Guitar pedals on trumpet

[Sensemilio]

Hello,

I've recorded my trumpet lately and put some guitardistoriton on it with a plugin and sounded awesome. It would be cool if I can use my guitardistortion pedals connected with a jack to xlr cable to use it on live performances but I don't know if it works well or if I need extra gear to do it. Can anybody help me pls? thankss

[James Perrett]

The biggest problem with using distortion on a microphone channel is the danger of feedback. Distortion relies on turning up the gain to a high level which is likely to cause feedback if the microphone picks up any sound from the speakers in the process. The other issue is that a normal guitar distortion pedal expects a higher signal than the microphone will put out so the signal may be noisier. Having said that, trumpets aren't usually particularly quiet so you may get away with plugging directly into a distortion pedal.

You may also get away with the feedback issue if you are careful to use only a little distortion and keep the mic well away from speakers/monitors. All I can suggest is that you borrow a pedal or other effects box and give it a try before you go spending money on this.

[Wonks]

You'll probably need a low to high impedance inline converter for the mic to guitar FX connection to work and get a decent signal level You can get them on eBay and Amazon. Something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soundlab-G132C ... =8-1-fkmr0

Use a dynamic mic, such as an SM57, as a capacitor/condenser mic will need phantom power which a guitar FX unit won't provide. I'd suggest a mic with a cardioid pattern (rather than a super- or hyper-cardioid pattern) as you won't want any rear lobe for picking up amplified sound for the reasons James gave,

You may find that a 'bit-crusher' FX pedal such as this,,, https://www.andertons.co.uk/guitar-dept ... tion-pedal
...gives sufficient distortion on a low bit setting without going down the normal route of using a lot of gain to get distortion, and so avoid feedback at anything but low PA volumes.

[MOF]

Given that it’s such a loud instrument and you would most likely clip a mic’ in the bell I wouldn’t think there’s much danger of feedback, no more than a lead vocal mic’, it’s when you have a quiet source and have to add gain that you run into feedback problems.
Distortion (effectively adding gain to the quieter part of the signal) will add to the likelihood of feedback, but yet again no more than an electric guitar with distortion.

[Wonks]

Distortion (effectively adding gain to the quieter part of the signal) will add to the likelihood of feedback, but yet again no more than an electric guitar with distortion.

????

A guitar distortion pedal adds gain to every part of the signal. The whole point being to raise the signal level and feed it into something in the pedal that will start to clip the signal. This might be a pair of diodes, a transistor, another op-amp etc. And there's normally another gain stage after that.

As James mentioned, the mic signal is likely to be lower than a guitar signal, so will need more gain just to reach the clipping threshold for the pedal.

Yes, trumpets can be loud, (I used to play one) but they don't need to be played flat-out all the time, so can also be reasonably quiet. We don't know how loud or with what variations in volume the OP plays ATM.

If the whole band plays with In-ear monitoring, then that helps significantly in reducing the risks of feedback, but standard wedges will make it quite risky if there's any distorted signal in the monitor feed.

You'll get different results playing through the PA compared to through a guitar amp. If through a guitar amp, you'll normally have this behind you, which will increase the risk of feedback through the mic.

Pragmatically, if you've got a spare dynamic mic and £20, then get an impedance converter and just try it out and see what happens with regards feedback. You'll need to get close to the mic and probably only have the distortion on when playing and covering the mic.

A bit crusher pedal will definitely get you more distortion (though of a different sort) before feedback. You've probably got a bit crusher plugin in your DAW, so try running the trumpet through that to see what you think of the resulting sound.

[Arpangel]

Something like this may be?

https://www.guitarguitar.co.uk/product/14052611372582--sennheiser-e608-super-cardioid-miniature-dynamic-microphone?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9_W6wcrI5QIVzbHtCh3HnwJCEAUYASABEgLHFvD_BwE

Also you could use a wireless unit to give you a line level output, I'd use something like a powerful keyboard style amp to plug into, that way you could place it to avoid feedback, rather than going through a PA.

