I have performed at my share of open mics for sure and I ran one for years. It's a very interesting challenge to deal with all of the variables and it no doubt puts live sound in perspective.
And indeed compression is the thing that is always needed and almost always missing. I have seen the simple one knob compressors in mixers that always seem lame. When no compression is used I have been knocked out of my seat by singers that you can't understand one second and be knocked out of your seat the next by a huge blast of sound. Even the singers with good mic technique apparently can't compensate for the softer vocals that get lost in the mix.
What then does that ideal compressor for you gig bag do? I haven't had much opportunity in the last few years to experiment with this, but I did take my Fairchildish compressor to a couple of gigs and it was a big help, but getting it set up in the most ideal way was not easy. It's more of a studio device and the gig compressor seems to be a special case.
I don't have time to build such a thing in the face of other projects at this time, but... compressors seem to be a weak link out there from what I can tell. I also can't help finding them facinating. In general it's not easy to design a high quality compressor. The dynamics of something controlling dynamics is pretty complex but that's also where the fun in engineering is.
Lately I have been singing through my "Glow Stic 1" which is actually a special low order harmonic distortion device to get vintage tube preamp overload effects. It generates the characteristics of the tube mic preamp that Mick Jagger was using when recording "Wild Horses" at Muscle Shoals(I think in 1971).
After hearing Mick overload that preamp I started looking into the many recordings that pushed tube mic preamps to get a limiting and fatening where fancy compressors were not available or up to the task. What I found is that once you recognize the effect, you realize that this is happening all over 60s and 70s recordings. Mick's overload was an accident that ended up being a classic example of a very interesting dynamic effect. I do know that producers long before that used this trick to push the vocals fatter for broadcast radio purposes. It was a down and dirty way to get the job done at the time and if done properly it really works well. My version of this technique, the "Glow Stic I" sounds and works identically.
The "Glow Stic I" works as a limiter by holding back the amplitude as it logarithmically goes into overload in the way that the equivalent push-pull tube circuit does. This makes the vocal hotter and dirtier as you sing louder. If you know how to ride this with mic technique, it can give lots of control. I recently discovered the technique of using a velcro strip to secure my mic's external foam wind screen at a distance that would help me know where the tipping point of the distortion is. If I want to push it over the top I can push the screen with my mouth. This trick works great and I'm loving the setup now.
Lately the "Glow Stic" has also become my lazy way out of processing my vocal for practice and open mics and I'm warming up to using it for performance more often. I'm re-discovering it in a sense. I hadn't used it for a long time and now I'm appreciating it more than ever.
The "Glow Stic II" is a two stage version designed for two purposes. First, it does the overloaded blues harp thing incredibly well. The gain is high and it does a great job of getting that type of distortion as well as the deliberately distorted vocals that some bands use. The other side of the "Glow Stic II" is it's ability to serve as a high quality front end to ordinary mic preamps for recording very small sounds or using mics at a distance. I have made some impressive test recordings from 3 to 5 feet away from an acoustic guitar and natural vocal. It's a very interesting studio tool for sure. My tests used a Sennheiser e835 and all of the noise in that case is due to the winding resistance in the mic. It can record soft speaking voices at surprising distances while the electronic white noise is entirely covered up by the quietest background sounds. The interesting thing is that when using it for sensitive recording, the distortion is extremely low making it very transparent in that mode. The logarithmic nature of it drives the distortion as low when quiet as much as it drives it high when loud.
These are 48 Volt phantom powered and have no adjustments. This has me recognizing that when fixed this way, it trains you in a sense. There is no question about gain or other settings and this also gives a certain confindece regarding setup. I'm finding this to be a surprisingly good thing. All you need to do is be sure that the mic input it's plugged into doesn't clip.
https://reverb.com/item/33680334-retrofier-glow-stic-i-2019-silver
And indeed compression is the thing that is always needed and almost always missing. I have seen the simple one knob compressors in mixers that always seem lame. When no compression is used I have been knocked out of my seat by singers that you can't understand one second and be knocked out of your seat the next by a huge blast of sound. Even the singers with good mic technique apparently can't compensate for the softer vocals that get lost in the mix.
