_cordial_ctm_5_fmsw_prodinfo.html

OLP

That sounds good, just plug the speaker in, and then the mic into the speaker. Just looks like we gotta save up a bit.

John

Or use a megaphone

david

Just get an active monitor, it'll be sufficient until you can afford a full rig.

Rustar

Eoin Madsen wrote:

....clarity... ....intelligibility... ....You definitely need a full range speaker...

What he said, what he said!

mickymg2003

Before my band got a pa system we were using a guitar amp and then we switched to a bass amp and for some reason the bass amp sounded better.

david

weird, bass amps have about 40Hz to maybe 2kHz (i think) frequency response. I would have thought vocals needed more than 2kHz to reproduce the sound accurately. Maybe it sounded "better" because the bass amp was better quality than the guitar amp or was higher powered.

feylya

Better frequency response from the bass speaker.

david

No, guitar amps have a higher frequency range so in theory it should reproduce the vocals better.

mickymg2003

Well it still didn sound as good as pa but when we plugged the mic into the guitar amp we were getting feedback sometimes and the vocals sounded very trebley.The bass amp made the vocals sound more balanced and it seemed to suit our singers voice better.

novarock

Well on telephone lines the frequency for voice is between 400Hz and 3.4kHz, you dont really need more than that. My band always used bass amps. They seem to cut through better.

david

Telephone lines are completely different to a PA reproducing vocals as accurately as possible. Why do small vocal PA's have up to 20khz freq range if they only need 3.4khz?

novarock

Well I do stress that 3.4kHz is only adequate. Most voice patterns fall in that bracket but definitely not all. From a practicing point of view and for just saving money id use an old bass amp rather than buy a PA.

Rustar

Bass amps tend to be higher powered for the same cash outlay than guitar amps, and are more similar to PA speakers....sometimes they even have tweeters! They're pretty general-purpose, in fact I'm told that in the pre-Marshall '60's, the Fender BassMan was one of the more popular amps for guitarists.

That said, though, your best bet for full vocal reproduction including overtones is a powered PA speaker for not too much cash outlay.

One of my favorite ways to play guitar is to line out my little 15w Crate amp w/distortion into my Crate BX-160 combo, awesome tone!

Eoin Madsen

A standard bass speaker can reproduce up to 5k. They have more or less the same range as a guitar speaker usually with a bit more bass (until you get to to 15"+ speakers anyway). Most of the extended bass response is down to the enclosure design anyway. If it sounded marginally better than a guitar amp for vocal it would probably be down to having more clean headroom.

It's still missing a vital part of the vocal spectrum.

Phones sound terrible. We can hear from 20hz to 16k+, and we use all of it in voice recognition. Why would you want barely adequate sound? 2 other factors to consider are: 1) loudness contours - just because you can hear a phone held to your ear doesn't mean it would be vaguely discernable with the same proportion of frequencies at 80dB. 2) Masking - harmonics are what allow you to separate sounds in a mix, not fundamentals. If everything shares the same frequency range then the loudest one wins, no middleground.

steveland?

freakonaleashx wrote:

Telephone lines are completely different to a PA reproducing vocals as accurately as possible. Why do small vocal PA's have up to 20khz freq range if they only need 3.4khz?

Telephone lines have very different sound reproduction techniques.

For example over a telephone if you make an "f" sound it often sounds like an "s" sound.

I wouldn't take the frequency range of a phone into account when trying to work out a frequency range you'll need for good clarity vocals