If you're into effects and brass, check out Tom Heasley.

[Aural Reject]

Albeit with a different brass instrument, performances like this have formed part of DMA degrees from Salford University by - for example - Dr David Thornton.

AFAICR Dave went down the clip on route (he's a euphonium player) etc.

[Arpangel]

The secret of putting effects on the trumpet is trying not to sound like Jon Hassell...

[Wonks]

My concern with a clip-on mic for this purpose is that you'll be waving the bell and mic around around rather than keeping the mic fixed in the best position to avoid feedback. It's almost impossible for a trumpet player not to point the bell towards the ground during rests, and that's up to a 90° change in mic angle.

For normal brass sections, clip-ons are fine and I've used them countless times in the past when I was in our 11-piece soul band. But I think a fixed mic would be the better solution in this particular application, though it does depend on the whole monitoring/backline situation.

[AlecSp]

Pragmatically, if you've got a spare dynamic mic and £20, then get an impedance converter and just try it out and see what happens with regards feedback. You'll need to get close to the mic and probably only have the distortion on when playing and covering the mic.

This, as usual with most things noise, is the real answer. No amount of pontificating about the theoretical process will substitute for trying it out - which will quickly demonstrate whether or not it's a goer.

[The Korff]

Courtney Pine uses a wah pedal on his sax (different, but throws up a similar set of problems). Not sure how he does it though, but I agree a static microphone (ie. not a clip-on mic) would be best.

[MOF]

MOF wrote:
Distortion (effectively adding gain to the quieter part of the signal) will add to the likelihood of feedback, but yet again no more than an electric guitar with distortion.

????

A guitar distortion pedal adds gain to every part of the signal

Since the loudest part of the signal goes into distortion and can’t get any louder due to saturation you are effectively increasing the gain on the quieter parts of the signal and how much you distort that part of the signal is down to individual taste.

[MOF]

My concern with a clip-on mic for this purpose is that you'll be waving the bell and mic around around rather than keeping the mic fixed in the best position to avoid feedback. It's almost impossible for a trumpet player not to point the bell towards the ground during rests, and that's up to a 90° change in mic angle.

The advantage of a clip on mic in the bell of the trumpet is consistent tone and high SPLs so less chance of feedback.

[Wonks]

MOF wrote:
Distortion (effectively adding gain to the quieter part of the signal) will add to the likelihood of feedback, but yet again no more than an electric guitar with distortion.

????

A guitar distortion pedal adds gain to every part of the signal

Since the loudest part of the signal goes into distortion and can’t get any louder due to saturation you are effectively increasing the gain on the quieter parts of the signal and how much you distort that part of the signal is down to individual taste.

Sorry, just plain wrong! Physically you add gain to all the signal. Whether it then gets fully clipped is irrelevant. You are talking of a secondary effect here, but even then there is more to distortion than straight-line peak clipping.

[MOF]

MOF wrote:
MOF wrote:
Distortion (effectively adding gain to the quieter part of the signal) will add to the likelihood of feedback, but yet again no more than an electric guitar with distortion.

????

A guitar distortion pedal adds gain to every part of the signal

Since the loudest part of the signal goes into distortion and can’t get any louder due to saturation you are effectively increasing the gain on the quieter parts of the signal and how much you distort that part of the signal is down to individual taste.

Sorry, just plain wrong! Physically you add gain to all the signal. Whether it then gets fully clipped is irrelevant. You are talking of a secondary effect here, but even then there is more to distortion than straight-line peak clipping.

When the peaks can go no higher it's the lower level signal that progressively joins them as the gain is increased, until you've got something akin to white noise, in extremis.
By then there's a good chance you would have feedback if the channel fader hadn't been turned down to compensate for the perceived increase in loudness.
This is analogous to bootstrapping compressors, the peaks are held at the top of the maximum output level and the compressor pulls up the lower level part of the signal.