What then does that ideal compressor for you gig bag do? I haven't had much opportunity in the last few years to experiment with this, but I did take my Fairchildish compressor to a couple of gigs and it was a big help, but getting it set up in the most ideal way was not easy. It's more of a studio device and the gig compressor seems to be a special case.
I don't have time to build such a thing in the face of other projects at this time, but... compressors seem to be a weak link out there from what I can tell. I also can't help finding them facinating. In general it's not easy to design a high quality compressor. The dynamics of something controlling dynamics is pretty complex but that's also where the fun in engineering is.
Lately I have been singing through my "Glow Stic 1" which is actually a special low order harmonic distortion device to get vintage tube preamp overload effects. It generates the characteristics of the tube mic preamp that Mick Jagger was using when recording "Wild Horses" at Muscle Shoals(I think in 1971).
After hearing Mick overload that preamp I started looking into the many recordings that pushed tube mic preamps to get a limiting and fatening where fancy compressors were not available or up to the task. What I found is that once you recognize the effect, you realize that this is happening all over 60s and 70s recordings. Mick's overload was an accident that ended up being a classic example of a very interesting dynamic effect. I do know that producers long before that used this trick to push the vocals fatter for broadcast radio purposes. It was a down and dirty way to get the job done at the time and if done properly it really works well. My version of this technique, the "Glow Stic I" sounds and works identically.
The "Glow Stic I" works as a limiter by holding back the amplitude as it logarithmically goes into overload in the way that the equivalent push-pull tube circuit does. This makes the vocal hotter and dirtier as you sing louder. If you know how to ride this with mic technique, it can give lots of control. I recently discovered the technique of using a velcro strip to secure my mic's external foam wind screen at a distance that would help me know where the tipping point of the distortion is. If I want to push it over the top I can push the screen with my mouth. This trick works great and I'm loving the setup now.
Lately the "Glow Stic" has also become my lazy way out of processing my vocal for practice and open mics and I'm warming up to using it for performance more often. I'm re-discovering it in a sense. I hadn't used it for a long time and now I'm appreciating it more than ever.
The "Glow Stic II" is a two stage version designed for two purposes. First, it does the overloaded blues harp thing incredibly well. The gain is high and it does a great job of getting that type of distortion as well as the deliberately distorted vocals that some bands use. The other side of the "Glow Stic II" is it's ability to serve as a high quality front end to ordinary mic preamps for recording very small sounds or using mics at a distance. I have made some impressive test recordings from 3 to 5 feet away from an acoustic guitar and natural vocal. It's a very interesting studio tool for sure. My tests used a Sennheiser e835 and all of the noise in that case is due to the winding resistance in the mic. It can record soft speaking voices at surprising distances while the electronic white noise is entirely covered up by the quietest background sounds. The interesting thing is that when using it for sensitive recording, the distortion is extremely low making it very transparent in that mode. The logarithmic nature of it drives the distortion as low when quiet as much as it drives it high when loud.
These are 48 Volt phantom powered and have no adjustments. This has me recognizing that when fixed this way, it trains you in a sense. There is no question about gain or other settings and this also gives a certain confindece regarding setup. I'm finding this to be a surprisingly good thing. All you need to do is be sure that the mic input it's plugged into doesn't clip.
https://reverb.com/item/33680334-retrofier-glow-stic-i-2019-silver
And I bet it'd be a challenge to make something that works well, while running off just the 48V phantom current. I can understand your getting away with something like a log limiter, which might be a single op-amp running of the 48V power source. But a compressor needs a bit more circuitry and I'm sure that 48V current is limited, as it's only supposed to make a charge on the electret, perhaps power a buffer FET.
Bet they didnt think of products like your glow-stic using the 48V for B+, when they designed and wrote the specification for it. Like when they spec'd 10T ethernet - who'da thunk someone would want to hang a camera at the end of it - without having to deal with power wiring in addition to that cable pull?
I suppose if it did the same as my inexpensive two channel ART rackmount compressor, I'd be happy with it. I read if you take out the tube stage and just jump over it, the unit sounds even better (according to PRR anyway). Still that's a lot of SS circuit to cram into an XLR extension stick. Even if threshold and level were little set-screw adjustments, I'd probably set once and use the same settings every time.
Well...it's nice to dream of such a thing.