Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I had the opportunity to play my guitar and sing for a group of women at a women's shelter in Chicago while others from my church served lunch. I played mainly Christian praise songs as well as a few Christmas songs.
This was the first time I had a chance to try out the Electro-Voice N/D 767a microphone with my Mackie SRM350 speakers. It worked great! The microphone gave me a lot more depth to my voice as I sung mostly within 1 to 2 inches from the windscreen. Since the microphone has a lot more volume than a standard Shure SM58, I was able to turn down the overall volume level on the PA and I was still louder than with an SM58 microphone!
The Electro-Voice mic really sounded nice with my rather "thin" sounding voice. The proximity effect from singing close to the windscreen never sounded "boomy" but rather just gave me a fullness that I was often missing when just using a Shure SM58 microphone.
Just before lunch was served, my cousin Sue gave a testimony and borrowed my PA system. I switched the microphone to a Shure SM 58 as I knew that she would never hold the microphone anywhere close to her mouth. I was right. She held it around chest level and so I had to turn up the volume on the PA to compensate for the distance of the microphone to the source. Since the Electro-Voice N/D 767a really only sounds good when close mic'ed, I figured the SM58 would be the better choice for her to use. I was right.
Besides the microphone being used for the first time, I also had the chance to use the TC Helicon Harmony G XT harmonizer as well. I used it sparingly to give some of the songs a little extra vocal punch with two extra harmony parts singing along with my main voice. It worked great too!
My new Ovation Custom Elite C2078 LX acoustic guitar was also used on this gig. I did not utilize my full array of pedals with the guitar but decided to only use the built-in reverb from the TC Helicon unit. While I missed the fullness I get from my other pedals and processors for my guitar, it still sounded very good! Definitely, the Ovation's built-in preamp and pickup does a terrific job all by itself.
Now that I think about it, the one Mackie SRM350 speaker that I used was also "new" as well as it was purchased on eBay to compliment my other speaker. So actually, every piece of equipment I used on this gig was new! It was great to try out all the new gear together. I'm looking forward to the next time I can play live again... which will be this Sunday at church!
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